Kiersten’s Blog

A couple of months ago, we put an offer in on a house. Okay, we’ve been putting offers in left and right but this is one I felt really good about. We found out soon after that we didn’t get it. Then suddenly we were called and asked if we were still interested. It’s a duplex and apparently the neighbor had some foundation issues that needed repair so he assumed our side would as well. A contractor was sent out to assess the damages and quoted us a $1500 repair, a far cry from the $30,000 worth of work the guy next door needed. We re-submitted the offer. By the time everything went through, there were already 42 other offers on the property. Because our agent was helping out the listing agent with getting the place inspected and everything, she didn’t submit the other offers, only ours, and our offer was accepted. There was still a worry, however, that the house had settled and was moving toward the hill in the backyard. Today we had the home inspected. There is room for about 3/4 of an inch discrepancy from the low point to the high point of the floor. This house had a discrepancy of 4 1/2 inches. I’m totally bummed. I was so excited about this house and have felt good about it from the beginning. Things seemed to be working out perfectly for us. Except for the fact that the house is falling down a hill. So now we wait. We don’t know what the cost of the repair will be, but we do know that they’ll likely need to jack up the whole house and re-pour the whole foundation. Obviously that would cost a lot of money. More money than we have. My hope is that the bank (since it’s bank-owned) will fix it and still sell it to us. The more likely scenario is that the bank will re-list it as cash only as is and drop the price. I’m not excited to start hunting again. But at least I’m not buying a house that’s falling down a hill.