Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Aug 6, 2021 11:31:57 GMT -5
Yeah DH was carrying on about that in regards to our house. It was built in 1942 and probably the last time anything was updated was the 1960s if we go by the pattern in the kitchen carpet. Meanwhile the houses in the lake area were super shiny and new with all the latest everything! It wasn't until my BIL who is a contractor pointed out all the flaws in the newer houses that DH started to reconsider. He said those houses were not made to last, they are made to survive about 5-7 years then you flip for a massive profit and make the upcoming major issues the next buyer's problem. Our house isn't pretty but it is a solid built house that has lasted for decades. Ripping up carpet or updating cabinets is easy. Coming up with $20k to fix a sinking/lopsided foundation not so much. Yes, my nephew and his girl friend got an awesome house - purchased in as in condition - at an amazing low price. They figured in the cost of repairs/fix ups/decorating when they put in a bid and when negotiating the final price. They have estimated about 50K of "fix ups/repairs" because of the new roof they had to put on the house within the first year, and repairing the cracks/seepage problem in the crawl space (common problem that has a very reliable repair - it's just pricey). The inground pool needs some maintenance as well that might be pricey. They had a "painting house warming party" before moving in -- relatives/friends arrived with spackle, spackle tools, painting tools and what not - and all the old "wall paper borders" got removed (it's the 80s!) and walls repaired (nail holes) and repainted - the whole interior of the house. They had replaced most of the light fixtures in the house - it was the 1980's - the week before the painting party. They tore out the second bathroom and re did it - all DIY and for less than 2K. The other bathrooms are OK - they will most likely leave the master bath as is. It needs a new floor - the previous owner made a bad flooring choice. but that's minor. They will replace the toilet/sink and floor in the 1/2 bath at some point - that's a weekend DIY. Basically, they are doing all the things a Flipper might do. They are not tearing out the kitchen or master bath which were updated in the 80's with high end quality finishes. The "datedness" can be mitigated with painted walls and eventually replacing the appliances. The dated bathroom stays - it's got lots of nice features and was well done. Anyway the jist of this is - at the price they paid for the house - they can do all the repairs/fixes and will have paid almost 50K less for the house then if they had bought the house already fixed up. They are handy and have friends/relatives who can help with the DIYs. I guess the take away here is - it helps if you are handy (or willing to learn) and if you have relatives/friends who are handy (and can then trade "work" with). So, if you do painting or electrical - you trade that "work" with someone who knows plumbing or who can do light carpentry. And the other take away is that home buyers assume flips to have been done correctly - since they are paying for having someone else having done all the "grunt work" to what was a dated house. That's great for them. Right after we bought our house, my DH dropped his stuff off in it and spent all his spare time helping his brother fix his brother's house up. I mean, there was a good reason for it, but that set the tone for our house ever since. And, I continue to live in a construction zone.
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Lizard Queen
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103/2024
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Post by Lizard Queen on Aug 6, 2021 11:36:16 GMT -5
Even cosmetic changes add up. At least you can see most of the issues when buying it, and you didn't pay top dollar for a cheap cover-up job. I tell ya, though, our home inspector was worthless. He should have noticed the issue with the chimney design if nothing else (and it pretty much was nothing else). I can choose to stare at old cabinets for the rest of my life if I don't want to shell out the money. I don't HAVE to fix cosmetic stuff if it doesn't bother me I don't care what other people think. The only time it might be of concern is if I sell and even then I doubt it given the majority of houses here are the same age and look like it. Carpet in the bathroom must have been a major trend at some point. If my foundation is sinking I cannot choose to live with that and would absolutely have to fix it before I could sell the house. That was more my point. BIL suggested DH consider carefully which poison he chose. Buy a house knowing in 5 years you're looking at potential $20k structural issues or live with the original cabinets in your current house. Looks aren't everything. I do think things like HGTV feed into that attitude and therefore flippers get away with A LOT if they slap lipstick on the pig. Tell you what, I finally have new kitchen cabinets, and it has made a huge difference in how I feel about my house. Would've been cheaper to buy the completed house I wanted at the onset, though. (And I know all about foundation issues. Shopped for 5 years for my house, and the first place I went was the basement. Cracks--look for cracks.)
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2021 12:31:05 GMT -5
I can choose to stare at old cabinets for the rest of my life if I don't want to shell out the money. I don't HAVE to fix cosmetic stuff if it doesn't bother me I don't care what other people think. The only time it might be of concern is if I sell and even then I doubt it given the majority of houses here are the same age and look like it. Carpet in the bathroom must have been a major trend at some point. If my foundation is sinking I cannot choose to live with that and would absolutely have to fix it before I could sell the house. That was more my point. BIL suggested DH consider carefully which poison he chose. Buy a house knowing in 5 years you're looking at potential $20k structural issues or live with the original cabinets in your current house. Looks aren't everything. I do think things like HGTV feed into that attitude and therefore flippers get away with A LOT if they slap lipstick on the pig. Tell you what, I finally have new kitchen cabinets, and it has made a huge difference in how I feel about my house. Would've been cheaper to buy the completed house I wanted at the onset, though. (And I know all about foundation issues. Shopped for 5 years for my house, and the first place I went was the basement. Cracks--look for cracks.) Yeah, now I know to pay attention to cracks in the driveway too, because driveways can sink.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Aug 6, 2021 13:23:03 GMT -5
Tell you what, I finally have new kitchen cabinets, and it has made a huge difference in how I feel about my house. Would've been cheaper to buy the completed house I wanted at the onset, though. (And I know all about foundation issues. Shopped for 5 years for my house, and the first place I went was the basement. Cracks--look for cracks.) Yeah, now I know to pay attention to cracks in the driveway too, because driveways can sink. Oh yeah, my driveway is F-d up too, except from tree roots. And my bargain fixer-upper turned out to be no bargain with that fix, if we ever get around to it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2021 15:56:41 GMT -5
Yeah, now I know to pay attention to cracks in the driveway too, because driveways can sink. Oh yeah, my driveway is F-d up too, except from tree roots. And my bargain fixer-upper turned out to be no bargain with that fix, if we ever get around to it. It cost over $8k to lift the driveway, seal the cracks and redo a very small part of it. I’m not necessarily thrilled with the appearance, and now I wonder how much more it would’ve cost to just break it all up and redo the whole thing. But since I put that entire project in Mister’s hands and refused to deal with it, I don’t complain. He’s not exactly pleased either though. Whatever. I love trees. I just prefer them on my neighbor’s properties. We do have one large pecan tree though. That’s more than enough for me.
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chiver78
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Post by chiver78 on Aug 6, 2021 18:37:47 GMT -5
Oh yeah, my driveway is F-d up too, except from tree roots. And my bargain fixer-upper turned out to be no bargain with that fix, if we ever get around to it. It cost over $8k to lift the driveway, seal the cracks and redo a very small part of it. I’m not necessarily thrilled with the appearance, and now I wonder how much more it would’ve cost to just break it all up and redo the whole thing. But since I put that entire project in Mister’s hands and refused to deal with it, I don’t complain. He’s not exactly pleased either though. Whatever. I love trees. I just prefer them on my neighbor’s properties. We do have one large pecan tree though. That’s more than enough for me. after the last house having nothing in the backyard but some overhanging evergreens, this one has a big shady oak tree. I didn't enjoy last fall's cleanup, but I think I can live with it b/c it's going to provide a nice shade for the dog pool I'm getting next spring.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Aug 6, 2021 18:48:39 GMT -5
It cost over $8k to lift the driveway, seal the cracks and redo a very small part of it. I’m not necessarily thrilled with the appearance, and now I wonder how much more it would’ve cost to just break it all up and redo the whole thing. But since I put that entire project in Mister’s hands and refused to deal with it, I don’t complain. He’s not exactly pleased either though. Whatever. I love trees. I just prefer them on my neighbor’s properties. We do have one large pecan tree though. That’s more than enough for me. after the last house having nothing in the backyard but some overhanging evergreens, this one has a big shady oak tree. I didn't enjoy last fall's cleanup, but I think I can live with it b/c it's going to provide a nice shade for the dog pool I'm getting next spring. Speaking of oak trees. There was a mild rain storm that wound down and I heard a thud and doink. I walked all around the house, looking at the roof and ground until I found the culprit. It wasn't even a big branch, but it put a pretty big dent in our fire pit cover. A little while later, I heard another thud outside my window. That's what oak trees like to do. Now I'm a little freaked out about going outside. A maple tree is to blame for my driveway, though. Their roots fuck up all the sidewalks around here too.
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chiver78
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Post by chiver78 on Aug 6, 2021 19:04:21 GMT -5
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kadee79
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S.W. Ga., zone 8b, out in the boonies!
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Post by kadee79 on Aug 6, 2021 20:51:45 GMT -5
From reading here...I'm soooo glad DH & I built our own house. Took us nearly 2 yrs., but it was also all paid for when it was done. I'd already paid off the land before we started the build. We know if something isn't working right & can fix it asap since we did the building.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2021 21:37:07 GMT -5
My other house in a neighborhood with a lot of mature, huge trees. I use to sit in my backyard and look at all the trees, ignoring the houses I could see over my fence, and pretend I was in a park. Sometimes I’d even take my binoculars so I could see the birds in the trees.
The trees on my property had been cut down by the time I bought my house. All I had was stumps.
Almost.every.spring. though, at least one of those trees came down in a thunderstorm. On a house. My next door neighbor had a tree cut down one year, and I didn’t know it. I was inside my house when it hit the ground, my house literally shook. I went outside trying to figure out what the hell had happened, and I saw them cutting her tree. She had another one some years later that even my untrained eye could tell was diseased or something. One day I came home, and it had fallen, blocking most of the street. Luckily it didn’t damage anything or hurt anyone, just mostly blocked the street.
Just a few days ago, I went over there and a tree had fallen on the big street on the outside of the neighborhood. It was blocking 3 lanes of traffic. At least it didn’t fall on the house though. It hadn’t even been storming, not even raining, so I guess it was sick or something.
So between the problems roots can cause and all the trees I’ve seen crushing a house, that’s why I prefer not to have them even though I love looking at them. Some of the houses in my neighborhood I live in now literally look like they’re tucked into a forest. They’re far back from the street, but not so far you can’t see the house from the street….. barely, because they are surrounded by a gazillion trees. All the shade makes some of them look dark and kind of creepy to me, even in broad daylight, but not my house, not my concern. Both my closest neighbors have a lot of trees. I like them! Because they aren’t mine lol.
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Aug 7, 2021 20:28:59 GMT -5
Reading these posts makes me glad I went against Phil's addage and bought my grandmother's house from my parents. As I pointed out to DH every house is going to have some sort of problem, we've lived in this house for almost a decade we already know everything. Doesn't it make more sense to buy the house whose problems we know, can anticipate and have already planned for then end up in a house where we find out we're going to have to shell out $20k for foundation issues?DS2 used to rent a room from some college friends, a married couple, who bought an older house to fix up. He had moved out. They were having foundation work done; it was an old stone foundation. The contractor was supposed to be replacing stones that were loose/had fallen out, a section at a time. He apparently decided to knock loose a whole foundation wall, from the inside. Without bracing the wall above it. Knocking the gas line loose in the process. Without informing the homeowners, who only noticed when they smelled gas! DS2 showed us pictures - from inside the basement you could see the street outside, under the upper frame wall. The house shifted. Last I heard, they were going to have to demolish the house.
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seriousthistime
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Post by seriousthistime on Aug 20, 2021 12:25:40 GMT -5
How many national builders use anything than green board on the walls in bath and shower areas before tiling the surface? Is that the protective cover eveyone is talking about? I have been in homes under construction and seen nothing added to the green board before tiling. Greenboard is just a higher protective sheet of drywall to prevent moisture damage on the inside of the drywall. There's another "color" of drywall for use in showers (not green - maybe blue? or Purple?) - green board is more expensive than drywall (it's not waterproof) the other "color" drywall that used in showers is even more expensive than green board. Generally you just use it in the shower/tub surround so while it's expensive you don't need a whole room of it. I don't think greenboard is really recommended for tub/shower surrounds.... When my family does a DIY gut and re tile of bathroom tub/shower surround - we use the better for the application "color" stuff. I don't know why my brain is coming up blank.... Green board maybe used along the counter top and behind the sink in a kitchen or behind a sink in a bathroom and for the rest of the bathroom if it's a small room - but not in the tub/shower surround. I bought a flip, where the contractor lived in the neighborhood and does a ton of jobs here. The flippers paid the contractor to do the job properly. I recently hired the same contractor to remove the acrylic shower in my master bath, and install tile. The project was not cheap. His partner did the tile and used wire mesh and concrete "mud" to build a waterproof wall. They hired a guy to hot mop the shower floor. At my previous house I had the tile removed from my tub surrounds and replaced with a more modern tile look. The tiler used Hardy backer board. It was more expensive than colored board but it was worth the extra expense. Now I'm looking at townhouse built in the early 2000s. The builder has a good reputation, there are a number of original owners there, and the place seems to be mostly "as built." As such, it could use some updating, but I could take my time prioritizing what I'd like to be done. It's functional as is, and in really good condition. But again I'd be looking at removing the acrylic shower enclosure and doing tile; changing out vanities and sink tops, etc. I bet most of the other townhouses still have the original cabinets/countertops/showers/tubs/vanities, etc.
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stillmovingforward
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Post by stillmovingforward on Aug 20, 2021 14:56:17 GMT -5
Reading these posts makes me glad I went against Phil's addage and bought my grandmother's house from my parents. As I pointed out to DH every house is going to have some sort of problem, we've lived in this house for almost a decade we already know everything. Doesn't it make more sense to buy the house whose problems we know, can anticipate and have already planned for then end up in a house where we find out we're going to have to shell out $20k for foundation issues?DS2 used to rent a room from some college friends, a married couple, who bought an older house to fix up. He had moved out. They were having foundation work done; it was an old stone foundation. The contractor was supposed to be replacing stones that were loose/had fallen out, a section at a time. He apparently decided to knock loose a whole foundation wall, from the inside. Without bracing the wall above it. Knocking the gas line loose in the process. Without informing the homeowners, who only noticed when they smelled gas! DS2 showed us pictures - from inside the basement you could see the street outside, under the upper frame wall. The house shifted. Last I heard, they were going to have to demolish the house. That's crazy! They can't lift and crib the house and put a new foundation under? We bought a house for pennies on the dollar, knowing full well it needed a new foundation. We had the house raised, cribbed, a new foundation poured, and the house set back down. It was quite the ordeal but we were able to line everything up. Now we have a very old house that we know has a solid footing. From there, remodeling could commence.
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Aug 20, 2021 20:05:19 GMT -5
DS2 used to rent a room from some college friends, a married couple, who bought an older house to fix up. He had moved out. They were having foundation work done; it was an old stone foundation. The contractor was supposed to be replacing stones that were loose/had fallen out, a section at a time. He apparently decided to knock loose a whole foundation wall, from the inside. Without bracing the wall above it. Knocking the gas line loose in the process. Without informing the homeowners, who only noticed when they smelled gas! DS2 showed us pictures - from inside the basement you could see the street outside, under the upper frame wall. The house shifted. Last I heard, they were going to have to demolish the house. That's crazy! They can't lift and crib the house and put a new foundation under? We bought a house for pennies on the dollar, knowing full well it needed a new foundation. We had the house raised, cribbed, a new foundation poured, and the house set back down. It was quite the ordeal but we were able to line everything up. Now we have a very old house that we know has a solid footing. From there, remodeling could commence. Well, you lifted it first, presumably the right way. This *contractor* didn't brace anything, just knocked one foundation wall out. Not sure if accidental or deliberate. I'm only getting info third hand, but the house shifted, I guess it was structurally unsound afterward. Last I heard, it wasn't clear if they could even rebuild on the site - it's 100+ years old, on a tiny city lot. Modern setback codes might not leave enough room. Just last week there was a MVA, car vs building, in my area. The house was declared unsafe - immediate demo. The pictures didn't look too bad - damage to one corner, but not like the car traveled thru the house. I just can't imagine being in that position, as the homeowner: we have to demo your house right now. You have no home.
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Artemis Windsong
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The love in me salutes the love in you. M. Williamson
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Post by Artemis Windsong on Aug 21, 2021 17:01:44 GMT -5
The monsoon rains and wind have wrecked havoc on our villa roof in AZ. We have an insurance claim in but we have no idea what they will pay. And, when will the contractors be available. A lot of damage in that area.
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Artemis Windsong
Senior Associate
The love in me salutes the love in you. M. Williamson
Joined: Dec 18, 2010 19:32:12 GMT -5
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Post by Artemis Windsong on Aug 22, 2021 8:24:59 GMT -5
MSN had a video on what to do with a problem property from Entreprenuer. I couldn't get it to play so I didn't reference it other than to mention it.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Aug 26, 2021 11:05:52 GMT -5
DS2 used to rent a room from some college friends, a married couple, who bought an older house to fix up. He had moved out. They were having foundation work done; it was an old stone foundation. The contractor was supposed to be replacing stones that were loose/had fallen out, a section at a time. He apparently decided to knock loose a whole foundation wall, from the inside. Without bracing the wall above it. Knocking the gas line loose in the process. Without informing the homeowners, who only noticed when they smelled gas! DS2 showed us pictures - from inside the basement you could see the street outside, under the upper frame wall. The house shifted. Last I heard, they were going to have to demolish the house. That's crazy! They can't lift and crib the house and put a new foundation under? We bought a house for pennies on the dollar, knowing full well it needed a new foundation. We had the house raised, cribbed, a new foundation poured, and the house set back down. It was quite the ordeal but we were able to line everything up. Now we have a very old house that we know has a solid footing. From there, remodeling could commence. how did you find the person/s to do this? Where do you go?
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Aug 26, 2021 19:31:36 GMT -5
That's crazy! They can't lift and crib the house and put a new foundation under? We bought a house for pennies on the dollar, knowing full well it needed a new foundation. We had the house raised, cribbed, a new foundation poured, and the house set back down. It was quite the ordeal but we were able to line everything up. Now we have a very old house that we know has a solid footing. From there, remodeling could commence. how did you find the person/s to do this? Where do you go? Rukh, cribbing and lifting houses is part of moving houses. I expect a house mover could raise a house to allow foundation or basement walls to be constructed/repaired/replaced.
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stillmovingforward
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Post by stillmovingforward on Aug 26, 2021 20:09:43 GMT -5
Correct. We had someone come in and lift the house and do all the cribbing. Then a foundation company came in and did all the foundation work. The house move came back, set the house down on the new foundation. We had to get the utilities hooked back up, stairs built, fix the cracking in the plaster from the house being flat finally, etc. Well worth it!
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