We’ve found a house which in many ways is perfect for us. Good-sized yard, great location, and the house is in great shape. The house itself is probably a bit larger than we need, but so far it’s the best price we’ve seen…
… but it’s got that pool.
It’s got an in-ground vinyl pool, and it’s currently sitting empty. There’s a black tarp over the whole thing, but there’s nothing supporting it, so it’s just holding about a foot of water at the bottom of the pool. We’re in Maryland, so there’s really only a few months of the year we could even use a pool, assuming that the pool is in usable condition. And, honestly, I’d rather work on other parts of the yard and house, so I know I won’t want to do any sort of pool maintenance.
So… should the pool be a dealbreaker for us? It hasn’t been inspected yet, so that might be the decider right there, but I don’t want to spend money on the inspection if we don’t want to move ahead on the pool.
I’d prefer to fill it in- but that’d tear up the yard, especially if we have to fully remove the thing. I’ve heard another option is build a deck over it, with a sump pump to keep it clear… but then you’ve got the issue of an empty pool “floating” up.
It wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me. Fill isn’t really that expensive (I know because we just had a zillion tons of the stuff brought in when we did a garage addition) and neither is dozer work. I bet you could knock the walls in, fill it, cover with top soil and seed for 2-3k. Call around to some local excavation companies and ask.
Get a price from a professional—in writing----and make it a point of negotiation.
Ask the seller to absorb some or all of the cost of professionally back filling it. If they say “no”, and I assume they will, decide whether the cost is still worth buying the property, which otherwise you seem to like.
I realize you don’t owe anything to anybody else, but it’s a functional in-ground pool that could make another house-hunter really happy. Given that you’re already hesitating about buying it, eh. I’d pass.
This is the most ridiculous advice I’ve ever heard for a number of reasons.
If it’s an in ground vinyl pool kit, you may be able to barter for someone to come and remove it for free, then you would just have to fill in the hole.
If I was selling a house and someone made a negotiating point about the pool I’d look for another buyer. If you want the house, buy it and fill it in yourself, or leave it as a pool. Turn it into a big goldfish pond if you like, but as long as it’s functional there’s no reason for the seller to care about your petty concerns any more than they would agree to repaint in a color you like. And unless you were absolutely locked into a sale, nobody is going to destroy something that adds even minimal value to their property. If the seller is desperate for some reason, they may do as you ask, but that will just make the process of completing the sale more difficult.
On second read, I agree with Tripolar, I assumed the pool was not operational, therefore you would have some leverage as to the cost to repair it or remove it.
If it is functional, there is no incentive for the seller to negotiate with you.
Fill the empty pool with random trash, crap, and cover it with plywood of diverse shapes and sizes.
Start a home “business” where you will sell used cars. Buy junker clunker cars and park them on the plywood-covered pool so that you can fix them* and sell them.
*(note - possessing knowledge about actual car repair not required)
Wait for the cars to sink into the pool hole.
Declare bankruptcy and abandon house and clunker car graveyard.
It’s all a matter of supply and demand. In most places world wide right now it’s a buyer’s market. Is the seller has—or anticipates—a lot of interest in the home he/she has little incentive to consider paying for all or part of removing the pool-----functional or not.
On the other hand…if the property has been on the market for a while and reality has humbled the seller a bit, he/she may do things that in a better market they would flatly refuse to do.
If the market sucks right now in that locale, that seller may have all kinds of reasons to be compliant. It never hurts to ask.
ETA
And a pool is not universally appealing. Many people can only see their 3 year old—or the neighbor’s 3 year old—drowning and want no part of a pool.
I say ask.
The laws of supply and demand will dictate, in part, the willingness of the seller to agree.
I did mention they might be desperate to sell. And the pool has to be reasonable in their location. And it’s usually a selling point in a suburban location. But there’s no doubt there’s a lot factors in play. For instance is it really a functional pool. It’s likely they’ll have be responsible for ensuring that unless it’s clearly stated otherwise in a contract. But I think with the low cost of filling in a pool it’s something easy for the purchaser to take care of, and the seller may look at that as an unnecessary complexity. There may be options to have the mortgage cover the cost of filling it in after the sale, so the seller doesn’t have to do anything and the buyer doesn’t need cash on the side to cover that cost. Otherwise it’s simple to make an offer that is just reduced by the cost to fill it in.
ETA: And it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask. Worst case, they say no.
I’ve looked into the cost of having a company fill it in- top end, about 10k. A bit high, but do-able, and it’s certainly something we could at least do a bit on our own.
The problem is that the house is being sold as part of a divorce proceeding. This means, apparently, that we’re going to have a hard time getting the owner(s) to pitch in on anything, because they aren’t technically the ones who are selling it. Our agent said it’s kind of like dealing with a short sale, but not quite as bad. We’ve decided to make a lowball offer, simply because the house itself is so good.
It’s 38x18, 8 foot deep end. Like I said, the $10k figure is the high end- most of the estimates have been between $3k and $7k. That’s to have the vinyl shell removed, something which is apparently required in this area.
Ok, I just wanted to mention it in case you’d only gotten one quote. We recently put in an attached 3 car garage with a big breezeway, 4’ frost walls all around, and enough fill for at least 5 pools, and for all that foundation/dozer work it was only 12k. Filling in a pool should be a lot less than that. Good luck with the house!
Buy a dozen or so skateboards and invite the local neighborhood kids to play in your pool. Empty swimming pools make great “skate parks.” Charge each kid $5 per day to skate in the pool. Now the fill-in can pay for itself.
10 grand is a lot to fill in that pool. It will take many truckloads of fill though. Check around though. It sounds like the price you when you ask ‘how much to fill in this pool next week?’ instead of ‘want to get rid of some excess fill?’
