This is the red flag: "The sellers are aware of a leaking sliding door off of the living room which would be directly above this point, but one floor up. They said they are going to completely replace the sliding door with a contractor before sale. They are also going to fix the skylight that has a leaking issue but that is in a completely different part of the house." If they intend to correct the known problems, why are they showing the house as is? What are they waiting for? Do they plan on using the info from your home inspection to develop a repair list? Why would they let such problems persist? Have they lived there the entire 21 years? What other maintenance issues have they ignored during their ownership of this property? Think about buying a used car. After the test drive, the seller says they plan to get a tune up to fix that knocking noise before you actually buy the car. When you check the fluid levels you discover the oil is very low and the dipstick is dry. There is no extra coolant in the radiator reservoir. 3 tires are bald with uneven tread wear. Obviously the previous owner is not keeping up with the maintenance. Do not buy that car. Houses are only a little different. You can restore them. But it costs lots of money. If your heart is set on that particular house, buy it "as is" and require a significant reduction in list price in order to restore it properly. Do not trust the current owner to do it right. Without a doubt, they will have a cheap and dirty band aid solution, if anything gets done at all.

we have just been thru almost the same thing - we found a home in the school district we want, in a nice neighborhood where homes dont come up for sale all that often. however it is a contemporary style home (which I donÂt love) and itÂs got a vertical crack in the corner of the foundation and there is some sagging of floors and some drywall cracks. neighborhood scuttlebutt about the house was really scary, it was falling off the hill, one estimate for repairs was reported to be $80K, in a prior foreclosure the house had been virtually destroyed by the POs, rumour rumour etc however, the house was priced in the 160s in a neighborhood of 200+K homes. we made an offer on the house and negotiated a lower price. we were not afraid at all to do this because our contract had a contingency clause that required the home/structural inspection to be satisfactory to us. we were candid with the sellers, that if the structural insp was ugly, we would use that clause. we found a structural inspector ( actually, I knew him personally bc I had tutored his kid for ACT and SAT) but anyway he had a great reputation and was highly qualified. by this I mean: he has a masters in engineering from stanford. he is licensed and registered in 5 states he teaches the classes in which home inspectors get certified he worked for the army corps of engineers for many years on big projects heÂs has done almost 10,000 home and structural inspections heÂs a nationally recognized expert - teaches and testifies on "foundation and structure movement and repairs - their recognition, causes and cures." heÂs an active member in several professional societies like the NatÂl Society for Professional Engineers and the American Society for Home Inspectors some other things I find charming about him: he likes puzzles. some realtors are irritated by him because he uncovers stuff they would rather he didnÂt, and **included in his services are return site visits while and after the work is done - he will provide a final letter, with professional engineer stamp, certifying that the repairs have been performed as recommended and the structure is now structurally stable.*** Love him!! IÂm sorry if this sounds like spam, IÂm just a big fan. I get this enthusiastic about Mike Holmes on Holmes on Homes too!! if you choose a structural inspector, make sure he's qualified! it turned out that there were actually 2 problems causing the visible problems. the front foundation wall of the garage was being moved by the soil pressure - the fix is actually suprisingly low cost. the buttress that resists the hill should have been around 5 feet thick, it was only 1 foot thick. The fix is to cut slots in the garage wall, fill them with rebar and cement, creating piers. Then they will make the wall stable by adhering a carbon fiber mesh to the wall that keeps the wall from flexing. Lastly they will put 3 helical tie-backs thru the wall into the soil (anchors). The second issue is that there is insufficient support for a couple of loadbearing walls, causing the sagging in hte floor and some cracks in the drywall. So, we have to add 2 beams in the ceiling of the garage and one beam in the basement. we didn't know before the inspection what to expect in terms of costs, we were thinking it was probably somewhere between $20 and $80K to fix, depending on what they found. The cost for all this work is estimated to be $16K not the rumoured 80K. It helps the cost that the work can be done from the garage and basement, not inside the home. no excavation. We insisted the seller come down on the cost in the amount of the repairs and she came pretty close (within $3000 of it). We are aware that we are assuming a risk - that something unforseen may turn out to be very expensive. But we have done what we can to minimize the risk. i think you can put in an offer with the contingency clause without fear. then you have time to do the structural inspection with a skilled engineer and worst case scenario you are out the money you spent on the inspection. then, fully informed, you can be completely anxious about the next bit ;) for us, we feel that the low price of the home (we are paying 30%less than recent appraisal) and paying 40% less than most other homes in the neighborhood - is an offset for the risk also, since it's a desirable neighborhood with good resale, we feel that we can invest some $ and not price ourselves out of resale value also, the estimates for the repairs came back suprisingly low. our lowest estimate was $12K, but we have better references for the $16K contractors, so we're going with them. i am wondering how much more cracking and shifting will happen when the beams are put in, since the house may be slowly readjusted, but we know that it may happen. we may also have to live with a small amount of sagging - the house most likely cannot be returned to itÂs original alignment, but the cracking in walls will be arrested. HTH - sorry for the wordiness, IÂm just house-obsessed right now. we should close at the end of the month, and the structural work will start immediately - so I can report back when itÂs done and let you know what the rest of the experience has been like :) Good luck with your decision!

When there is an attached garage, both the house and garage should share the same foundation. If there is a basement under the house, then the garage footing will be at a different elevation than the house. In this case, the garage footing should be attached to the wall of the basement and the garage footing must be below the frost line for stability. One way to connect is to install a concrete beam set into the basement wall with the other end laying on the garage's footing. However, different settling rates for the remainder of the garage's perimeter can be different than the house. A well done garage footing should be stable, but is not always assured. For stability, the garage footing should be sitting on undisturbed earth. Even then, there can be differential settling between the house and garage. If the garage's footing sits on fill, differential settling is expected.

We don't know the history of this house, but it does not meet several code requirements that have been in place for many years. For example, garages must be separated from living areas, which means fire-rated drywall barriers and no HVAC or other penetrations between the two areas. This garage has no fire barrier, and appears to have uncovered HVAC vents running through the garage (which could pull in air from the garage). The beam running across the top may be a manufactured LVL beam, but I don't think that was common in 1974. Even for an LVL beam, it looks undersized for the span and live load of the room above. It also looks too small to be a boxed steel beam. You should also check all the vertical walls to see how they were constructed. Walls that are over 10 feet tall are now built using 2x6 studs instead of 2x4's and there are specific requirements for diagonal bracing of large walls. Bruce