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House buying update - need advice
Hi Ladies,
So we put the offer on the house that we really liked. 4bd/2bt, unfinished basement. The land isn't awesome, but we could make it look pretty. We made our offer about 40K less than what they listed it as and they met us in the middle. We said that we would be OK with this price if they wanted to cover closing fees. They got upset about it, and said they need to think about it. Then, they come back and say: OK, we will do closing fees but you should know the foundation crack in the basement (there was one), will cost $25K to fix - they got an estimate.
Now, I really hoped it wouldn't be that bad, but it is. And now I want to offer them less than we started with, knowing how much it would cost us to fix. They said they will not budge any more on the price. Really??? There is a house the same size two houses down that sold for what we first offered. How do they expect people to buy a house with such serious foundation issue and not offer a lower price?
What would you do, ladies? Would you back out?
Re: House buying update - need advice
Ditto times infinity. You also don't know yet what other problems the house has. $25K to repair a foundational crack is beyond yikes. And you don't know whether they are low balling the estimate either. In fact, I guarantee if you got your own estimate, it would be higher than theirs.
You don't need to get yourselves in a hole simply because the owners won't budge on their price. Trust me, the house will probably sit for a while if they refuse to negotiate and have that big of a problem with their foundation.
There are tons of houses out there! Keep looking and you will find a perfect house. Don't settle for something that's going to prove a financial burden later on. Good luck and keep us posted!
Do the creep.
Thank you, girls. That;s how I feel about this too. I mean, if it wasn't for the foundation, the house would be AWESOME. But, this foundation is a real problem. The house is not even that old - 1957 build. Fixing the foundation may not be removing the main reason why it has shifted. Besides, DH and I love HGTV and we once saw Holmes on Homes episode where Holmes was fixing someone's foundation, and he basically lifted the house like you would lift a car with a bad tire, and found out that almost twice as much of foundation had to be replaced because it was all famaged, but not seen from the inside.
There are a few more options in the same town, we might as well look around some more
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Oh yikes! I would def back out as all the pps said.
Out by my parents' house there was a house a ways down the street that they jacked up to put a new foundation under. It took like two weeks for them to do it, the new foundation was down and I think they were going to put the house back down on it. A huge storm came through and literally blew the house right off the I-beams that it was sitting on. So the people had a nice new foundation... but no house.
So my dad came with us to see the wall and he said it would be actually more like $50K in fixing. First of all it's the problem of the trees that are growing outside of the house, and pushing their roots into the foundation - three threes, total cutting with complete root removal would be $4,000 ($1,500 for just cutting them, so roots are a real cost here). Then, we would need to do special hard rock, and sand layer of fill where the roots were, or else the ground where the roots were would be easily washed out by the storm water - $5,000 at the least. The foundation removal and new foundation building would cost $20,000 and the French insulation (necessary because the house's front is on the down-slope), another $15,000 for the whole front (my dad found signs of flooding in the rest of the basement). Add some $8,000 for miscellaneous expenses and we have $50K for just the foundation.
My dad also noticed that the roof over the garage is bending inward, and he believes that's because the inside support may be rotten or chewed by the bugs. $5K more to spend... craziness...
Needless to say, we said no to that house and saw some 5 more today... lots of research and decisions to make this coming week. Thank you for your support girls
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It's always good to bring a parent along when buying a place, IMO. My parents saw so many things that I didn't when we were house hunting, just because they had more experience with it. I'm glad that, although you loved the house, you didn't buy this money pit.
Good luck continuing the search! It's an exciting, yet stressful time, but try to take your time and be patient; the right house is out there for you just waiting for you to find it!