this is one to walk away from unless you're willing to spend the next 10
years finding all the other stuff wrong......

fixer-uppersa re great if you've got the time and money to do the work (and
can stand living ina construction site), but be realistic about what you can
do and put up with. Also, don't count on the inspection to find evefrthing -
theres all kinds of stuff going on inside the walls that they can't see. If
you have (had) termites,powder post beetles, or some other wood-destroying
bug in hte main support beam, what makes you think they didn't also nibble
on studs, floor joists, etc. You can't see most of those until you open up
the wall......

I'd let this one go..

__JD



"Gren" wrote in message
om...
Oh boy. Just this past friday, my wife, our broker, an indepedant
inspector and I converged and met regarding a house we're looking to
buy. We love this house, and really have begun to dream about what we
can do with it. It's a little bit of a fixer-upper, but nothing
crazy... or so I thought.

Enter.. the inspector. "Hmm.. well.. that roof is an issue" "Oh?"
It turns out, the seller never replaced the roof.. they just layered
it. 4 -6 layers of shingles. We had an opportunity to get in the
attic and see the roof from the inside-out and found there was NO
plywood sublayer for the shingles. They were nail directly onto the
rafters and then scaled. No sublayer.. no tar paper.. just shingles.
4-5 layers of 'em.

SO. (1) We need a new roof.. the whole thing ripped up and replaced
with plywood (or whatever that first layer is) and shingles.

Next thing. (2) 60 amp electrical service to the house. (ugh)
ORIGINAL and ACTIVE knob and tube wiring throughout. I would say
10-20% of the house is knob and tube/fuses.. the rest on a curcuit
breaker. Need to have it updated to 100/200 amp service.

annnddd.. (3) some wood boring beetle damage in the basement. One
load-bearing girder and the stairs leading into the basement need to
be replaced/treated.

that's the major stuff. we've asked the seller to address these
issues.. I'm just afraid of the fact that although we've fallen in
love with this home, the roof might be a serious problem and could
lead to us passing on the home.

I honestly don't know how much these various tasks will cost the
seller to fix. I'm guessing (I could be way off) but.. 10k for the
roof, 1.5k for the electrical (60 amp to 100 amp) and 1.5k for girder
to be jacked/replaced and new stairs. And this is to be performed by
licensed contractors, not by the seller's buddy handyman.

purchase price for home.. 154k. my 'estimated' cost for seller to
repair these issues: at least 13k. (could be much higher, I dunno)

need advice.