Cricket

Hello! I am considering buying this house. The house is REO, so they are not willing to do any repairs. Im wondering how bad this looks to you guys. The house is on a mountain. The house itself is on level ground, but the back yard slopes right behind the house.
Im wondering how much it might cost to repair. Does it look like it might need a whole new foundation, or maybe just setteling?
If I can get the house for a good enough price, I would have some money left in my budget for repairs.
Should I run away?

nealtw

We build on mountains and live on them. Mountains move and houses should be built to take the stress. Don't let the level back yard fool you, it's likely just fill from the house. Generally on a hill, to get to solid groun on the low side the foundation is 8 or 10 feet deep. That 8 or 10 feet is below the floor of the basement not above it. If there are cracked driveways and retaining walls in the area you have a moving hill, if not you may have a problem house. I would run like hell and get away from this one and welcome to the site.

inspectorD

Since I help folks in this arena they get themselves into....I would recommend running, like there is a Large Bear behind you.

This foundation will be expensive to repair...if that is even possible.

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BridgeMan

If you can get the place for less than a few thousand $$$, go for it. Anything more than that, just start running! Those concrete walls were/are being subjected to stresses many times greater than they were designed to carry. I'm surprised the place hasn't been red-tagged yet. I don't recall ever seeing cracks that significant or widespread on a house, unless it was experiencing major earth movement underneath.

Cricket

Cool. Thanks for all your help guys! Thats what I figured. Its a shame, because other than that, the house does seem really nice! I will run!

Austin

I'm with the guys, foundation repair is a huge undertaking and should be avoided if possible.

You may want to have a foundation pro come out and quote the job anyways to see what it would cost in relation to your purchase.

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nealtw

On a mountain side, the original lay of the land is looked at to determin the slope of the land and if it will support the house and most often require a retaining wall on the low side. Some times it will be an engineered rock wall or concrete block wall and worst case is a concrete wall with huge footings. The last big retaining wall I worked on cost the builder well over 60k.
In this case you would need a back ho in the back yard to dig down and see what has been done, and where the good soil.
With the aid of a structrual engineer and geo engineer you would design a fix. Your at 10 to 20 k before the fix is started.