Help - What would you offer on this home???

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[quote author="no_vaseline" date=1239179938]Somebody call the realtor and ask if the house has a Post Tensioned Concrete Slab or not so I can either stop obsessing or go to guns and laugh at these fools, please?</blockquote>


Don't know for a fact but I was told that almost all homes there are post tensioned.
 
[quote author="freedomCM" date=1239187226]So what do you think? They took a month off before tensioning the foundation?</blockquote>


Got me, but that crack should never ever happen and somebody's going to get sued.
 
[quote author="no_vaseline" date=1239179938]Somebody call the realtor and ask if the house has a Post Tensioned Concrete Slab or not so I can either stop obsessing or go to guns and laugh at these fools, please?</blockquote>


Do you think the realtor will actually know what a PTCS is?
 
I knew there was a reason for that house being underpriced but seriously, how can a house with that crack be sold??! A bank won't approve a loan on a house with that type of crack..Does that mean the bank that owns the house is liable/accountable for fixing it?? Crazy..
 
[quote author="stone007" date=1239249425]I knew there was a reason for that house being underpriced but seriously, how can a house with that crack be sold??! A bank won't approve a loan on a house with that type of crack..Does that mean the bank that owns the house is liable/accountable for fixing it?? Crazy..</blockquote>


I saw a <a href="http://'http://www.redfin.com/CA/Costa-Mesa/13731-Olympic-Ave-92626/home/3713856'">house in costa mesa</a> with a much bigger foundation problem. Imagine a crater in the middle of the house with the edges of the crater in each and every room. I wish I would have had a camera so I could have taken pictures.

It is only worth the land, and you have to buy it for cash.
 
but (in addition to backing the 405!!!), that house was built in 1962. Doesn't that mean it is a standard concrete slab (not tensioned)? I suspect that means that the land is subsiding. And how would you fix that?



At least the slab of the Ladera house can presumably be ground out and filled with epoxy, back to (almost) good as new.
 
Saw this place last weekend.

- Frontside was completely unremarkable.

- Nice layout and use of space but uninspiring entryway.

- Lame fake wainscoting.

- Backyard was nice size (for LR) but you have your backside neighbors looming right over the fence looking into the yard due to their backyard being 3 feet (or so) wide.

- Garage was tight for 2 cars.

- Crack = deal breaker.



My wife was smokin' the rock pretty hard and thought that because the price was low (and she liked the interior layout) that we should put in a lowball offer too. Why does God hate me?
 
[quote author="crentist" date=1239177553][quote author="crentist" date=1239166783][quote author="stone007" date=1239152511]I never posted a picture of the crack..I think another blogger also had a picture of the crack and posted it. It's a straight line across the entry way - Maybe 3 feet. We looked in the garage and the crack doesn't extend there BUT other side of the crack that extends outside, you can see a 1 inch crack in foundation outside..



Maybe that's why the house is priced at $214/sq foot????</blockquote>


The crack does extend into the garage. I have pictures I'll post when I get home.</blockquote>


Crack in the marble tile:

<a href="http://s240.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/bibipham/?action=view&current=IMG_3696.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/bibipham/IMG_3696.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>



Crack from outside:

<a href="http://s240.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/bibipham/?action=view&current=IMG_3698.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/bibipham/IMG_3698.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>



Crack on other side of the wall in garage:

<a href="http://s240.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/bibipham/?action=view&current=IMG_3699.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/bibipham/IMG_3699.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></blockquote>






Holy crack! Wow this forum is awesome. <a href="http://www.redfin.com/CA/Ladera-Ranch/11-De-Leon-Ln-92694/home/5894163 ">Looks like the house went off the market? </a>



So that crack runs all the way through?
 
OMG! That crack is the worst I have seen not on a huge slope. Who was the builder on that POS? I need to know, so I can stay away. Lemme guess... was it Lennar... NO! KB!
 
So we passed on that house...But interestingly, the seller said home is in escrow for over 600k..Keep in mind they were asking $534,900. Thought that was interesting..Would love to find out what the crack is all about. The house was only built a few years back!
 
I know nothing about foundation cracks or structural issues. But last year when I was getting my house ready for sale, I had the first-floor carpet taken up to put down new flooring. When they pulled it up, there was a crack in the cement running the length of the house in one direction. We got freaked out and wondered what that was. Surprisingly, the flooring guy said he sees this in just about every house he pulls flooring up in and that it's nothing to worry about. Maybe the flooring dude is wrong but I was surprised it was so common and it led us to believe it's no biggie. I don't know but couldn't that be the case here - the house just settles?? (BTW - it passed the home inspection with no problem.)
 
[quote author="SoCal78" date=1240873063]I know nothing about foundation cracks or structural issues. But last year when I was getting my house ready for sale, I had the first-floor carpet taken up to put down new flooring. When they pulled it up, there was a crack in the cement running the length of the house in one direction. We got freaked out and wondered what that was. Surprisingly, the flooring guy said he sees this in just about every house he pulls flooring up in and that it's nothing to worry about. Maybe the flooring dude is wrong but I was surprised it was so common and it led us to believe it's no biggie. I don't know but couldn't that be the case here - the house just settles?? (BTW - it passed the home inspection with no problem.)</blockquote>


A certain amount of foundation cracking is inevitable. Any large concrete pour will crack due to minor settling. That is why concrete is gnerally given score lines so the cracks are directed to predefined weak areas. Concrete slabs are poured without score lines, so the cracks appear at random. The pictures in this thread do not appear to be minor. They usually do not run up the walls or have large separations like those visible in the pictures.
 
Graph and I checked out a house over the weekend (thanks, IR2!) that had enough cracking to make us wary. We thought it might be slipping down a slope. We talked to Cayci's Dad, the Engineering Geologist, about it last night. He said the cracks to be concerned about are ones coming off of the corners of doorways or other 90 degree angles in a diagonal. He said most cracks parallel to a wall are cosmetic with a certain caveat. He said houses are generally built to withstand about an inch of "settling" or movement of the dirt over time. He then said that when you get up to 2 inches then you start to have structural issues with the house. He also said that the cost to fix could be calculated by measuring the distance, in feet, of the perimeter of the house and multiplying it by $1000. He said "yep, a thousand bucks a foot is about right". Graph likes to use a ball of some sort to see how a floor slopes. We learned that if the downward end of a sloping floor is already an inch lower than the starting point to just stay away. Any more movement and you could be in for a world of hurt. Dad did also say "you could make a lot of money buying houses like that". I said "how?" He said "because you offer the bank a price that is discounted twice the cost of fixing it (see calculation above) and then you can sell it for a profit after you fix it".
 
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