Half A Home

So my wife found some rather inexpensive real estate real estate recently on the internet. Here in a northern Vermont city, ten minutes away from where we currently live. I called the realtor and made an appointment that evening to check the place out. It was being sold as is, in need of TLC. The realtor said it was a foreclosed property with a lot of deferred maintenance. I naively thought to myself; needed new furnace, doors, windows, plumbing, electrical, probably even has a leaky roof.

The price, I wondered. Between what the realtor said on the phone and some quick internet research, something was off. The average price of just a lot in this city, was $50-60,000. This was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home for less than half that. What would make the price of a home go down I querried, then I Googled.

Damage to a house drops its price. Foundation and roof issues are usually the culprit. They’re also the two things that make a home not “structurally sound”, and the credit unions won’t give you a VHFA loan for it. That must be it I said, there must be something wrong. So I did more Googling looking up tips to spot a bad foundation and a bad roof.

When we got there in the evening the realtor was really nice, met us in the driveway, and brought us right to the door of the house. She was on her way to a wake, so I didn’t want to be rude and take all night. This was our first mistake. ALWAYS WALK AROUND THE HOUSE BEFORE YOU GO IN. So we walked in.

It was the most beautiful little hundred plus year old city home. As we entered the house I noticed the gap in the concrete block foundation immediately. This and the crack on the inside wall were a dead giveaway. Serious structural issues. But we went in anyways, and it was filthy. I mean the filthy like I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind, and will probably have PTSD and nightmares later on in life about! Filthy.

It had potential, but needed a lot of work, and a lot of cleaning. Then there was the basement, I opened the door to a ridiculously old light switch that didn’t work. Stepped down the stairs to a cellar that on this side of the house had an old stone foundation, a dug basement. The light found a very old furnace and most of the rest of the basement. The ad?

Yes, the ad said something about a full walkout basement. Not really wanting to venture further my mind had already been made up, wasn’t interested in the place. We headed back outside to look at the yard. It was the most beautiful city lot we’d ever seen. It had a stream running down one side and along the back, with the backyard sloping to it. We were commenting how hard it would be to eradicate all the invasive Japanese Knotweed, when we turned back to look at the house and saw the full, walkout basement.

The crack I had seen in the house was no doubt associated with the fact that the backside of the house had no foundation save for some pressure treated 6X6 supports and sheets of plywood. It looked like someone had undertaken to enlarge their basement themselves and hadn’t gotten very far. They dug a hole so deep and far behind the house, water from the brook was seeping in. The whole thing was wet, and eroding the foundation. We shot around to the other side of the house and observed a 2x4 holding up the corner of the house. So I thanked the lady for her time and we were on our way.

On the way home I said someone with the cash is going to come in and level the place. Put in fill and concrete slab for a house and garage, and have themselves a nice place in the city.