The rising tide of forclosures has left some lasting impressions with me. Inspections of foreclosed properties have gone from about 3% of my business last year to about 25% this year. The trend seems to be accellerating.
Obviously foreclosed properties are different. Like the woman who is magical with make up and a pretty dress the evening before but quite ordinary the morning after, the foreclosed property has no make up. You see it in its least attractive state. Warts and all.
But there are differences which are important. Take for example the HVAC System. Regular maintenance by a certified professional can make a dramatic difference in life expectancy. In a foreclosed home, you can pretty much bet that the added cost of HVAC maintenance went out the window when the bills started piling up. Filters are often unchanged, furnaces uncleaned, ACs run while low on refrigerant. These units tend to die young.
Also, in any home, and particularly in older homes, things break down. Repairs by professionals can be costly and you often find in foreclosed homes, efforts by home owners to make repairs themselves when they had neither the money or the knowledge to do the job. Sometimes these repairs, while creative, are just not right and are causing other problems.
A recent finding was a sump pump replacement that was drastically under sized for the job. The pump beat itself to death for 5 minutes trying to clear a standard sized sump pit and then, when it shut off, half the water ran back into the pit because there was no back flow valve installed. Exterior drainage issues along with the puny pump had resulted in flooding of the basement and an expensive mold remediation situation.
While I see lack of maintenance in regular properties, it seems to be more pronounced in foreclosed properties. Things like keeping gutters clear are the least of your worries when you are struggling to pay your bills, but the foreclosure buyer may find the resulting foundation settlement or leaking basement walls to be worrisome and expensive indeed!
If anything, I have learned to expect the unexpected: Electrical wiring with taped connections instead of wire nuts. Plumbing with improper fixtures; Clogged plumbing (which normally is cleared when houses are prepared for the market); broken outside hose bibs; burned out attic fans; leaky skylights (especially when installed by the home owner). And the list goes on.
Do I find these things in regular houses? Of course. The difference, in my opinion is in the degree. In a foreclosed house you know that money was an issue...not just to pay the mortgage, but to do anything else. I recently had a three year old foreclosed house which, not being old enough to have major things go bad yet, had none-the-less an eery, empty, feeling about it. The owner had stretched so far to buy the house that after moving in couldn't afford to do anything to make it a home...no painting, no decorating, no drapes, nothing. My buyers, a lively young couple, will breathe life into the house that it had never seen before.
I post my rates on my web site. Click here. It's a good idea to have me inspect your client's prospective home even that foreclosed beauty. You never know what you will find.
Sincerely,
Home Status Inspection Company
May 06, 2007 Copyright Home Status Inspection Company, LLC All Rights Reserved.
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