The house fell through :(

[SusanBAnthony]

You know how I posted a week ago that the inspection went well, no major issues?

I was wrong. I posted too soon.

We needed a chimney repair (no big deal, about 1k).

The front porch was falling down an inch or so. Not noticeable, except that the columns holding the roof up had separated from the porch floor. It needed to be jacked up.... Or something. We asked the sellers to fix that, since it was unclear from the inspection exactly what needed to be done. MIght have been a minor fix, might have been very involved. This was the big issue that we felt like we couldn't take on the risk or fixing. In addition, underneath the front porch, the basement walls have structural support added, so sinking porch + basement structural support = exactly how much of a nightmare is this going to be?

The garage was a flat roof and had a deck/balcony thing on it, with a railing going around. The railing was rickety and the inspector felt would not hold the weight of a person, and needed to be replaced for safety reasons. We initially didn't worry about it, since we don't plan to use the roof deck- we would just keep the door to it locked. But the more we thought about it, the more we were worried about liability issues if we *knew* the railing was unstable and some kid was over at our house playing and got out on it and fell. Since the railing was on the roof it was not going to be trivial to replace it- it would have, likely compromised the rubber roof, and that would have had to be replaced.

Moral of the story: flat roofs are stupid! Roof porches are stupid!

Anyway, the sellers offered 2k, which seems reasonable, except that we just have no clue how much the repairs are going to be. And right now, we just aren't willing to take on the risk that the front porch repair will be big $$$, and it potentially needs to be done right away to avoid putting more stress on the house. The roof deck railing we could deal with at later date, and the chimney is a known cost. But the front porch issue is a mystery.

I am frustrated for us, but even more so for the sellers, since they had the house off the market for two weeks and I am sure they are antsy to sell before winter is really here. I know how they feel bc the same ting happened to us with our old house in Minnesota and it was maddening.

[mrsemilys]

I'm sorry

[EloiseWeenie]

That sucks, I'm sorry.

[tarheels]

Why didn't you just get estimates from professionals?

Is this the house you were low balling so hard? Maybe this is your excuse (not in a bad way) for saying you didn't really want it after all? Because if you really wanted it, investing a couple hours to meet with contractors for estimates is NBD.

[Deleted]

Sorry to hear that things felt too uncertain for you guys. It must be really frustrating to start back at square one. Good luck with the house hunting!

[SusanBAnthony]

Nov 2, 2012 20:50:16 GMT -5 tarheels said:

Why didn't you just get estimates from professionals?

Is this the house you were low balling so hard? Maybe this is your excuse (not in a bad way) for saying you didn't really want it after all? Because if you really wanted it, investing a couple hours to meet with contractors for estimates is NBD.

You are probably right.

We asked them to fix the porch, and they waited until the last day (today) to respond to the remedy request, and offered 2k. We thought about having a contractor come out, but felt like since we asked them to fix, that should be on them. Probably if we were more passionate about the house we would have been more aggressive about pursuing it.

[hbomdiggity]

Also, keep in kind that they were not likely to give more money after coming down so much. Even moreso if you didn't present estimates for cost to fix.

[Deleted]

Nov 2, 2012 20:07:49 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

You know how I posted a week ago that the inspection went well, no major issues?

I was wrong. I posted too soon.

We needed a chimney repair (no big deal, about 1k).

The front porch was falling down an inch or so. Not noticeable, except that the columns holding the roof up had separated from the porch floor. It needed to be jacked up.... Or something. We asked the sellers to fix that, since it was unclear from the inspection exactly what needed to be done. MIght have been a minor fix, might have been very involved. This was the big issue that we felt like we couldn't take on the risk or fixing. In addition, underneath the front porch, the basement walls have structural support added, so sinking porch + basement structural support = exactly how much of a nightmare is this going to be?

The garage was a flat roof and had a deck/balcony thing on it, with a railing going around. The railing was rickety and the inspector felt would not hold the weight of a person, and needed to be replaced for safety reasons. We initially didn't worry about it, since we don't plan to use the roof deck- we would just keep the door to it locked. But the more we thought about it, the more we were worried about liability issues if we *knew* the railing was unstable and some kid was over at our house playing and got out on it and fell. Since the railing was on the roof it was not going to be trivial to replace it- it would have, likely compromised the rubber roof, and that would have had to be replaced.

Moral of the story: flat roofs are stupid! Roof porches are stupid!

Anyway, the sellers offered 2k, which seems reasonable, except that we just have no clue how much the repairs are going to be. And right now, we just aren't willing to take on the risk that the front porch repair will be big $$$, and it potentially needs to be done right away to avoid putting more stress on the house. The roof deck railing we could deal with at later date, and the chimney is a known cost. But the front porch issue is a mystery.

I am frustrated for us, but even more so for the sellers, since they had the house off the market for two weeks and I am sure they are antsy to sell before winter is really here. I know how they feel bc the same ting happened to us with our old house in Minnesota and it was maddening.

I'm sorry That would be so frustrating!

We have an addition with a rubber roof and our bedroom walks on to it. H's dad is antsy to build a deck on top, but I never thought of the ways it would compromise the $$$ roof.

Hmm. It's pretty common here to do that too.