House stuff

[Mrbobcat]

I've had my house about 7 years and all was going fine. I thought it was a good investment at first, but now I don't know. I recently noticed some gaps in the foundation between the blocks. They could have been there for awile, but I'm not sure. I had a foundation guy look at it and he said it needed remorter and corner tucks and also need to extend the michigan basement slab (about 3x4') up another couple feet because a couple of the blocks are deteriorating. He was going to waterproof the one wall also. He wanted $600 to do this and this is only one side of the house and a partial part of the back. I did'nt even show him the other side and I just notice the mich. ledge portion has a big crack in the middle of it. There are also some blocks going down the center of the crawl space that need morter and some bricks are missing too. I don't know if I'm being paranoid or not, my parents house had leaky basement and a bowed wall for 30 years. My house was probly built in the 30's. There are other problems too, like ceiling texture needs work, gutters need fixed and the roof (front and back areas, not the main part of house) are missing some shingles, and minor plumbing work. I'm not very handy, so should I have that guy work on a little bit at a time as I'm broke right now or not put any money into it since I will probly sell it in about a year? I know I'll get more out of it by fixing the above stuff, but don't know if it would be enough to justify spending money now that I don't have.

[Cammo]

You should always get more than one opinion (and one quote). It does sound like the the place needs a bit of work though.

Is your place free-hold or is it mortgaged?
Have you considered re-mortgaging or getting a loan to fix these problems (if you can afford to pay it off that is). It will be adding the value back to the property that the probleems have taken away ~ you've got to think of that.

[Mrbobcat]

Yeah, I have a 30 year mort., have about 22 years left, but got a very good fixed rate. I don't think its worth it to do a refinance (higher rates and the closing fees). I paid around 50k for it and have a bal. of about 42k and also a home equity loan of about 13k. The plan was to sell it for about 60k and pay off the home equity too and maybe buy a better house with my gf in about a year. A lady offerd me about 55 three years ago, but I don't think she took a good look at the basement. Maybe I should get an appraiser to look at it and see if its cost effective to take out a personal loan or bridge loan to fix the main stuff and if so maybe do that right before I sell it.

[Cammo]

That sounds like a good idea. People here in NZ that are looking at buying get what's called an engineers limb report on the property that they're interested in. It lets them know about any structural damage & how much work it'll be to correct. You'll have the same thing there I'd suspect so anyone looking at buying your place as it is will probably be put off.

[hathy477]

before you have some1 come over and work on your house, ask people who he has done work for in the past how they liked it, even if it may seem a bit overboard...my father is a carpenter and easily the best one around, he is booked for 8 months solid right now, but people often go with the cheapest of 3-4 estimates then end up getting f***ed and need to dump more money into to fix what the crappy guy did wrong

DONT JUST TAKE THE CHEAPEST ESTIMATE, MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THE REPUTATION OF THE CONTRACTOR BEOFER YOU LET HIM WORK ON YOUR HOUSE!!!