Well damn...my dream house...they lowered the price

[eclecticcottage]

Did the walk through. 99% sure I'm going to pass. Have pics will post in the next few days. The one wall is quite...wavy on the outside, and they fixed where you could see outside from inside with great stuff. The back porch is coming off the house. So much settling.

Very fixable for the most part, for someone with the right knowledge (and money). It's a true brick house with the plaster right on the brick. So, 3000 sq ft of uninsulated brick house in NY. Explains some things. The trim is just as amazing as I remember, same for the radiators. Still hate the kitchen, like, a lot.

[eclecticcottage]

So now that I'm more awake...

I still have to get the pics from camera to computer to post. A lot of it is what I remember, except some of it is worse. It looks like someone was digging out the basement which might have been the cause of some of the failure. It has some new wiring and a new breaker box. One of the old cabinets is still in the basement, but it's worse for wear after being in the damp-really, it's a celler (dirt floor and the like). At some point, someone sistered new joists to the the old timber (log) ones-it seems like some of the bows in the downstairs floors might have been caused by this, since it doesn't transfer to the second floor. The outer wall on the side of the "square" portion of the house (opposite the ell) looks like a wave. This is also where you can see outside from inside. In that same room, the ring that the radiator pipe comes through is completely rusted out. There are interior walls with large gaps in the corners from settling, especially on that side of the house. All three porches need completely rebuilt. Some of the brick under the front porch are so spalled there are piles of brick dust on the porch floor. The roof leaks where the ell meets the house-they "repaired" it with a piece of osb attached to the ceiling inside and a pile of blankets (I didn't take a pic of that). The kitchen is worse in person-not only does it not match the house, but it's terribly done-the backsplash looks like peel and stick groutable tile-that wasn't grouted-you can see the old wallpaper between the "stones". There is a small room upstairs at the front of the house with pine tongue and groove floor-the house settled enough that you can pick up the floor boards-then you can see the brick wall outside as well as one of the original timbers that holds the house together. It is unheated currently-the gas meter has been pulled. Again. I had forgotten one of the upper corners on the square portion had been repaired at some point-the bricks don't match.

I'm no longer sure the ell is an addition. Maybe just the porches are. There is a cistern under the ell.

My contractor is guessing about 100K rehab cost. I did get a peek at his project (a large cobblestone) though, which was cool. No pics of that. I still think for the right person with the right skills and money, it is a doable project. I am not that person-I can find people with the skills, but I do NOT have that kind of money! Plus I would never get the money back, and I can't afford to lose money on a project now. Just like before, wrong time for this house for me. I exhausted every resource I could think of last time trying to find funds of some sort to help with the rehab/purchase cost. I could probably swing the purchase if they would take a lot less than asking and if the town would resssess for now, but I couldn't do the rehab cost. Just about every penny of my savings/retirement is in the Bungalow Project already. Of course, I'll probably still try to figure out how certain repairs (like the wavy wall) could be done, (being a true brick house I don't know how you can take the load of the house off the foundation for repairs, nor how to bring the wall back true) because I am like that and this is "my house" but I'll have to do it on paper to some extent because I get obbessed. In the words of Kenny Rogers, you gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away and know when to run.

[JacquieJet]

Sounds like a thorough assessment.
It's such a shame that the house is in the state it is, but sometimes I think there is a line of "no return" when the necessary repairs to a house exceeds the overall value. Not sure if that applies in this case, but it sounds like it could be close. Best to step away, as you have said. You have to use your head, and not your heart.
Thanks for the update

[eclecticcottage]

Haha, it is VERY close. My agent basically told me to make an offer based on land and salvage value. If it were a frame structure, I think the possibilities for repair would be greater, since it's easier to shore up and support the structure. I honestly think that perhaps the only way to repair it is to actually take it apart, but I'm not a mason by any means. the failing (or the appearance thereof) of the structure is really one of the biggest issues, along with the lack of insulation. The rest is nothing, really-just work, time and some money. Failed porches and bad roofs can be fixed. That one wall though, I just don't think it's that simple-and saying it just "settled" isn't going to fly with buyers (especially at a repaired price point of over $100K)! It certainly isn't flying with me.

My contractor told me I should offer $7K and and ask the town to reassess it so I could afford to carry it while working on it. If I had a bit more money I would strongly consider it. Or, if he could come up with an army of volunteers to help with the major work, I would probably lose my mind and try it.

Sadly, I think the biggest issue for this house, like many large older homes, is the original owners had enough money that certain aspects (like heating it) weren't an issue for them. But subsequent owners just couldn't carry the costs of maintaining it and it's showing. Over the past years, a lot of money has been thrown at it, but in the end, it wasn't put in the right places and it's just catching up to it.

[Texas_Ranger]

being a true brick house I don't know how you can take the load of the house off the foundation for repairs, nor how to bring the wall back true

You'd typically do fairly narrow sections, removetwo feet of foundation wall, leave four standing, remove another two, etc. Once these sections are sturdy again, you can do the next round and after the third you've got a new foundation.

That's what folks do here when they cut through brick walls horizontally to install a new damp-proof course (tar paper or something along those lines). If the mortar is sound you can do it in two rounds of three-foot sections. If you remove a fairly narrow section of brickwork there's not much of a load on it because the courses above form a "false arch" and take most of the load of the walls above.

[eclecticcottage]

Pics are up on the Bungalow Project's blog, but there are a couple highlights

[Lily left the valley]

I hadn't even thought of the idea of asking the town for a re-assessment to help you through the rehab work. There are quite a few homes here in town that if such was possible, it would really make me lean to the idea of starting to fix up homes here for resale myself.

Thanks for the pictures!

[eclecticcottage]

A reassessment wouldn't really help for most rehabs, since you don't mean to carry it long enough that the reassessment would really effect you. This house however, would be a long term project (as in, years). I know most places around here wouldn't have any part of lowering the assessment, but I might have a shot in this particular case. We looked at a cobblestone farm house several years ago that was selling well below the assessed value because of the condition-and the town said they wouldn't lower the assessement to meet the actual value, because they felt it was worth more than the asking price. As a side note, it never sold and is now vacant. Apparently, it wasn't worth even the asking price-no matter what the town thought!

[JacquieJet]

Thanks for the photos! I see what you mean.
There are a lot of nice features there, but also a lot of things that make me say "yikes!".
I'm starting to think that maintenance of an older house is something that a lot of people don't understand... just because someone puts time/money into something, it doesn't necessarily go towards overall value or even prolonging the life of the house itself. I guess that's where making informed choices/decisions is useful!

[eclecticcottage]

Yeah, there's some nice stuff that is attractive, but then when you look at other things, you just hear this voice say "run, run away, run now" lol.

I think home maintance is just something people don't really get, do or care about some times. I think this house has gone through cycles-people with the money to fix and maintain it, and people without the money (or interest) in doing so.

This is the corner that looks to have been repaired at some point, at the very top:



If you look, the bricks are a different color.

Then there's this. This has been like this since before 02. I don't get why.



This is where you could see outside, at the base of the trim-you can see the great stuff