Buying a home with possible foundation problems

[DJ24966]

I'm currently in the market for my first house and I'm not opposed to doing some repairs if needed as in the future I'll probably turn around and sell the home to buy something nicer.

The house I'm looking at is a cute 2 bed, 1 bath home in North Carolina. They are asking $70k for it. I toured the house yesterday with a friend who has built houses from the ground up in the past but would like more opinions on it. The basement walls have a few cracks and is starting to lean. From the looks of it, the ground flows towards the home causing any rain to put pressure on the wall. It's apparently been like this for years, and the basement doesn't leak which is a plus.

Obviously the ground would need to be leveled and the wall will need to be fixed. How much could this possibly cost me, and would it need to be done before being approved for a loan?

Here is the home - https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/3704-bathesda-rd-lexington-nc_rb/

I'll add pictures of the basement shortly once I'm home. Also, what do you guys think would be a fair offer on the home? The realtor said we had a good bit of wiggle room to work with as well.

Thanks so much!

 

[nealtw]

We can't offer opinions on value, that lot would be worth $300K with out the house where I live.
The foundation can be bad news and you should invest in an engineer for an opinion that counts.

 

[joecaption]

I'd bet there's a whole lot of "wiggle room" if the foundation is bad!
I'd keep looking for another house, foundation issues are never cheap to fix.

 

[bud16415]

Looks like a great little house not far from the city but far enough. It doesn’t mention how much land and do some research on comp pricing in the area.


Without taking some good photos and posting them it is really hard to speculate on the basement wall. Even then it is hard to make a call. Bring in an expert and it is kind of what you are calling your friend but you didn’t say what his opinion was on that one issue. You said its dry and looks like its been that way for years.


Getting an experts opinion could go a long way to getting a lower offer thru also.


If comps are 100k plus then its one thing if they are all 60k its another.


I have bought much worse taking a gamble.

 

[JoeD]

C racked is not usually an issue but LEANING could be serious.

 

[DJ24966]

I appreciate the replies. I'm going back over to the house today to take some more photos. It's apparently been like this for 13 years and never gotten worse but it's still worrisome.

 

[ShellbackBill]

You've probably thought of most of this but, my thoughts.


The first things I would find out are,

How much would it cost to fix it? And how long?

Will the fix be permanent? If a lot of houses in the area have foundation problems, the fix may not be permanent.

Balance the cost to buy Plus the cost to repair against what the house is worth. You don't want to spend $70K to wind up with house worth $50K.

Ask the foundation repair company for a worst case estimate.

And if you do get it repaired, get a lifetime guarantee from the foundation repair company.