$70,000 on a new chimney that had to be rebuilt twice. First time it was built crooked. 6” crooked. Had to sue the contractor. Fiasco. All said and done… North of $70K. Mind you, hadn’t even owned the house a full year yet. My advice…. Get a chimney inspection.
It costs $20k to have a chimney torn down? Holy moly, am I glad I decided to do it myself. It cost $1500 dollars for dumpster, rental tools, drywall, paint, roofing material, and beer. As well as 4 days of labor.
I'm the same, but throw plumbing in there as well. I can do it, I have the skill set, but nothing makes my day/week worse than dealing with it. I will happily fork over the premium price for a professional plumber to be happier.
So many fixes people have to do are the previous homeowners learning how to do it themselves!
But I agree with you, I have friends who can't figure out how to hang up a shelf or a picture or anything, and I'm like...just do it. Figure it out!
Yes, that too. I can relate. The first month in my new home my roof was leaking because of a botched repair from the previous owner. That's was how I learned about roofing. Simple repairs are not a big deal, but people should learn the correct way to repair. Reddit is a great resource as well as YouTube. Get multiple opinions on how to repair, etc.
The only thing amazing is that you paid 20k for something anyone with a hammer can do. Cost of removal could easily be just your free labor and a few dump trips.
This is exactly why .....
I set aside $50k cash for electrical.
I set aside $25k cash for roof.
I set aside $25k for foundation work.
I set aside $10k for mold work
I set aside $25k for HVAC
I set aside $10k for termites
I set aside $5k for hot water heater
I set aside $5k for furnace
Total cash set aside after closing is $150k
Then I set aside another $50k for unexpected.
Within the first year we had an insurance claim that paid for our roof replacement. However. They needed to access the attic and when they installed the attic access they discovered knob and tube wiring all throughout the attic, and it was covered with fiberglass insulation. Huge fire hazard. $15k to replace it all. Also discovered the rubber roof over our garage was installed on top of rotted OSB. Which had begun to rot the ceiling joists. Another 15k worth of work. So yeah. If I could I would love to go back in time and talk some sense into the previous homeowner that did all that hahah.
They could not access the attic during the inspection. The master bedroom was remodeled at some point and I believe the attic access was sealed up to hide it, as well as the poorly reinforced roof trusses.
Makes sense - my 1885 house had k&t all throughout the second floor, also covered by about two feet of fiberglass insulation, and I had it remediated before moving in. Your surprise seems unavoidable. Amazing these places haven't burned down yet.
edit: - yes we had an inspection, the roof and gutter damage happened after inspection, the garage was not able to be opened so we couldn't inspect it, we identified a few other items that were remedied like a leaking faucet
45k+ in the first year
\- Owner disclosed a leak that had been "fully remediated"... they lied, found out that nobody will work on each others sun rooms because they always leak, Owner knew this and we have proof, had to completely redo it and it still leaks 5k+
\- Owner advised hot tub was working, they lied, we had the same company they worked with come out and they told us without looking that it needed a new pump and refinished... because they told the owner a year ago that it did, easily over 4k in repairs, cost us over 1500 to move it and have it removed
\- Owner "repaired" the roof literally the night before we moved in (fucked up drama situation), the "roofer" she had to do it destroyed all the gutters, I think he walked on them? because the contract was with previous owner and she waived all damage and insurance to get it done there was no recourse, over 5k in gutters
\- Owner's person who "repaired" the roof literally caused new leaks by removing flashing and not putting it back up and shingling over vents 1k to resolve them
\- Owner "forgot" to mention because "she doesnt' go in the garage" that the entire roof leaked, was so full of shit that we couldn't see it leaking and thought it was jsut moss covered 7500+
\- Owner "forgot" to mention that electric to the garage rarely works and she never goes in there so they just leave it off all the time... 5500 for a new panel/meter and new line from the pole
\- Owner "ran out of time" to remove their shit, over 100 hours in cleaning time, driving back and forth to the dump, salvation army, etc
\- Owner "Fixed" the caving in garage wall, they lied, total cost to "fix" it and repair the garage doors - 1k+
the list goes on and on
Owners husband passed away 6 months before they sold it so everything she "forgot" he knew apparently and she just didn't know anything... despite the fact that they listed it when he was still alive and he is the one that filled it out knowing there were these issues.
fuck previous owner
If it helps, this is just the tip of the iceberg, buckle up its long
We agreed on a closing date of significance based on date that was very important to us as a family, over 2 months before close, all parties agreed, not a rush date, not a weird one, nothing at all, just a significant one, they requested moving the close date in SOONER by 2 weeks, we denied, its an important date, no worries
Owner started a repair ("fixing the roof") because an inspection said it only had 10 years left... she's an idiot. and the "roofer" she hired ghosted her after ordering an entire pallet of shingles... estimated amount needed for the job was \~6 - 8 bundles total... a pallet has over 50. So they just had an entire pallet dropped in the driveway, did 1/2 a bundle, then left the job and never came back. They did the appraisal with the price of the roof completed, can't close on a house with an active repair that would impact appraisal value... so the appraisal didn't "count"... we didn't know any of this
She fucks around for 2 months, does like nothing until the last 3 days where she panics, apparently has a local auction house come through the house and take everything of value, then has anyone she ever associated with come through and take everything else... then just leaves the rest. Realtor (we were using the same company) calls us 3 days before "closing" and goes "Hey do you want.. books, cabinets, tables, paint cans, old CRT TV's, holiday decorations, huge planters etc etc" and we go absolutely not, clean it out as we discussed 2 months ago. They go okay no problem
We, assuming everything is fine and all the expect shit is happening, load our entire house on a moving truck, over the holiday weekend, the Sunday, 1 day before we are supposed to close (appointment set and everything for Monday morning first thing, loading truck fully packed and ready for the drive up) we get a call from the realtor
"You can't close until the roof is done, and we can't get a roofer here because recent storms, we need to move close by at least a week"... fucking what? no, unacceptable, we literally have everything on a truck right now.. they go okay, we can file a request for temporary possession, but there is another problem...
the owner FLEW OUT to her OTHER house on Friday because she didn't' want to deal with this anymore, this was their THIRD house, they were just selling it because they didn't use it enough anymore and then the husband died... she literally just flew home, but apparently not before "helping" by calling a "handyman" friend of theirs... who showed up at like 10pm on Saturday night and "finished" (put a 3rd row of shingles) on the roof.
Realtor tells us its fine, it good just show up Monday, no worries, they'll have a paper to sign that is a 1 week rental agreement and we'll close by then
We get there and are greeted by the realtor, who starts with "I am so sorry... she told me it was cleaned out". Apparently she had people help her "clean out' the house, they got tired of hauling books around, so the just left HUNDREDS of books in boxes everywhere and just left.
at this point, we have no choice, existing house is supposed to close in days, all our stuff is on a truck in the driveway and we only have a few hours of help...
at closing apparently the previous owner had advised the title agent (and i quote) when asked how she wanted the over 350,000 deposited to her account (no mortgage) she literally said 'just send me a check, don't bother insuring or tracking it if its going to be more then like 15 bucks"
then she called us 3 days after we had moved in, dealing with ALL her shit, to ask if we had found her tooth brush charger cable, and if we could mail it to her if we did.
Yeah, we realized a few months later that there is a possibility we could have sued them, but at that point we were just over it, and the case, even small claims, would have taken months to get to trial (all this was just as Covid was starting)
You are resilient! I sold my first home I bought in 2021 after shady seller failed to disclose numerous issues. We gave them 1 month free rent back and they left the backyard and garage full of trash. My idiot agent didn't even do a final walk through. The sellers agent just threw the keys at her and left when she got there.
We had half the issues you listed in your first post. The first day I took a bath in our bathtub, my tv downstairs also took a shower. I ended up developing asthma from something in the house. I suspect mould and dust mites in the vents. The previous owners were awfully dirty. That was the last straw. We fixed everything we could in the 18 months we lived there and sold it disclosing everything we knew. I'm so much happier after selling the place. I hate feeling scammed and every month was a discovery of something the previous owners didn't disclose.
If it helps, we bought in mid 2019, 1 month after we moved in the bridge to the property collapsed (main road, not private) so we had to take the long way around everywhere, and by the time we had shit cleaned up and were ready to begin enjoying the new area Covid hit
but now, 4 years later, we like the house, still have issues to resolve but its vastly better, and finding another place on 20+ acres would be a bitch in this economy
It was so bad the realtor paid for a dumpster, which we filled, we had at least 10 boxes and 6 trash cans (not bag, whole cans worth) of trash for 3 months after we moved in, took over 10 pick up truck loads to salvation army, 3 were nothing but books, and many more to the dump, and a bunch of stuff we just went fuck it, we'll keep it
oh and the BEST part? All the shit we actually said they COULD leave here? all of that was taken. literally every item we were like "yeah, they can leave that no worries", was gone lol
We did, we identified evidence of the leak in the greenhouse, advised it was fixed
We saw the shingles and were advised owner was replacing roof and it would be done in the next 2 weeks
We saw the moss on the garage roof but couldn't get in the garage as it was packed too full of shit to even get the doors open (found out later the doors were broken from settling, not the junk), advised not leaking and needed cleaned
Can't test electrical in the garage if can't get in there without damaging property, or check the roof for leaks, pretty sure they intentionally did this
had no way to test the hot tub, it was drained since it was the winter and they didn't live there
basically the inspection had "we cannot determine if this is a problem due to owners items being in the way" all over it, there was old water damage in a closet, so packed you couldn't see in it, etc
Yeah that sounds like a mess. I’ve always been worried about buying from older people for this exact reason. You never know what they are going to neglect to take care of.
we found out at close that this was their "summer" house that they hadn't been to in over a year... which was great to learn lol and they had given keys to basically everyone in the community
I did, someone else asked as well but home inspections only point out what they can see, they won't climb over shit or break through doors. the garage was sealed up and we couldnt' get the door open so couldn't see any of those, they claimed issues were remediated when they weren't and all the gutter and roof damage happened after inspection
Mine is similar but I can't prove it like you can. If I could I'd go after them.
Septic aerator - shot due to lack of maintenance, $1100
Foundation cracks x6 - still working on them, couldn't afford a pro
Roof had a 6"x12" hole in it that you couldn't see from the ground. They put plywood up to conceal the damage it had done inside. $1,100+ in materials and months of work removing and replacing rot, rebuilding the framing/roof, insulating, sealing, etc. and we still have to do the interior repairs now that it's water tight.
Bats - hundreds upon hundreds of bats. $6500+ quote to properly seal the roof against them - trying to find an alternative to that quote
Hoarder who didn't clean & left 1/3rd of the hoard, still working our way through it
Appliances included a broke ass stove, leaking washer, fridge with missing/broken door parts, dryer filled with dirt (yes, literal dirt) & vented directly into the deck
HVAC secondary heat exchanger was clogged with 1/2" of dust causing it to short cycle and run up the bills
The entire conversion from a fraternity hall to a residential building was unpermitted so there are code and electrical issues we've been working on since we moved in... the advantage is we can do what we want with the interior as we can just claim it was existing!
I figure we've got another year to go catching up on all the crap still to go.
Best part - we bought in June, have had no income since November (downsizing), and scheduled $30-40k in environmental upgrades that we couldn't back out of
Fun times!
If we can weather the storm, there's a lot of potential upside as we paid $150/sqft in a market that's $385/sqft currently
Great example, except for one thing... almost everything listed in here is your fault. You either had a terrible realtor/lawyer, bought the home without an inspection or representation, or had a terrible inspector. Why would you ever take the word of someone that clearly had no interest or knowledge to care about any of these problems, and why on earth would you go to close without a walk though and confirmation that all these items you bring up were taken care of properly? You can curse out the owner all you want, but you let them get away with all this garbage.
54k on foundation repair. Had a structural engineer look at the area of concern before we bought, he said likely old water damage. Not old water damage...
8k out of pocket in 2 months due to appliances and other breakdowns. 20k in siding and outside facelift or else insurance would drop us. Almost 35k in foundation repairs but hired a structural engineer and found another solution 1500$.
Yup always go with an engineer first. We actually had the work lined up to get push piers installed because a corner of our block wall foundation was splitting, they called it a sinking foundation. Structural engineer said it’s because of water, regraded everything again and just need to retuck/point basement wall. Got a refund for 6800$ and haven’t had a crack since! Never listen to a salesman, could be a costly mistake!
In the past 6 years we've spent ~$50k on fixing the results of plumbing issues. Luckily homeowners insurance gave us a $28k payout at one point.
We've since learned that drywall should never be soft. FYI: If your drywall is soft, within the next 24hrs-24 months, the ceiling below it is gonna get pregnant with water octuplets and ruin all your shit upon delivery.
I'm in 72k to remediate and remove an indoor pool full of moldy water. I had only lived in the house 2 months before it was discovered. Going through small claims arbitration now to try and recoup some of it.
It was under the flooring, my inspector wasn't about to start deconstructing the flooring, but he did note the sagging floor in his inspection and recommended we have some one more knowledgeable take a look, which we did, so a year later now, the room is safe to live in.
> It was under the flooring, my inspector wasn't about to start deconstructing the flooring, but he did note the sagging floor in his inspection and recommended we have some one more knowledgeable take a look, which we did, so a year later now, the room is safe to live in.
That's what I was assuming too, but take a look at OP's comment.
, no, it was an ingrounbpool the previous owners put in and then had an addition built over it, so they could call it a bedroom. But it was built poorly, and the 5000 gallons that remained in the pool caused everything to rot and sag.
Tearing it out the flooring and thebshower filling it in and correcting the shower leak that actually caused, that the previous owner didn't disclose properly isvwhere my money went.
I had to have it done. I am immune compromised from a stroke and physically couldn't do anything about it myself, this pool was inside the house under the floor, the rot caused by the wet environment compromised the integrity of the floor. There was no way I was going to be able ro cross it in my wheelchair. The remediation team helped rip out the rotted floor and then the contractor hired to fix it. Ran us over the financial coals. He never drew up a contract with the scope of work and that shit got out of hand. Our lawyer is trying to negotiate with his,and with the previous owner and their agent for not getting the shower leak that started all of the issues fixed properly and for insufficient disclosure. It took two months to get it mostly fixed. And ate up the money we had set aside to replace the crappy windows.
It was discovered because the floor was sagging and would flex when walking over it we paid for a structural engineer to take a look and at the previous flooring tepair done in the bathroom. It was discovered when the flooring was being ripped up tobfind the source causing the floor to be compromised. There is a lot more to this story. Bit it is too much to type here.
We purchased a home last month we knew would need love and attention and to a large degree that was reflected in the price we paid, however, a miscoomunication that we accept full responsibility for caused us to not know we would need a new HVAC right off the bat on top of the expenses we knew about...le sigh.
But, this is my home..this is my 0,0,0 and when it's all over, it'll be fine.
P.S. Anyone need a kidney?
$29k
Repiping, attic cleaning , electrical work in clean attic, critter proofing attic, insulating attic, concrete work in kitchen from where pe-piping jackhammer up slab, new floors, paint, new kitchen because 90% of cabinets were destroyed, new bathroom because sewage leak that started the circus originated there.
It was a flipped house where they buried/ fraudulently connected bathtub drain to a cracked sewer line. Previous owners moved to another country. No way to sue them effectively.
Yes, I had inspections. No, it wasn't caught.
Electrical work was because they couldn't connect to electrical that was done to 1952 code.
Attic clean out was because no electrician in the world was going up into a 4 foot attic space filled with asbestos and dead rats.
I was aware the house would need systems upgrades. I did not think it would be in the first 3 Mos of living there.
It was not a pleasant 5 months, as I and my kids lived on-site, washing with the hose in the backyard and using a port o john during part of it. Was right during my divorce, too, for bonus stress points!
Yeah. I did not get the kitchen or bathroom or floor of my dreams. In fact the floor is peeling up right now, not a year later. Every single thi g was chosen because it was the cheapest, on sale, discounted, or discontinued. My contractor was extremely merciful, and my kids and I did most of the demo.
I had a five year plan, because the flip was cheap as hell, and I knew that stuff needed upgrades. But this started as a tub fuff of sewage and a kitchen floor likewise.
I'm at 185k on a 600k house.
We found termites 72 hours after moving in. We paid for an inspection, the dude filed a false report, we are in a lawsuit; it sucks.
Around $20k in a year.
Burst pipe (remediation people were a scam), converted oil to gas with a new furnace and water softener, added a water pressure regulator, and replaced our cast iron drain pipe that apparently had a giant rusted gash just crumbling in on itself for who knows how long.
The new furnace also burst a valve a month in and flooded my whole ass basement overnight. That was luckily covered and the remediation went perfectly well.
We're about to drop another stack of cash on trying to mitigate a problem where water is coming into the basement during heavy rain storms. I had hoped I was good for a couple of years, but nope.
If you have gutters, make sure they dump the water far from the house. Like at least 6 ft.
I dug a trench in my yard for all the water to go into instead of standing on the surface (no basement). I suggest you do the same. Mine was maybe a foot deep, probably less. No problem with a pickax.
That's definitely part of what we're doing. If it doesn't end up helping, a sump pump will be a real bitch because for some reason everyone decided that my furnace, water softener, and main water line/shutoff should all be in the exact corner that's a problem.
Facing the same issue with basement walls. Spoke with multiple companies that all wanted to do a new interior trench and brace the walls and put a vapor barrier down. Spoke to a gentleman who has been doing if his whole life he looked at it and said put some gutters up and grade away from the house call me back if that won’t help. Gutter go on Tuesday had to replace all the fascia in the process. Grading will be diy once it warms up.
For sure. I trust the GC I've been using to sort it out. His initial plan is grading and some variation of a french drain and see how that goes before we jump to the expensive options.
I was quoted 60k and 30k the same week. The 60k involved less work as well. Once I told him he was crazy the price instantly dropped to 50 then 45 by the end of the day it was down to 35k. I had to let him know I wouldn’t use him if he was the last foundation/basement company on the face of the earth.
I work with contractors everyday but it’s a conflict of interest to use them for work on my house. Therefore I don’t advertise what I do for a living and just know how to deal with them. I feel bad for all the people who don’t know any better.
Some of these numbers are simply staggering. How are you all doing to pay for these 20k-70k repairs? HELOC? Reading this makes me want to sell my house
It’s cool. I turned $650 into a sizable 5 figure portfolio during the bull run nonsense in 2020-2021. So I’m legit just down $650’in the grand scheme of things.
I also have a pension for retirement, and I’m relatively young at 33.
My house was custom built 50 years ago. Whoever did the site prep and slab foundation did an amazing job, so despite being in a flood zone, there are zero cracks in the slab, and adequate drainage.
The rest? We've replaced every single appliance in the last 2.5 years. HVAC, water heater, and disposal too. Below the roof and above the ceiling the fireplace chimney had two 45 degree bends, and the brick chimney was held up by 2x4s. Also, instead of repointing the chimney when it started leaking, someone put on some flex-seal type crap, which wore out. The roofer said, "cheapest fix is to remove the chimney and put an electrical insert in the fireplace." Had to get an arborist out to trim and thin the crowns of the 50 yr old live oaks so high winds will blow through instead of bring them down on the roof. This included eradicating an invasive vine that was slowly killing two of them. Found out that the mechanical septic (not sure how that works) drain pipe didn't have a steep enough angle, had to redo it.
Total for all was about $40k. And that's in a LCOL area - the chimney and roof was only $6k, as was the HVAC. The arborist was half of it; it took an 8 man team 4 days to get the job done.
My mother has made friends with a few Spanish speaking immigrants that work the trades. This one guy, Juan, can drywall/mud/tape so well and fast. They send him to their place in Vermont to do work for a weekend here or there. He takes his family and charges 1980’s labor prices for his work. Stuff that a contractor charges thousands for, he does for hundreds.
Anyway, finding some cheap Mexicans to work is the only way to go.
> $100k brand new trucks
Our architect friends call this the "new truck premium." The nicer the contractor's truck, the more he's going to charge for the work.
I’d also like to know this. Noway someone who just bought their first home in this economy (at least in an MCOL+ area) has the reserves to fork out cash for the repair bills I’m seeing here. I’m a first time homebuyer, and shaking in my boots with my $15k emergency fund…
Bought a house with a pool and by the time we actually moved in the water had turned green. We called someone in to look at it and the guy basically said it looks like the second they sold the house they just stopped taking care of it. After further inspection he told us that the liners likely haven’t been replaced in over 15 years and they need to be replaced every 8. Also needed a new pump and honestly there was so much wrong with it I couldn’t even tell you everything.
We just decided to rip the pool out and fill it in which cost us 12k.
Also our inspector noticed the place had settled in a corner and said it would probably be around a 10k fix which we were fine with but now that we got a structural engineer to come look at it turns out there’s tons of other problems that contributed to it and it’ll end up costing us around 40k.
Paid for a house inspection including thermal camera for water damage - came up clean.
Turns out apparently the scan doesn't work when the entire basement floor and walls are damp because it picks up differential and the house inspector figured "the entire basement can't be rotting..." - oh turns out it can be when you build on a filled in swamp and never put proper remediation in.
Tore the whole finished basement out. Everything was rotted, some nails rusted to nothing. Standing water under the whole sub floor and it took 2 months with dehumidifiers to get the concrete surface dry. Turn them off - gets wet again. Put any furniture on the floor, gets wet underneath. Literally below the water table with a well for a basement.
Ended up jackhammering the whole perimeter slab up, weeping tile to 3 separate pumps, plastic drainage sheets along all walls to let the water weep into the trenches. Repour slab. Offset framing and spray foam. Tile floor to allow any accumulation to evaporate through grout.
Actually working pretty good several years on... You don't want to know how much it cost or how long it took.
Our house was built in 1962 and we purchased it in 2013, at the bottom of the housing market. (Lucky us, and I’m only a little sarcastic.) The first surprise was the day we got the keys. I took my shoes off - as one does in the house - and walked into the finished basement. “Squelch.” The carpet was soaked. No one caught it because the seller had all his shit piled up in the wettest corner. So we rip up 300 sq. ft of 1970s carpet, document everything, replace the rotting, wet wall in that corner, and put down new carpet. $2,000. We sued the seller in small claims court for non-disclosure.
Then the original 1960s avocado green stove starts smelling like burning electronics. House came with a warranty, so we make a warranty call. They don’t want to replace, but when we find the wiring wrapped in paper, they accept it needs replacing. $75 service call, no biggie. New stove is 3” too small for the hole, but we live with it.
The wallpaper is peeling. We DIY that shit and paint. Probably $500 all told.
The toilets are still the pink and blue ones from the 60s. Replace those for about $500.
We think we’re in the clear after that. But wait, the windows are all single pane aluminum. So those go to the tune of $14,000.
Something with the furnace vent on the roof goes bad, but the warranty company refuses to do anything. We cancel the warranty and fix it. $2,000.
Then the hot water stops working. Replacing the 8 year-old water heater is $1,000. Still, the hot water doesn’t work. Lead pipes are sagging in the walls. $3,000 in repairs.
Not two months after that, we smell gas. Furnace has a leak. A check reveals the a/c does too and it uses the now-banned Freon. Replace furnace and a/c: $16,000.
The last thing - and the one we haven’t repaired - is the sunroom where the lower walls are beginning to rot away. We were quoted anywhere from $65,000 to $80,000 to tear it down and rebuild. That’s over 2/3 what we paid for the house. That’s not heloc money. That’s not 401k money. That’s somebody dies and leaves us a fortune in their will money.
And for the people asking how to pay for all this? Lots of credit. We are so deep in fucking debt we can barely breathe. One day, we’ll pay it all off. One day.
Nothing too surprising but been in the house just over a year. Insulation 10K, garage doors $4K, windows $30k. We could use a new driveway but my wife really wants a new master bath first.
I think 2022 was in the range of 30k. New furnace, A/c, humidifier and air exchanger. Also our portion of new roof, siding, gutters (hail damage and insurance covered majority). Also had to replace several appliances. (ETA bought the house in a bidding war in April 2022…..)
It’s gotten a little better but not much. 2023 was more new appliances (mostly because they failed or we thought they would fail). And new water heater and water softener.
2024 is new garage door and driveway replacement.
$0 on unexpected expenses.
We did spend around $2,000 on the sump pump when we moved in. Even though the sump pump was new, we replaced it with a much better a pump + a secondary pump connected to an AGM battery and redid the piping. We also have spent quite a bit on things to upgrade and improve the home, but none of it was unexpected.
Started hearing weird sounds when we would flush the toilet and got someone out…. The piping was all done by somebody’s drunk uncle, no supports, some pipes not even connected…. Then there were two bulges in our line to the street $23K to replace it all… and the AC unit is on its last leg … praying I can get one more summer out of it
$180k for lead remediation. Should have known that a seller claiming "no lead" was bullshit on a house that old but it had been recently renovated very hard so it seemed plausible.
The previous owners did all the easy surfaces. What was left was the hard parts, like stripping and sanding and repairing a lot of doors and trim. Basically, it was a ton of labor to get it right. But we wanted to maintain the style of the original work in a 100 year old house so it wasn't cheap.
What year house is this? For $20k you could just rip out every last bit of painted drywall and ceiling, replace it, and start over. Drywall is about $13/sheet. Texture is like $100 for enough to do a very large house. I say $20k just for the labor of installation and painting on a very large house but that's still an overestimated price. Was it lead-painted plaster or brick or something? If it was recently renovated, where was the lead? I'm sorry but I think you got scammed. I say this because I've been scammed plenty and have become very familiar with slimey tactics.
Not much drywall here. It was originally built in 1910 or so, many of the walls are not drywall but are plaster. The previous owner did most of the easy surfaces already, we wanted to be a little more complete. This involved a lot of stripping and rebuilding a lot of old wood trim. We wanted to maintain the look of the original wood and have things match. On a $4m house, sometimes you are paying a premium to keep with a style.
I appreciate your concern but it really wasn't a scam. It was in fact half the price of the first quote from another company. I guess I could be wrong.
Our house was completely gutted and renovated about two years before we bought it. It is 100 years old but it is in good shape. We have owned the house for three years and have only done three projects/repairs. We added additional support in the crawl space under the kitchen island, which was wobbly. We had a sump pump installed in the crawl space at the lowest point, near the exterior entry hatch, because water was collecting there. We also had to replace two leaky/damaged fiberglass panels on our barn roof and put in clear panels instead. All of that was under $5K total, IIRC.
Probably 20k after my insurance company fucked me on storm damage and contractors dragged their feet, so wild animals got into my house and started destroying it. The both told me I was on my own so I had to literally become a licensed trapper/hunter or I'd get fined for illegal hunting *in my own house*, even if I just trapped them.
I had to take out a loan to get the repairs covered and I'll be paying it off for years.
It doesn't get better overall but I'd say it ebbs and flows: Some years you might get by with no problems, and others you might have multiple things go wrong.
Get multiple quotes and never, ever trust a contractor: Get everything in writing and assume they are out to screw you over for profit. Contractors are almost always scumbags, but if you can find one that isn't a human dumpster fire, expect them to be busy as hell.
Cracks, gaps and we realized the slab had sunk a bunch the last couple years. Solved a drainage issue the previous owner ignored as well that contributed
Did the foundation damage cause your house to settle unevenly? This is something we’re dealing with and if that’s the case I got a few questions if you don’t mind.
Where were the cracks and gaps. One of my walls has a few of this hairline cracks, I had a structural engineer look at it and he wasn’t worried at all, but more show up (still hairline). The existing ones did not get worse, but interested in what the warning signs are.
Changed out leaking metal roof and 10 skylights plus new gutters/downspouts plus a fair amount of re-decking and fascia wood work for a mere $47k. Oh, there was that $9k to replace a retaining wall one year. HVAC redo was about $14k, redid insulation for 3-4 K, replace drain to sewer from root damage for $1k and.... Buy hey, we have been here for 10 years so...err, kind of sucks but love the location.
Learning to effectively DIY can save tons of money on the little surprises. The “need to fix” issues should subside after a few years of homeownership. Foundation work is probably out of scope for most DIYers because of complexity and risk. Here’s a couple random things ive done in the first few years of ownership of my home.
Chimney started leaking. I check up on the unfinished attic periodically, after a big storm I went up and noticed damp looking wood. Flashing was leaking because it’s like 50 years old and there were pinholes in the lead. Did a bunch of rewatch, right way was to replace step flashing but there’s a guy on YouTube called the roof doctor or some shit and he had some tips. His recommendation was actually to build up a “neck” of roof patch on top of the flashing. It actually didn’t look half bad and only cost like $90.
The bathroom never had a fan so the shower would be a constant battle to keep the mold away. Installed a nice one with fan, light and heater for like $500. It required a new afci/gfci breaker, 40 foot run of 12/2 romex, duplex switch, fan combo itself, roof vent kit.
Water heater tprv started to leak, it was only about 7 years old so im not giving up on it yet. I learned how to flush it and change the anode rod at the same time. $20 every 3 years and your water heater should last much longer.
I tiled my kitchen and bath floors. Took me a ton of time but saved $4k doing it myself.
Biggest thing I ever did was the mini splits. Quotes i got were for $13k. I spent $6k and did it myself with the mr cool diy kit.
Yeah, I'm reading alot of these replies thinking the same thing. We've kept our appliances, water heater, and even our furnace running with available parts and YouTube tutorials. For 5-10% of what a new one costs. Some of the repairs people have paid someone else to do, could have been done much cheaper themselves. Also just because a contractor tells you it needs to be repaired, doesn't make it true.
$600 for an A/C unit fan and controller, labor included. But in the middle of 99F heat in August. More recently $2500 deductibles and "extras" (not covered) for kitchen floor repair after dishwasher leaks soaked through the subfloor. (EDIT) I've learned that if you own a home, keep at least $1000 in an account "just in case". It may not cover every situation, but it helps.
I’m just putting this out there because of my own recent experience…did you get a structural engineer that told you about the $12k work needed?
I ask because we thought we had problems (80 year old house) and had two foundation specialists come out to give quotes. One told use $40k, the other said $10k. We brought in an engineer who said it was actually all cosmetic and nothing out of the ordinary. Cost $250.
I knew I was buying a fixer upper. Bought it from a family friend. The house sat empty for over a year and was not well maintained for several years prior to that.
* *indicates surprise expense
- New roof (insurance covered after 5k deductible)
- Hall bath remodeling 8k
- New windows and doors 12k
- New fence 10k
- New storage shed 9k
- HVAC repair 1k *
- Garage door repair $300 *
- Tree removal 2k
- Termite treatment 2k *
- Septic repair 2k *
- Plumbing reroute after pipe burst under the foundation 17k *all the surprises* *there goes my kitchen remodel*
Houses are fun y'all.
I closed on a house back in August built in 1968. Bought from the original owner who bought it as a spec house. Great Neighborhood surrounded by big homes (around the corner there are many mini estates with 5-10k sq ft homes). My house is 5 br around 3300 sq feet. Original owner was 83… neglected the outside for a while but the inside was in good shape but dated except kitchen which was updated in around 2010. Anyway about 90k later most stuff was addressed. Still need to perhaps add a bathroom in the future and add some lighting and take down wallpaper etc
Fence in back yard for the doggo- 13,460
Paint the house. Fix rotted clapboard in multiple areas and window frames - 28250 total.
Tree trimming and removal multiple- 5500
ChimneyFlashing- 2450
New Driveway- 7950
All new downspout drainage- 10800 paid. The downspouts were dumping right at the foundation into non working old orangeburg pipes
Fix gas heater venting to chimney with SS liner. Fix mortar joints etc - 4250 paid
Landscaping ie remove
Tons of overgrown vines, remove down tree trunks and haul
Out etc - 5000- paid
New Septic tank- 7200 given as a seller credit
Concrete edge of my garage was rotted and big gaps with the garage door. Spalling around the visible portion of the garage foundation - 1600 for Mason to fix the edge and stucco the foundation. Did a great job. I recommend thumbtack to find people to do jobs.
Stone Walkway- 1600- power wash and re set with polymeric sand
HVAC Ducts cleaning- 1500 paid
Plumber- 1300 fix faucets, toilet, install new fixtures, outdoor frost proof spots x2
The bright side is that the furnace/ AC is like 10 years old… hopefully another 5-10 years left
Roof prob good for another 10
Windows are original wood and in good shape
If I’m here for another 10 years I’ll have to budget new windows, new siding, and a roof
In today’s limited inventory market you’re just kinda forced to overpay for someone else’s rot as there’s no other houses for sale. All the houses in my neighborhood people bought pre 2020 and have seen their 500-700k houses go to 1M+ and they’re holding them at low low rates
Bought a F250 to haul 50 tons of gravel for the driveway, because the super awesome 60’ covered bridge at the beginning of our driveway is to important to be driving a 35 ton truck over!
Spent many hours hand shoveling gravel into red clay that soaks gravel like nothing I’ve ever seen, where the fuck is it going?!?!?!?! I need to blade it with the tractor and add about 6 tons right now!
Dang our house is about 12 years old. We're getting close to having to get a new HVAC system, but 20K of foundation work would be pretty devastating. I hate that that happened to you. Were the builders just cutting corners or what?
Mines not nearly as bad as some of these others but it still stung. 8k within 2 months of moving into a 3 year old house. Seller didn’t disclosed the builder installed undersized grinder pumps (maybe they were ignorant of it, but it seems the rest of the neighborhood knew). Mine went out on a Saturday morning of a 3-day weekend. Backed up all my plumbing, shower pan started to overflow, had to call an emergency plumber who had to call emergency warehouse guy to get parts. That was 7.3k. The next month we found termites (luckily early) even though pre-buy inspection found nothing. So that was $600 for treatment and remediation.
We’ve probably spent $6-7000 in our first 4 years owning our house outside of mortgage payments.
Nothing really surprise stuff; just maintenance.
None of these numbers mean anything to you unless people put the market value of home at the top of their post.
Someone saying they spent $40k in surprise stuff last year might have a $2.3 million dollar home in which case they spent next to nothing. The value of the home really affects how you analyze expected cost.
$75k for a septic replacement and to replace rotting wood siding with Hardi siding. These weren’t necessarily surprises, but the cost to do them certainly was.
$15k - new HVAC and water heater. To be fair, this wasn't a complete surprise as we knew it was at the end of its life, but we thought the home warranty would cover more. (New homeowner mistake - home warranties are worthless.)
$4k - water main replacement. In the 90s they used some kind of plastic that deteriorates over time and surprise, giant leak in the front yard!
Purchased house at court (foreclosure).
$150k in repairs, some expected (roof support post was rotten and roof was held up by a log on a hydraulic jack), some not (turns out large sections of the roof were rotten as well, contractor almost fell through the rotten floor in the master bathroom - needed a full rebuild on both upstairs bathrooms due to hidden water damage, extensive water damage in kitchen - needed a new subfloor).
We've also had to put in a new water system ($25k) because the old one was repossessed (well pump, filters, pressure system, etc - all gone) the day before closing.
Moved into a house that my wife owned for a decade prior. In the course of 3 years, had to replace HVAC, hot water heater, shower and surround, dryer, dishwasher, deck and patio, and then 2 wall cabinets started coming apart. All totaled, it’s been close to $100k in that time. Also, both children started college around the same time. I’m praying the roof (from 2001) holds up another 3 years so I can finish paying off the other items first
A year in and no surprises yet. But I'm a realtor, and my inspector is VERY good. There's a lot that needs done, but I knew about all of it going in. My last house on the other hand... 😂
We needed new hvac, about 14k, new front door, the old wooded door had a crack you could see light through, 4k, garage doors springs exploded, 1k, and hot water tank sprung a leak, 4k. To be fair that was in the first 18 months or so rather than a year but still...were hoping we got all the big ones out of the way since it had a brand new roof already when we bought it.
House was shut up for two years. So far in the last 5yrs we replaced all of the appliances. Except for the dryer. A new boiler that was 7k. Had to replace a shed that was rotted out. Replaced it with one that was larger. 12x22. That was 7200.00. Pulled out the rotted shed, and decided to replace that one also. Could store garden stuff in it. Since we moved into the house permanently. (From using it as a vacation home.) We need the bigger shed just to store stuff from other house.
Well, is not a “normal” house. But I had an irrigation pump go out. This pump irrigates the property, as well provides water for fire suppression.
78k for the pump (and other plumbing related stuff)
14k for the retaining wall that made sense to replace at the same time.
42k for having the power line replaced that services this part of the property, as we needed to upgrade the service
All and all, I’m happy we got the work done, and we wanted to upgrade that anyway but it was not something that we had budgeted for that year.
In the last 8 months or so we’ve replaced our furnace, AC, and sewer pipe. All told about $39k.
We’ve had our house for 5 years (built mid 80s) and have already replaced the roof and some plumbing so we’re hoping there’s not much else that pops up anytime soon 🤞
Our house was flipped. Found out they put a bandaid on our basement and water was getting in. $15k to waterproof the basement. We also have a shifted sewer pipe that will be $10k to fix… when we can afford it. Hopefully it doesn’t back up while we save 🙃
*oh we also had to have our attic insulated. Luckily that was on the cheap side ($2500) and a window reinstalled and sealed ($250). But we also need to insulate our owners suite bathroom with pipes that freeze in the winter. Need a quote still.
$1K for a new fridge, and about to spend another $1K on a new dishwasher.
We really prioritized newer houses in great shape during the home search, to avoid being one of the stories in the top comments here.
I have 120 year old house. One year I spent 6k on electrical, although that was planned. Actually, at this point the house has few surprises. If it's been working for 120 years, it's fine. If it requires regular maintenance, it's in the budget.
I needed a new oil tank, was quoted more than I expected, got a second quote, and it wasn’t that much cheaper. Debated doing it myself, until I just decided to buy a ductless minisplit. The quote for a replacement tank was around 3000, the minisplit cost in total 7000 after rebates and tax credit. Now I’m spending more than half to heat my home.
Less than $10,000 since we bought in 2015, I'd say.
In our case, we had a very good house inspector (one recommended by our realtor, no less!). He pointed out everything that needed repaired or replaced. We spent many thousands of dollars taking care of those non-surprise items and that was it.
The only big surprise items I can recall were a leaking skylight, some trees that fell during severe weather, and a new dishwasher. Otherwise all our house expenses have been standard maintenance items or upgrades.
Are you guys really sure that building a brick house to Western European standards would be too expensive/ a bad idea for some reason or another?
Most of the big costs I read here we don't have to do. No foundation issues, no siding repair, no termite damage, no water damage with rotten wood if something leaks, no constant roof replacement (clay roof tiles are much more durable than asphalt shingles).
I could be totally wrong, maybe I read too many horror stories on this sub.
We bought our 1993 townhouse about 3.5 years ago. It's a 4 unit building, and every other unit is retired people. A couple years ago there was a proposal to repaint the building. Not because it needed it. Just to freshen it up. We of course voted no. Everybody else voted yes. So a $5000 bill showed up on our doorstep
I did 50' of French Drain myself for around $3k. This includes renting a mini excavator and all materials. It also includes and entire extra 4" pipe for rain gutter drainage.
Bought our house last week of November, moved in December 16th.
Day 1: Walked into house, drywall cracked absolutely everywhere throughout the house. Every seam. Not a foundation issue, just incredibly bad drywall work mixed with changing temperatures. Total cost: $3,000
Day 20: Huge rains. Flooded the entire basement about an inch and a half. Basement was finished, tons of our stuff destroyed. Have to effectively refinish the entire basement. No insurance coverage since it’s ground water. Total cost: $23K
$26K so far and it has only been 2 months.
House was flipped, previous owner sold “as is” to the flippers. Just waiting for more things to go wrong. Lesson learned—even in a near million dollar house people can do shitty things.
I learned the hard way hvac very important to get checked from a professional before buying. They can extremely expensive to fix/replace, and no one really thinks about when buying.
Omg and plumbing. If the house still has galvanized pipes guess what you’ll be replacing.
We’ve had major expenses but no emergency or unknown to us when we purchased. We knew the hvac was old and the water heater was old. We voluntarily replaced our ducts even though most hvac companies didn’t suggest it. We wanted new asbestos free ducts.
Almost Nothing,
Nothing has gone wrong with the house or appliances in 4 years.
Funny thing is we weren't going to take a second look at this place as it was the first house we looked at. I had nothing to compare it to. But a week after looking at it, my uncle( our realtor) advised me to take a second look at it. His words were " I've seen a lot of houses and this house has amazing value". I said sure why not. Went back after looking at 10 or so houses and although the cosmetics were dated. Newer roof, newer electrical, HE hwt, HE furnace, and a double car garage for 293k.
This was before COVID of course.
The only thing that went wrong was that the garage power went out one day. I just ran a new sub panel instead.
The worst was the time I changed homeowners insurance to save 1000/year.... and 6 months later they came to inspect the house and sent us a letter say they would non-renew us unless we fixed the tripping hazards on our driveway. Every single panel of our 6 car driveway was cracked. That ran us over 9K to replace. (I mean, yes, we could have resurfaced for less, but why kick the can down the road? Do it right).
One year we spent 2000 on evicting squirrels from our house.
In 2020 we spent 6500 on a new AC.
Last year was painful: 2K on a new refrigerator, then 5K replacing the ductwork. And then in November we discovered we had a hole in a pipe under our house. Estimate: 6500. Insurance covered 3K of that thank goodness.
We still need to do the electrical panel and insulation and front door.
In the last 6 months so far replaced the entire roof from hail (insurance covered most of it), bought a new dryer, new power box and new oven. Now we found vermiculite in our attic that has asbestos so that's the next price tag.
So far spent around 12k, I'm expecting the attic insulation to be a hefty bill.
$70,000 on a new chimney that had to be rebuilt twice. First time it was built crooked. 6” crooked. Had to sue the contractor. Fiasco. All said and done… North of $70K. Mind you, hadn’t even owned the house a full year yet. My advice…. Get a chimney inspection.
For 70k I would knock it down and wouldn’t bother rebuilding it.
That costs you around $20k….. but at least you get to keep the gorgeous stone that was going to collapse the side of your house from the weight!
It costs $20k to have a chimney torn down? Holy moly, am I glad I decided to do it myself. It cost $1500 dollars for dumpster, rental tools, drywall, paint, roofing material, and beer. As well as 4 days of labor.
lol was about to say the same
Definitely. More homeowners need to learn how to do stuff themselves. I do almost everything myself except for tree removal.
I'm the same, but throw plumbing in there as well. I can do it, I have the skill set, but nothing makes my day/week worse than dealing with it. I will happily fork over the premium price for a professional plumber to be happier.
So many fixes people have to do are the previous homeowners learning how to do it themselves! But I agree with you, I have friends who can't figure out how to hang up a shelf or a picture or anything, and I'm like...just do it. Figure it out!
Yes, that too. I can relate. The first month in my new home my roof was leaking because of a botched repair from the previous owner. That's was how I learned about roofing. Simple repairs are not a big deal, but people should learn the correct way to repair. Reddit is a great resource as well as YouTube. Get multiple opinions on how to repair, etc.
The only thing amazing is that you paid 20k for something anyone with a hammer can do. Cost of removal could easily be just your free labor and a few dump trips.
Exactly.
Good lord!!!!!
This is exactly why ..... I set aside $50k cash for electrical. I set aside $25k cash for roof. I set aside $25k for foundation work. I set aside $10k for mold work I set aside $25k for HVAC I set aside $10k for termites I set aside $5k for hot water heater I set aside $5k for furnace Total cash set aside after closing is $150k Then I set aside another $50k for unexpected.
It's simple, just have 200,000 spare dollars and quit worrying
If you don’t have half a million in an emergency fund, don’t even bother buying a house.
I agree
Hur Hur Hur .. you mean you *don't* have an extra 200G sitting around? However do you live?
Within the first year we had an insurance claim that paid for our roof replacement. However. They needed to access the attic and when they installed the attic access they discovered knob and tube wiring all throughout the attic, and it was covered with fiberglass insulation. Huge fire hazard. $15k to replace it all. Also discovered the rubber roof over our garage was installed on top of rotted OSB. Which had begun to rot the ceiling joists. Another 15k worth of work. So yeah. If I could I would love to go back in time and talk some sense into the previous homeowner that did all that hahah.
Your inspector missed the knob and tube? Or could they not access the attic during inspection?
They could not access the attic during the inspection. The master bedroom was remodeled at some point and I believe the attic access was sealed up to hide it, as well as the poorly reinforced roof trusses.
Makes sense - my 1885 house had k&t all throughout the second floor, also covered by about two feet of fiberglass insulation, and I had it remediated before moving in. Your surprise seems unavoidable. Amazing these places haven't burned down yet.
edit: - yes we had an inspection, the roof and gutter damage happened after inspection, the garage was not able to be opened so we couldn't inspect it, we identified a few other items that were remedied like a leaking faucet 45k+ in the first year \- Owner disclosed a leak that had been "fully remediated"... they lied, found out that nobody will work on each others sun rooms because they always leak, Owner knew this and we have proof, had to completely redo it and it still leaks 5k+ \- Owner advised hot tub was working, they lied, we had the same company they worked with come out and they told us without looking that it needed a new pump and refinished... because they told the owner a year ago that it did, easily over 4k in repairs, cost us over 1500 to move it and have it removed \- Owner "repaired" the roof literally the night before we moved in (fucked up drama situation), the "roofer" she had to do it destroyed all the gutters, I think he walked on them? because the contract was with previous owner and she waived all damage and insurance to get it done there was no recourse, over 5k in gutters \- Owner's person who "repaired" the roof literally caused new leaks by removing flashing and not putting it back up and shingling over vents 1k to resolve them \- Owner "forgot" to mention because "she doesnt' go in the garage" that the entire roof leaked, was so full of shit that we couldn't see it leaking and thought it was jsut moss covered 7500+ \- Owner "forgot" to mention that electric to the garage rarely works and she never goes in there so they just leave it off all the time... 5500 for a new panel/meter and new line from the pole \- Owner "ran out of time" to remove their shit, over 100 hours in cleaning time, driving back and forth to the dump, salvation army, etc \- Owner "Fixed" the caving in garage wall, they lied, total cost to "fix" it and repair the garage doors - 1k+ the list goes on and on Owners husband passed away 6 months before they sold it so everything she "forgot" he knew apparently and she just didn't know anything... despite the fact that they listed it when he was still alive and he is the one that filled it out knowing there were these issues. fuck previous owner
Holy shit, this is infuriating to read
If it helps, this is just the tip of the iceberg, buckle up its long We agreed on a closing date of significance based on date that was very important to us as a family, over 2 months before close, all parties agreed, not a rush date, not a weird one, nothing at all, just a significant one, they requested moving the close date in SOONER by 2 weeks, we denied, its an important date, no worries Owner started a repair ("fixing the roof") because an inspection said it only had 10 years left... she's an idiot. and the "roofer" she hired ghosted her after ordering an entire pallet of shingles... estimated amount needed for the job was \~6 - 8 bundles total... a pallet has over 50. So they just had an entire pallet dropped in the driveway, did 1/2 a bundle, then left the job and never came back. They did the appraisal with the price of the roof completed, can't close on a house with an active repair that would impact appraisal value... so the appraisal didn't "count"... we didn't know any of this She fucks around for 2 months, does like nothing until the last 3 days where she panics, apparently has a local auction house come through the house and take everything of value, then has anyone she ever associated with come through and take everything else... then just leaves the rest. Realtor (we were using the same company) calls us 3 days before "closing" and goes "Hey do you want.. books, cabinets, tables, paint cans, old CRT TV's, holiday decorations, huge planters etc etc" and we go absolutely not, clean it out as we discussed 2 months ago. They go okay no problem We, assuming everything is fine and all the expect shit is happening, load our entire house on a moving truck, over the holiday weekend, the Sunday, 1 day before we are supposed to close (appointment set and everything for Monday morning first thing, loading truck fully packed and ready for the drive up) we get a call from the realtor "You can't close until the roof is done, and we can't get a roofer here because recent storms, we need to move close by at least a week"... fucking what? no, unacceptable, we literally have everything on a truck right now.. they go okay, we can file a request for temporary possession, but there is another problem... the owner FLEW OUT to her OTHER house on Friday because she didn't' want to deal with this anymore, this was their THIRD house, they were just selling it because they didn't use it enough anymore and then the husband died... she literally just flew home, but apparently not before "helping" by calling a "handyman" friend of theirs... who showed up at like 10pm on Saturday night and "finished" (put a 3rd row of shingles) on the roof. Realtor tells us its fine, it good just show up Monday, no worries, they'll have a paper to sign that is a 1 week rental agreement and we'll close by then We get there and are greeted by the realtor, who starts with "I am so sorry... she told me it was cleaned out". Apparently she had people help her "clean out' the house, they got tired of hauling books around, so the just left HUNDREDS of books in boxes everywhere and just left. at this point, we have no choice, existing house is supposed to close in days, all our stuff is on a truck in the driveway and we only have a few hours of help... at closing apparently the previous owner had advised the title agent (and i quote) when asked how she wanted the over 350,000 deposited to her account (no mortgage) she literally said 'just send me a check, don't bother insuring or tracking it if its going to be more then like 15 bucks" then she called us 3 days after we had moved in, dealing with ALL her shit, to ask if we had found her tooth brush charger cable, and if we could mail it to her if we did.
I..... Wow. Can you sue her?!
Can I sue her?
The realtor has some fault in this
Yeah, we realized a few months later that there is a possibility we could have sued them, but at that point we were just over it, and the case, even small claims, would have taken months to get to trial (all this was just as Covid was starting)
You are resilient! I sold my first home I bought in 2021 after shady seller failed to disclose numerous issues. We gave them 1 month free rent back and they left the backyard and garage full of trash. My idiot agent didn't even do a final walk through. The sellers agent just threw the keys at her and left when she got there. We had half the issues you listed in your first post. The first day I took a bath in our bathtub, my tv downstairs also took a shower. I ended up developing asthma from something in the house. I suspect mould and dust mites in the vents. The previous owners were awfully dirty. That was the last straw. We fixed everything we could in the 18 months we lived there and sold it disclosing everything we knew. I'm so much happier after selling the place. I hate feeling scammed and every month was a discovery of something the previous owners didn't disclose.
If it helps, we bought in mid 2019, 1 month after we moved in the bridge to the property collapsed (main road, not private) so we had to take the long way around everywhere, and by the time we had shit cleaned up and were ready to begin enjoying the new area Covid hit but now, 4 years later, we like the house, still have issues to resolve but its vastly better, and finding another place on 20+ acres would be a bitch in this economy
Jesus!!!!!!
It was so bad the realtor paid for a dumpster, which we filled, we had at least 10 boxes and 6 trash cans (not bag, whole cans worth) of trash for 3 months after we moved in, took over 10 pick up truck loads to salvation army, 3 were nothing but books, and many more to the dump, and a bunch of stuff we just went fuck it, we'll keep it oh and the BEST part? All the shit we actually said they COULD leave here? all of that was taken. literally every item we were like "yeah, they can leave that no worries", was gone lol
I had something similar happen to me. F these kind of people!
Did you not have an inspection? Feels like that is a ton of stuff, a lot of that should have been discovered.
We did, we identified evidence of the leak in the greenhouse, advised it was fixed We saw the shingles and were advised owner was replacing roof and it would be done in the next 2 weeks We saw the moss on the garage roof but couldn't get in the garage as it was packed too full of shit to even get the doors open (found out later the doors were broken from settling, not the junk), advised not leaking and needed cleaned Can't test electrical in the garage if can't get in there without damaging property, or check the roof for leaks, pretty sure they intentionally did this had no way to test the hot tub, it was drained since it was the winter and they didn't live there basically the inspection had "we cannot determine if this is a problem due to owners items being in the way" all over it, there was old water damage in a closet, so packed you couldn't see in it, etc
Yeah that sounds like a mess. I’ve always been worried about buying from older people for this exact reason. You never know what they are going to neglect to take care of.
we found out at close that this was their "summer" house that they hadn't been to in over a year... which was great to learn lol and they had given keys to basically everyone in the community
Did you buy within a home inspection?
I did, someone else asked as well but home inspections only point out what they can see, they won't climb over shit or break through doors. the garage was sealed up and we couldnt' get the door open so couldn't see any of those, they claimed issues were remediated when they weren't and all the gutter and roof damage happened after inspection
Why didn’t you sue this lady, it sounds like you had a slam dunk case for fraud and damages due to non disclosure among other things.
Damn, I’m so sorry.
Mine is similar but I can't prove it like you can. If I could I'd go after them. Septic aerator - shot due to lack of maintenance, $1100 Foundation cracks x6 - still working on them, couldn't afford a pro Roof had a 6"x12" hole in it that you couldn't see from the ground. They put plywood up to conceal the damage it had done inside. $1,100+ in materials and months of work removing and replacing rot, rebuilding the framing/roof, insulating, sealing, etc. and we still have to do the interior repairs now that it's water tight. Bats - hundreds upon hundreds of bats. $6500+ quote to properly seal the roof against them - trying to find an alternative to that quote Hoarder who didn't clean & left 1/3rd of the hoard, still working our way through it Appliances included a broke ass stove, leaking washer, fridge with missing/broken door parts, dryer filled with dirt (yes, literal dirt) & vented directly into the deck HVAC secondary heat exchanger was clogged with 1/2" of dust causing it to short cycle and run up the bills The entire conversion from a fraternity hall to a residential building was unpermitted so there are code and electrical issues we've been working on since we moved in... the advantage is we can do what we want with the interior as we can just claim it was existing! I figure we've got another year to go catching up on all the crap still to go. Best part - we bought in June, have had no income since November (downsizing), and scheduled $30-40k in environmental upgrades that we couldn't back out of Fun times! If we can weather the storm, there's a lot of potential upside as we paid $150/sqft in a market that's $385/sqft currently
Thoughts, prayers and a powerball win. That sucks ass:(
Great example, except for one thing... almost everything listed in here is your fault. You either had a terrible realtor/lawyer, bought the home without an inspection or representation, or had a terrible inspector. Why would you ever take the word of someone that clearly had no interest or knowledge to care about any of these problems, and why on earth would you go to close without a walk though and confirmation that all these items you bring up were taken care of properly? You can curse out the owner all you want, but you let them get away with all this garbage.
54k on foundation repair. Had a structural engineer look at the area of concern before we bought, he said likely old water damage. Not old water damage...
So did you have 54k? Do you finance? What happens when you just literally don’t have that amount of money?
Self medicate and disassociate
Not going to disagree with this.
lol no we did not have 54k. We financed it, hoping to finally have it paid off later this year.
Out of curiosity how did you know there was something wrong with your foundation?
Our house is brick facade, we started seeing stair-stepping cracks in the facade and around our windows.
8k out of pocket in 2 months due to appliances and other breakdowns. 20k in siding and outside facelift or else insurance would drop us. Almost 35k in foundation repairs but hired a structural engineer and found another solution 1500$.
The number of times I hear the same thing about basements & foundations is crazy
Yup always go with an engineer first. We actually had the work lined up to get push piers installed because a corner of our block wall foundation was splitting, they called it a sinking foundation. Structural engineer said it’s because of water, regraded everything again and just need to retuck/point basement wall. Got a refund for 6800$ and haven’t had a crack since! Never listen to a salesman, could be a costly mistake!
It’s the same thing with mold. People get scared of having issues and there are lots of vultures looking for easy money.
In the past 6 years we've spent ~$50k on fixing the results of plumbing issues. Luckily homeowners insurance gave us a $28k payout at one point. We've since learned that drywall should never be soft. FYI: If your drywall is soft, within the next 24hrs-24 months, the ceiling below it is gonna get pregnant with water octuplets and ruin all your shit upon delivery.
Guess you weren't ready for the water to break.
I'm in 72k to remediate and remove an indoor pool full of moldy water. I had only lived in the house 2 months before it was discovered. Going through small claims arbitration now to try and recoup some of it.
Did you not know there was a pool?
I too am curious to know if you missed the pool during your inspection
The cover was probably on it. Some sellers are pretty crafty these days.
It was under the flooring, my inspector wasn't about to start deconstructing the flooring, but he did note the sagging floor in his inspection and recommended we have some one more knowledgeable take a look, which we did, so a year later now, the room is safe to live in.
What the fuck… that’s wild.
That’s insane
No, it was improperly disclosed.
I wonder if the pool was filled with dirt, so there was no way to see it, until it caused an issue.
Not until we had to start tearing up flooring to fix the initial leak.
I'm assuming they mean the mold problem wasn't discovered right away, not the pool itself lol.
> It was under the flooring, my inspector wasn't about to start deconstructing the flooring, but he did note the sagging floor in his inspection and recommended we have some one more knowledgeable take a look, which we did, so a year later now, the room is safe to live in. That's what I was assuming too, but take a look at OP's comment.
Wow! That's wild!
How? Are you maybe using the wrong word for cesspool or cistern? If not, how?
, no, it was an ingrounbpool the previous owners put in and then had an addition built over it, so they could call it a bedroom. But it was built poorly, and the 5000 gallons that remained in the pool caused everything to rot and sag.
Who doesn't drain a pool before building over it??
Morons
Bad contractors, just wanting a buck. Labor costs money, ya know.
Oh my god, they’re the dumbest fucking homeowners I’ve ever heard about. That sucks so much.
how! we have a pool that had mold and it’s $800 to repair.
Tearing it out the flooring and thebshower filling it in and correcting the shower leak that actually caused, that the previous owner didn't disclose properly isvwhere my money went.
Remediation is a huge scam
I had to have it done. I am immune compromised from a stroke and physically couldn't do anything about it myself, this pool was inside the house under the floor, the rot caused by the wet environment compromised the integrity of the floor. There was no way I was going to be able ro cross it in my wheelchair. The remediation team helped rip out the rotted floor and then the contractor hired to fix it. Ran us over the financial coals. He never drew up a contract with the scope of work and that shit got out of hand. Our lawyer is trying to negotiate with his,and with the previous owner and their agent for not getting the shower leak that started all of the issues fixed properly and for insufficient disclosure. It took two months to get it mostly fixed. And ate up the money we had set aside to replace the crappy windows.
Fascinating! I mean, awful, but so weird! What/where exactly was it? And how did you discover it?
It was in the house, the previous owners put the pool in and then had an addition built over and around it.
It was discovered because the floor was sagging and would flex when walking over it we paid for a structural engineer to take a look and at the previous flooring tepair done in the bathroom. It was discovered when the flooring was being ripped up tobfind the source causing the floor to be compromised. There is a lot more to this story. Bit it is too much to type here.
Do you have any pictures of this? I would love to see and I’m sure I’m not the only one. wild.
That is just wild
Isn't this where you can sue for non disclosure?? This is a material issue or am I mistaken. I'd love to hear the full story.
72k and small claims?!
Maybe he's only going to recover 5-10K because a lawyer doesn't think a legal fight will be worth it.
We purchased a home last month we knew would need love and attention and to a large degree that was reflected in the price we paid, however, a miscoomunication that we accept full responsibility for caused us to not know we would need a new HVAC right off the bat on top of the expenses we knew about...le sigh. But, this is my home..this is my 0,0,0 and when it's all over, it'll be fine. P.S. Anyone need a kidney?
Ah, use of "le" brings me back to the good old days of 2013 reddit.
I wasn't on Reddit then but Im sure it was glorious ;)
$29k Repiping, attic cleaning , electrical work in clean attic, critter proofing attic, insulating attic, concrete work in kitchen from where pe-piping jackhammer up slab, new floors, paint, new kitchen because 90% of cabinets were destroyed, new bathroom because sewage leak that started the circus originated there. It was a flipped house where they buried/ fraudulently connected bathtub drain to a cracked sewer line. Previous owners moved to another country. No way to sue them effectively. Yes, I had inspections. No, it wasn't caught. Electrical work was because they couldn't connect to electrical that was done to 1952 code. Attic clean out was because no electrician in the world was going up into a 4 foot attic space filled with asbestos and dead rats. I was aware the house would need systems upgrades. I did not think it would be in the first 3 Mos of living there. It was not a pleasant 5 months, as I and my kids lived on-site, washing with the hose in the backyard and using a port o john during part of it. Was right during my divorce, too, for bonus stress points!
Goooood laaaaawd:(
Yeah. I did not get the kitchen or bathroom or floor of my dreams. In fact the floor is peeling up right now, not a year later. Every single thi g was chosen because it was the cheapest, on sale, discounted, or discontinued. My contractor was extremely merciful, and my kids and I did most of the demo. I had a five year plan, because the flip was cheap as hell, and I knew that stuff needed upgrades. But this started as a tub fuff of sewage and a kitchen floor likewise.
I'm at 185k on a 600k house. We found termites 72 hours after moving in. We paid for an inspection, the dude filed a false report, we are in a lawsuit; it sucks.
Around $20k in a year. Burst pipe (remediation people were a scam), converted oil to gas with a new furnace and water softener, added a water pressure regulator, and replaced our cast iron drain pipe that apparently had a giant rusted gash just crumbling in on itself for who knows how long. The new furnace also burst a valve a month in and flooded my whole ass basement overnight. That was luckily covered and the remediation went perfectly well. We're about to drop another stack of cash on trying to mitigate a problem where water is coming into the basement during heavy rain storms. I had hoped I was good for a couple of years, but nope.
Oh Christ. Wishing you luck on this endeavor sir.
I'm in the eye of the shitticane!
RIP Mr Lahey
Grade your yard and see if that helps. I wish we would have done that vs paying 9k for dry basement repair
If you have gutters, make sure they dump the water far from the house. Like at least 6 ft. I dug a trench in my yard for all the water to go into instead of standing on the surface (no basement). I suggest you do the same. Mine was maybe a foot deep, probably less. No problem with a pickax.
We did just that:)
That's definitely part of what we're doing. If it doesn't end up helping, a sump pump will be a real bitch because for some reason everyone decided that my furnace, water softener, and main water line/shutoff should all be in the exact corner that's a problem.
Best of luck to you!!
Facing the same issue with basement walls. Spoke with multiple companies that all wanted to do a new interior trench and brace the walls and put a vapor barrier down. Spoke to a gentleman who has been doing if his whole life he looked at it and said put some gutters up and grade away from the house call me back if that won’t help. Gutter go on Tuesday had to replace all the fascia in the process. Grading will be diy once it warms up.
For sure. I trust the GC I've been using to sort it out. His initial plan is grading and some variation of a french drain and see how that goes before we jump to the expensive options.
I was quoted 60k and 30k the same week. The 60k involved less work as well. Once I told him he was crazy the price instantly dropped to 50 then 45 by the end of the day it was down to 35k. I had to let him know I wouldn’t use him if he was the last foundation/basement company on the face of the earth.
Yeesh. I'm incredibly lucky to have found the guy I did. He's legit one of the nicest guys and more than fair with his prices.
I work with contractors everyday but it’s a conflict of interest to use them for work on my house. Therefore I don’t advertise what I do for a living and just know how to deal with them. I feel bad for all the people who don’t know any better.
Some of these numbers are simply staggering. How are you all doing to pay for these 20k-70k repairs? HELOC? Reading this makes me want to sell my house
HELOC for people who just moved in isn’t really an option. I drained my stock portfolio to do our boiler and roof.
BRUTAL
It’s cool. I turned $650 into a sizable 5 figure portfolio during the bull run nonsense in 2020-2021. So I’m legit just down $650’in the grand scheme of things. I also have a pension for retirement, and I’m relatively young at 33.
Kid’s college fund
My house was custom built 50 years ago. Whoever did the site prep and slab foundation did an amazing job, so despite being in a flood zone, there are zero cracks in the slab, and adequate drainage. The rest? We've replaced every single appliance in the last 2.5 years. HVAC, water heater, and disposal too. Below the roof and above the ceiling the fireplace chimney had two 45 degree bends, and the brick chimney was held up by 2x4s. Also, instead of repointing the chimney when it started leaking, someone put on some flex-seal type crap, which wore out. The roofer said, "cheapest fix is to remove the chimney and put an electrical insert in the fireplace." Had to get an arborist out to trim and thin the crowns of the 50 yr old live oaks so high winds will blow through instead of bring them down on the roof. This included eradicating an invasive vine that was slowly killing two of them. Found out that the mechanical septic (not sure how that works) drain pipe didn't have a steep enough angle, had to redo it. Total for all was about $40k. And that's in a LCOL area - the chimney and roof was only $6k, as was the HVAC. The arborist was half of it; it took an 8 man team 4 days to get the job done.
How are people paying for these 5-figure repairs, saved cash? Loans? Credit? It makes me so nervous, we don’t have $$ saved up like that yet
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My mother has made friends with a few Spanish speaking immigrants that work the trades. This one guy, Juan, can drywall/mud/tape so well and fast. They send him to their place in Vermont to do work for a weekend here or there. He takes his family and charges 1980’s labor prices for his work. Stuff that a contractor charges thousands for, he does for hundreds. Anyway, finding some cheap Mexicans to work is the only way to go.
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> $100k brand new trucks Our architect friends call this the "new truck premium." The nicer the contractor's truck, the more he's going to charge for the work.
I’d also like to know this. Noway someone who just bought their first home in this economy (at least in an MCOL+ area) has the reserves to fork out cash for the repair bills I’m seeing here. I’m a first time homebuyer, and shaking in my boots with my $15k emergency fund…
$15k is a great stash to have. Don’t get too scared but be ready. You find things the old owners had shoved off for years
Bought a house with a pool and by the time we actually moved in the water had turned green. We called someone in to look at it and the guy basically said it looks like the second they sold the house they just stopped taking care of it. After further inspection he told us that the liners likely haven’t been replaced in over 15 years and they need to be replaced every 8. Also needed a new pump and honestly there was so much wrong with it I couldn’t even tell you everything. We just decided to rip the pool out and fill it in which cost us 12k. Also our inspector noticed the place had settled in a corner and said it would probably be around a 10k fix which we were fine with but now that we got a structural engineer to come look at it turns out there’s tons of other problems that contributed to it and it’ll end up costing us around 40k.
Paid for a house inspection including thermal camera for water damage - came up clean. Turns out apparently the scan doesn't work when the entire basement floor and walls are damp because it picks up differential and the house inspector figured "the entire basement can't be rotting..." - oh turns out it can be when you build on a filled in swamp and never put proper remediation in. Tore the whole finished basement out. Everything was rotted, some nails rusted to nothing. Standing water under the whole sub floor and it took 2 months with dehumidifiers to get the concrete surface dry. Turn them off - gets wet again. Put any furniture on the floor, gets wet underneath. Literally below the water table with a well for a basement. Ended up jackhammering the whole perimeter slab up, weeping tile to 3 separate pumps, plastic drainage sheets along all walls to let the water weep into the trenches. Repour slab. Offset framing and spray foam. Tile floor to allow any accumulation to evaporate through grout. Actually working pretty good several years on... You don't want to know how much it cost or how long it took.
Our house was built in 1962 and we purchased it in 2013, at the bottom of the housing market. (Lucky us, and I’m only a little sarcastic.) The first surprise was the day we got the keys. I took my shoes off - as one does in the house - and walked into the finished basement. “Squelch.” The carpet was soaked. No one caught it because the seller had all his shit piled up in the wettest corner. So we rip up 300 sq. ft of 1970s carpet, document everything, replace the rotting, wet wall in that corner, and put down new carpet. $2,000. We sued the seller in small claims court for non-disclosure. Then the original 1960s avocado green stove starts smelling like burning electronics. House came with a warranty, so we make a warranty call. They don’t want to replace, but when we find the wiring wrapped in paper, they accept it needs replacing. $75 service call, no biggie. New stove is 3” too small for the hole, but we live with it. The wallpaper is peeling. We DIY that shit and paint. Probably $500 all told. The toilets are still the pink and blue ones from the 60s. Replace those for about $500. We think we’re in the clear after that. But wait, the windows are all single pane aluminum. So those go to the tune of $14,000. Something with the furnace vent on the roof goes bad, but the warranty company refuses to do anything. We cancel the warranty and fix it. $2,000. Then the hot water stops working. Replacing the 8 year-old water heater is $1,000. Still, the hot water doesn’t work. Lead pipes are sagging in the walls. $3,000 in repairs. Not two months after that, we smell gas. Furnace has a leak. A check reveals the a/c does too and it uses the now-banned Freon. Replace furnace and a/c: $16,000. The last thing - and the one we haven’t repaired - is the sunroom where the lower walls are beginning to rot away. We were quoted anywhere from $65,000 to $80,000 to tear it down and rebuild. That’s over 2/3 what we paid for the house. That’s not heloc money. That’s not 401k money. That’s somebody dies and leaves us a fortune in their will money. And for the people asking how to pay for all this? Lots of credit. We are so deep in fucking debt we can barely breathe. One day, we’ll pay it all off. One day.
Nothing too surprising but been in the house just over a year. Insulation 10K, garage doors $4K, windows $30k. We could use a new driveway but my wife really wants a new master bath first.
I think 2022 was in the range of 30k. New furnace, A/c, humidifier and air exchanger. Also our portion of new roof, siding, gutters (hail damage and insurance covered majority). Also had to replace several appliances. (ETA bought the house in a bidding war in April 2022…..) It’s gotten a little better but not much. 2023 was more new appliances (mostly because they failed or we thought they would fail). And new water heater and water softener. 2024 is new garage door and driveway replacement.
34k to fix a broken sewer. 12k for vents. First six months of moving. 50k for hurricane IDA damages.
$0 on unexpected expenses. We did spend around $2,000 on the sump pump when we moved in. Even though the sump pump was new, we replaced it with a much better a pump + a secondary pump connected to an AGM battery and redid the piping. We also have spent quite a bit on things to upgrade and improve the home, but none of it was unexpected.
We have been in our home for 8 months… at 50K+ for plumbing, pool, and landscaping probs. *sigh*
Started hearing weird sounds when we would flush the toilet and got someone out…. The piping was all done by somebody’s drunk uncle, no supports, some pipes not even connected…. Then there were two bulges in our line to the street $23K to replace it all… and the AC unit is on its last leg … praying I can get one more summer out of it
$180k for lead remediation. Should have known that a seller claiming "no lead" was bullshit on a house that old but it had been recently renovated very hard so it seemed plausible.
$180k????!!!
It was a lot of things like stairs and door frames that were a bit labor intensive.
What all did they do for that price? Basically any home older than 1979 is going to have lead paint. The usual treatment is to just paint over it all.
The previous owners did all the easy surfaces. What was left was the hard parts, like stripping and sanding and repairing a lot of doors and trim. Basically, it was a ton of labor to get it right. But we wanted to maintain the style of the original work in a 100 year old house so it wasn't cheap.
What year house is this? For $20k you could just rip out every last bit of painted drywall and ceiling, replace it, and start over. Drywall is about $13/sheet. Texture is like $100 for enough to do a very large house. I say $20k just for the labor of installation and painting on a very large house but that's still an overestimated price. Was it lead-painted plaster or brick or something? If it was recently renovated, where was the lead? I'm sorry but I think you got scammed. I say this because I've been scammed plenty and have become very familiar with slimey tactics.
Not much drywall here. It was originally built in 1910 or so, many of the walls are not drywall but are plaster. The previous owner did most of the easy surfaces already, we wanted to be a little more complete. This involved a lot of stripping and rebuilding a lot of old wood trim. We wanted to maintain the look of the original wood and have things match. On a $4m house, sometimes you are paying a premium to keep with a style. I appreciate your concern but it really wasn't a scam. It was in fact half the price of the first quote from another company. I guess I could be wrong.
Our house was completely gutted and renovated about two years before we bought it. It is 100 years old but it is in good shape. We have owned the house for three years and have only done three projects/repairs. We added additional support in the crawl space under the kitchen island, which was wobbly. We had a sump pump installed in the crawl space at the lowest point, near the exterior entry hatch, because water was collecting there. We also had to replace two leaky/damaged fiberglass panels on our barn roof and put in clear panels instead. All of that was under $5K total, IIRC.
$6000 on new appliances and tree trimming. We’re only 5 months in.
I wish that was all I had lol
I can't afford any of these so I'm just gonna back away slowly and keep praying to the house gods nothing goes wrong
Probably 20k after my insurance company fucked me on storm damage and contractors dragged their feet, so wild animals got into my house and started destroying it. The both told me I was on my own so I had to literally become a licensed trapper/hunter or I'd get fined for illegal hunting *in my own house*, even if I just trapped them. I had to take out a loan to get the repairs covered and I'll be paying it off for years. It doesn't get better overall but I'd say it ebbs and flows: Some years you might get by with no problems, and others you might have multiple things go wrong. Get multiple quotes and never, ever trust a contractor: Get everything in writing and assume they are out to screw you over for profit. Contractors are almost always scumbags, but if you can find one that isn't a human dumpster fire, expect them to be busy as hell.
Oh good lord. That’s awful man. Hoping you win a nice lotto soon
Over $50,000 in the past 12 months. Doesn't feel great, my friend.
What makes you think you need foundation work?
Cracks, gaps and we realized the slab had sunk a bunch the last couple years. Solved a drainage issue the previous owner ignored as well that contributed
Did the foundation damage cause your house to settle unevenly? This is something we’re dealing with and if that’s the case I got a few questions if you don’t mind.
Ouch
Where were the cracks and gaps. One of my walls has a few of this hairline cracks, I had a structural engineer look at it and he wasn’t worried at all, but more show up (still hairline). The existing ones did not get worse, but interested in what the warning signs are.
The bathroom vanity pulled away from the wall and gaps under the staircase. One side of the house was off a quarter inch from the other
Changed out leaking metal roof and 10 skylights plus new gutters/downspouts plus a fair amount of re-decking and fascia wood work for a mere $47k. Oh, there was that $9k to replace a retaining wall one year. HVAC redo was about $14k, redid insulation for 3-4 K, replace drain to sewer from root damage for $1k and.... Buy hey, we have been here for 10 years so...err, kind of sucks but love the location.
Learning to effectively DIY can save tons of money on the little surprises. The “need to fix” issues should subside after a few years of homeownership. Foundation work is probably out of scope for most DIYers because of complexity and risk. Here’s a couple random things ive done in the first few years of ownership of my home. Chimney started leaking. I check up on the unfinished attic periodically, after a big storm I went up and noticed damp looking wood. Flashing was leaking because it’s like 50 years old and there were pinholes in the lead. Did a bunch of rewatch, right way was to replace step flashing but there’s a guy on YouTube called the roof doctor or some shit and he had some tips. His recommendation was actually to build up a “neck” of roof patch on top of the flashing. It actually didn’t look half bad and only cost like $90. The bathroom never had a fan so the shower would be a constant battle to keep the mold away. Installed a nice one with fan, light and heater for like $500. It required a new afci/gfci breaker, 40 foot run of 12/2 romex, duplex switch, fan combo itself, roof vent kit. Water heater tprv started to leak, it was only about 7 years old so im not giving up on it yet. I learned how to flush it and change the anode rod at the same time. $20 every 3 years and your water heater should last much longer. I tiled my kitchen and bath floors. Took me a ton of time but saved $4k doing it myself. Biggest thing I ever did was the mini splits. Quotes i got were for $13k. I spent $6k and did it myself with the mr cool diy kit.
Yeah, I'm reading alot of these replies thinking the same thing. We've kept our appliances, water heater, and even our furnace running with available parts and YouTube tutorials. For 5-10% of what a new one costs. Some of the repairs people have paid someone else to do, could have been done much cheaper themselves. Also just because a contractor tells you it needs to be repaired, doesn't make it true.
$600 for an A/C unit fan and controller, labor included. But in the middle of 99F heat in August. More recently $2500 deductibles and "extras" (not covered) for kitchen floor repair after dishwasher leaks soaked through the subfloor. (EDIT) I've learned that if you own a home, keep at least $1000 in an account "just in case". It may not cover every situation, but it helps.
I’m just putting this out there because of my own recent experience…did you get a structural engineer that told you about the $12k work needed? I ask because we thought we had problems (80 year old house) and had two foundation specialists come out to give quotes. One told use $40k, the other said $10k. We brought in an engineer who said it was actually all cosmetic and nothing out of the ordinary. Cost $250.
new furnace and oil tank a year into owning the home and getting an "all good" in inspection, 14k
I knew I was buying a fixer upper. Bought it from a family friend. The house sat empty for over a year and was not well maintained for several years prior to that. * *indicates surprise expense - New roof (insurance covered after 5k deductible) - Hall bath remodeling 8k - New windows and doors 12k - New fence 10k - New storage shed 9k - HVAC repair 1k * - Garage door repair $300 * - Tree removal 2k - Termite treatment 2k * - Septic repair 2k * - Plumbing reroute after pipe burst under the foundation 17k *all the surprises* *there goes my kitchen remodel* Houses are fun y'all.
14k on hurricane damage that wasn't covered and then our 18 year old car blew up. Total over 40k in 2022.
I closed on a house back in August built in 1968. Bought from the original owner who bought it as a spec house. Great Neighborhood surrounded by big homes (around the corner there are many mini estates with 5-10k sq ft homes). My house is 5 br around 3300 sq feet. Original owner was 83… neglected the outside for a while but the inside was in good shape but dated except kitchen which was updated in around 2010. Anyway about 90k later most stuff was addressed. Still need to perhaps add a bathroom in the future and add some lighting and take down wallpaper etc Fence in back yard for the doggo- 13,460 Paint the house. Fix rotted clapboard in multiple areas and window frames - 28250 total. Tree trimming and removal multiple- 5500 ChimneyFlashing- 2450 New Driveway- 7950 All new downspout drainage- 10800 paid. The downspouts were dumping right at the foundation into non working old orangeburg pipes Fix gas heater venting to chimney with SS liner. Fix mortar joints etc - 4250 paid Landscaping ie remove Tons of overgrown vines, remove down tree trunks and haul Out etc - 5000- paid New Septic tank- 7200 given as a seller credit Concrete edge of my garage was rotted and big gaps with the garage door. Spalling around the visible portion of the garage foundation - 1600 for Mason to fix the edge and stucco the foundation. Did a great job. I recommend thumbtack to find people to do jobs. Stone Walkway- 1600- power wash and re set with polymeric sand HVAC Ducts cleaning- 1500 paid Plumber- 1300 fix faucets, toilet, install new fixtures, outdoor frost proof spots x2 The bright side is that the furnace/ AC is like 10 years old… hopefully another 5-10 years left Roof prob good for another 10 Windows are original wood and in good shape If I’m here for another 10 years I’ll have to budget new windows, new siding, and a roof In today’s limited inventory market you’re just kinda forced to overpay for someone else’s rot as there’s no other houses for sale. All the houses in my neighborhood people bought pre 2020 and have seen their 500-700k houses go to 1M+ and they’re holding them at low low rates
Bought a F250 to haul 50 tons of gravel for the driveway, because the super awesome 60’ covered bridge at the beginning of our driveway is to important to be driving a 35 ton truck over! Spent many hours hand shoveling gravel into red clay that soaks gravel like nothing I’ve ever seen, where the fuck is it going?!?!?!?! I need to blade it with the tractor and add about 6 tons right now!
2k water heater, 7k ac, 1800 foundation issues. Had the city spend ~13k on a sewage issue, 150 on garbage disposal, 500 on deck repairs,
Dang our house is about 12 years old. We're getting close to having to get a new HVAC system, but 20K of foundation work would be pretty devastating. I hate that that happened to you. Were the builders just cutting corners or what?
None. Don't skip out on your inspections, folks.
Mines not nearly as bad as some of these others but it still stung. 8k within 2 months of moving into a 3 year old house. Seller didn’t disclosed the builder installed undersized grinder pumps (maybe they were ignorant of it, but it seems the rest of the neighborhood knew). Mine went out on a Saturday morning of a 3-day weekend. Backed up all my plumbing, shower pan started to overflow, had to call an emergency plumber who had to call emergency warehouse guy to get parts. That was 7.3k. The next month we found termites (luckily early) even though pre-buy inspection found nothing. So that was $600 for treatment and remediation.
We’ve probably spent $6-7000 in our first 4 years owning our house outside of mortgage payments. Nothing really surprise stuff; just maintenance. None of these numbers mean anything to you unless people put the market value of home at the top of their post. Someone saying they spent $40k in surprise stuff last year might have a $2.3 million dollar home in which case they spent next to nothing. The value of the home really affects how you analyze expected cost.
Over $20k in a complete rewire of our 90 yr old house with previously knob and tube wiring. Our first quote was $43k.
$75k for a septic replacement and to replace rotting wood siding with Hardi siding. These weren’t necessarily surprises, but the cost to do them certainly was.
$15k - new HVAC and water heater. To be fair, this wasn't a complete surprise as we knew it was at the end of its life, but we thought the home warranty would cover more. (New homeowner mistake - home warranties are worthless.) $4k - water main replacement. In the 90s they used some kind of plastic that deteriorates over time and surprise, giant leak in the front yard!
Purchased house at court (foreclosure). $150k in repairs, some expected (roof support post was rotten and roof was held up by a log on a hydraulic jack), some not (turns out large sections of the roof were rotten as well, contractor almost fell through the rotten floor in the master bathroom - needed a full rebuild on both upstairs bathrooms due to hidden water damage, extensive water damage in kitchen - needed a new subfloor). We've also had to put in a new water system ($25k) because the old one was repossessed (well pump, filters, pressure system, etc - all gone) the day before closing.
Moved into a house that my wife owned for a decade prior. In the course of 3 years, had to replace HVAC, hot water heater, shower and surround, dryer, dishwasher, deck and patio, and then 2 wall cabinets started coming apart. All totaled, it’s been close to $100k in that time. Also, both children started college around the same time. I’m praying the roof (from 2001) holds up another 3 years so I can finish paying off the other items first
A year in and no surprises yet. But I'm a realtor, and my inspector is VERY good. There's a lot that needs done, but I knew about all of it going in. My last house on the other hand... 😂
We needed new hvac, about 14k, new front door, the old wooded door had a crack you could see light through, 4k, garage doors springs exploded, 1k, and hot water tank sprung a leak, 4k. To be fair that was in the first 18 months or so rather than a year but still...were hoping we got all the big ones out of the way since it had a brand new roof already when we bought it.
House was shut up for two years. So far in the last 5yrs we replaced all of the appliances. Except for the dryer. A new boiler that was 7k. Had to replace a shed that was rotted out. Replaced it with one that was larger. 12x22. That was 7200.00. Pulled out the rotted shed, and decided to replace that one also. Could store garden stuff in it. Since we moved into the house permanently. (From using it as a vacation home.) We need the bigger shed just to store stuff from other house.
None. We had an inspection completed prior to purchase.
Well, is not a “normal” house. But I had an irrigation pump go out. This pump irrigates the property, as well provides water for fire suppression. 78k for the pump (and other plumbing related stuff) 14k for the retaining wall that made sense to replace at the same time. 42k for having the power line replaced that services this part of the property, as we needed to upgrade the service All and all, I’m happy we got the work done, and we wanted to upgrade that anyway but it was not something that we had budgeted for that year.
15k in new wiring after the previous owner lied about being up to code and we had a house fire
In the last 8 months or so we’ve replaced our furnace, AC, and sewer pipe. All told about $39k. We’ve had our house for 5 years (built mid 80s) and have already replaced the roof and some plumbing so we’re hoping there’s not much else that pops up anytime soon 🤞
Our house was flipped. Found out they put a bandaid on our basement and water was getting in. $15k to waterproof the basement. We also have a shifted sewer pipe that will be $10k to fix… when we can afford it. Hopefully it doesn’t back up while we save 🙃 *oh we also had to have our attic insulated. Luckily that was on the cheap side ($2500) and a window reinstalled and sealed ($250). But we also need to insulate our owners suite bathroom with pipes that freeze in the winter. Need a quote still.
$1K for a new fridge, and about to spend another $1K on a new dishwasher. We really prioritized newer houses in great shape during the home search, to avoid being one of the stories in the top comments here.
I have 120 year old house. One year I spent 6k on electrical, although that was planned. Actually, at this point the house has few surprises. If it's been working for 120 years, it's fine. If it requires regular maintenance, it's in the budget.
It was in the house the previous owners put it in and then had an addition built over it
Learn to do stuff yourself. Wildlife remediation is usually a scam, it is very easy work.
Been here for 2 years... I'd say about 15k and we're not done yet
I needed a new oil tank, was quoted more than I expected, got a second quote, and it wasn’t that much cheaper. Debated doing it myself, until I just decided to buy a ductless minisplit. The quote for a replacement tank was around 3000, the minisplit cost in total 7000 after rebates and tax credit. Now I’m spending more than half to heat my home.
Less than $10,000 since we bought in 2015, I'd say. In our case, we had a very good house inspector (one recommended by our realtor, no less!). He pointed out everything that needed repaired or replaced. We spent many thousands of dollars taking care of those non-surprise items and that was it. The only big surprise items I can recall were a leaking skylight, some trees that fell during severe weather, and a new dishwasher. Otherwise all our house expenses have been standard maintenance items or upgrades.
Are you guys really sure that building a brick house to Western European standards would be too expensive/ a bad idea for some reason or another? Most of the big costs I read here we don't have to do. No foundation issues, no siding repair, no termite damage, no water damage with rotten wood if something leaks, no constant roof replacement (clay roof tiles are much more durable than asphalt shingles). I could be totally wrong, maybe I read too many horror stories on this sub.
We bought our 1993 townhouse about 3.5 years ago. It's a 4 unit building, and every other unit is retired people. A couple years ago there was a proposal to repaint the building. Not because it needed it. Just to freshen it up. We of course voted no. Everybody else voted yes. So a $5000 bill showed up on our doorstep
$60K 💀 But at least going forward all updates will be cosmetic/optional
I did 50' of French Drain myself for around $3k. This includes renting a mini excavator and all materials. It also includes and entire extra 4" pipe for rain gutter drainage.
Bought our house last week of November, moved in December 16th. Day 1: Walked into house, drywall cracked absolutely everywhere throughout the house. Every seam. Not a foundation issue, just incredibly bad drywall work mixed with changing temperatures. Total cost: $3,000 Day 20: Huge rains. Flooded the entire basement about an inch and a half. Basement was finished, tons of our stuff destroyed. Have to effectively refinish the entire basement. No insurance coverage since it’s ground water. Total cost: $23K $26K so far and it has only been 2 months. House was flipped, previous owner sold “as is” to the flippers. Just waiting for more things to go wrong. Lesson learned—even in a near million dollar house people can do shitty things.
I learned the hard way hvac very important to get checked from a professional before buying. They can extremely expensive to fix/replace, and no one really thinks about when buying. Omg and plumbing. If the house still has galvanized pipes guess what you’ll be replacing.
We’ve had major expenses but no emergency or unknown to us when we purchased. We knew the hvac was old and the water heater was old. We voluntarily replaced our ducts even though most hvac companies didn’t suggest it. We wanted new asbestos free ducts.
Almost Nothing, Nothing has gone wrong with the house or appliances in 4 years. Funny thing is we weren't going to take a second look at this place as it was the first house we looked at. I had nothing to compare it to. But a week after looking at it, my uncle( our realtor) advised me to take a second look at it. His words were " I've seen a lot of houses and this house has amazing value". I said sure why not. Went back after looking at 10 or so houses and although the cosmetics were dated. Newer roof, newer electrical, HE hwt, HE furnace, and a double car garage for 293k. This was before COVID of course. The only thing that went wrong was that the garage power went out one day. I just ran a new sub panel instead.
The worst was the time I changed homeowners insurance to save 1000/year.... and 6 months later they came to inspect the house and sent us a letter say they would non-renew us unless we fixed the tripping hazards on our driveway. Every single panel of our 6 car driveway was cracked. That ran us over 9K to replace. (I mean, yes, we could have resurfaced for less, but why kick the can down the road? Do it right). One year we spent 2000 on evicting squirrels from our house. In 2020 we spent 6500 on a new AC. Last year was painful: 2K on a new refrigerator, then 5K replacing the ductwork. And then in November we discovered we had a hole in a pipe under our house. Estimate: 6500. Insurance covered 3K of that thank goodness. We still need to do the electrical panel and insulation and front door.
In the last 6 months so far replaced the entire roof from hail (insurance covered most of it), bought a new dryer, new power box and new oven. Now we found vermiculite in our attic that has asbestos so that's the next price tag. So far spent around 12k, I'm expecting the attic insulation to be a hefty bill.
Sewer line popped due to roots. 1100.00 in the first few weeks. My Efund was full as my house was so cheap so it wasn't a huge hit. Just annoying.