Just out of curiosity, why would a suicide make this house risky?
Amen on the inspector! In our early hunting days, we didn’t use one. The older and wiser we got, the more we knew they were worth the fee.
Oh…the ‘3 bedroom’ house.
I had seen several houses where they obviously were trying to play the +1 bedroom so we can ask for a buttload more money game like a previous poster where there was obviously 1 bedroom but the converted it into 2 really small bedrooms…
However, this one was laughable. They ‘converted’ the entryway to the backyard as a ‘bedroom’. They put a really small bed and had the closet filled with clothes and added a door between that room and the kitchen. It was still the only way to get into the backyard though…you had to go from the kitchen through the ‘bedroom’ to the backyard.
Actually was a decent house and we bid on it. We only used comparables with 2 bedrooms as our pricing guidelines and the owners didn’t even respond to our bid.
Sure, sure, just you wait and see. One day the kids will be in there playing and the walls will start to bleed.
Yea…and whatever you do use your OWN inspector. Do not use the one the real estate agents recommend.
For me, the creep factor would be a huge hurdle. Also, who knows if the voices the guy was hearing were all in his head or not.
Not as dramatic as some of the other cases cited, but amusing nonetheless…
We looked at a house that was advertised as having a wood-burning fireplace in the living room. It did, and the wall-to-wall carpeting in the room was an unbroken swath from the opposite wall to the back of the firebox. WTF?
When I was househunting, I saw a house with a beautiful view of the Susquehanna River–the house itself sat on top of a fairly large hill, on a couple of acres. Just what I wanted, or so I thought before I actually saw the inside of the house.
It was one which had been built around 1930’s or so and had rooms tacked on since then. Like the kitchen. And the bathroom (off of the kitchen). And the enclosed porch with an added enclosed porch. (Yes, double enclosed porches.) The upstairs (originally what I thought must have been the attic) had ceilings so sloped that at least half of the two bedrooms (the ONLY bedrooms) were unusable and were so tiny it’s likely that I would have been able to get in a full sized bed. (Each room had a tiny single bed in them.) Oh, and at the top of the unlit stairs (which were carpeted and itty-bitty–not full sized steps), you came into the first bedroom. No landing or hallway, just up the steps and POW you’re in bedroom #1. The other bedroom was right next to the first and neither had a bedroom door. Nor did the two nearly unusable due to size closets.
To top it off, the owner was there during the showing, sitting at her kitchent table, talking about all the “work” her husband had put into the house when he was alive and how much she was going to miss living here–it was the home in which she’d raised her children (in the two above mentioned bedrooms, I’m assuming) and how she didn’t really want to sell and move, but her daughter insisted she couldn’t live alone anymore.
When we were in the basement and I carefully mentioned that I didn’t think this was the house for me (and Hallboy), my agent took me aside and told me she wouldn’t let me buy this house.
Maybe I watch too much HGTV but why would an agent think they could sell some of these houses in that condition. If an agent really wanted that commission, why would they not take aside the owners and tell them, “hey, the house might sell easier if you took the heads off the wall or shoveled the dog poo outta the basement”. The agent gets paid and the owner sells the house, it’s a win/win. Why would an agent list a house they know full well can’t possibly sell? If an agent is selling a vacant house, why not pop $200 and hire a cleaning service? Why not open a “consulting” business on the side that advises home sellers on what will attract buyers?
A few years ago I owned 2 houses simultaneously and I was begging my agent for advice on what I needed to do to get rid of the house in the ghetto. She never seemed prepared to answer the question. I hired a very seasoned agent and yet she couldn’t give advice. It seemed to me she wasn’t actively trying to sell the house and all she was doing was sitting around waiting for a phone call. It just seems to me that agents could do more with their years of experience.
Nightmare House. Years ago, my former husband and I toured a house that really had nothing wrong with it but was so off that I questioned my sanity. 
The first thing was the layout; it was a fairly small one-story ranch, yet the living room was out-of-proportion enormous. And it was filled with dolls. The older lady of the house collected antique dolls, and they were on every piece of furniture, several bookcases and wall-mounted shelves in this huge-ass room. OK, fine, but freaky.
Then there was a den, which was narrow by comparison, and off which was a strange tiny tiny bathroom. The door was weirdly small, maybe two feet wide (no lie! I had to turn sideways to get in) and it was questionable if you could actually sit on the toilet, it was so close to the wall.
And then the low-ceiling basement: it was spotlessly, unnaturally, freakishly clean. Like no one had ever, ever been down there in the history of time. And in the middle of the floor was a large pit covered by a concrete slab … a sump-pump or cistern I suppose, but all I could imagine was that there were heaps of bodies down in there and they had just spent the last month scrubbing the nightmare-basement clean of all the atrocities. :eek: I bolted upstairs past the eyes of a thousand dolls and ran for the car.
Yes, I was young and had a too-vivid imagination.
The Crusty Microwave House Looked great in the listing. Right size, right neighborhood. Probably totally irrational, but during the walk-through, I could not get past the filthy, crusty microwave sitting on a rickety card table in the kitchen. The house seemed normal, lived in, not outrageously decorated, and priced right. I just could not get past that microwave. I guess I figured it the owner thought that stinky mess was perfectly appropriate for a real estate showing, then much more scary stuff was lurking elsewhere. Even my agent shuddered at the sight and said he’d mention it to the listing agent if he got the chance.
Childhood Injury House
I was pregnant when we were house-hunting this last time, and my still-vivid imagination was probably working overtime in this department BUT … I was slack-jawed at the lovely home a family of five (including one baby) was moving out of because it seemed like toddler-death just waiting to happen.
First was the tile floor in the living room. All I could see was a kid face-planting off the couch and splitting his head wide open. Then there was the open stairway, which went steeply straight up to the second floor, which had an exposed balcony overlooking the living room. Not only could I see tots launching themselves off the railings onto the tile floor below, I was appalled that there seemed no way to gate off the stairs off to begin with.
They also seemed to subscribe to the decorating theory that large, overstuffed furniture looks charming in rooms with little floor space — and there were Pack and Plays and exersaucers everywhere. In addition to life-threatening toddler injuries, I imagined my large pregnant self tripping over shit and plunging to my splattered death myself.
Ironically we did buy a house with an exposed second-floor balcony, but the set-up isn’t nearly as dangerous-seeming as that house!
The Cujo house: The house itself was fine, but right next door was a very large dog, barking viciously and pulling on its chain. (“Why won’t this thing break?!”) The listing agent wanted to know why we didn’t put a down payment on the house then and there. I tried to be tactful, but he took personal offense at that, so I said, “I don’t want to get eaten by that dog!”
The carpet house: One house we looked at had wall to wall carpet that was vivid, neon green. Seriously, you could read by that carpet. (On second thought, that would have saved money on lightbulbs.)
This isn’t a househunting story, but a house that I rented for a couple of years with my husband.
All the rooms were tiny, but the bathroom had been tucked under the stairs to the upper unit. I had no real problem with getting in there and sitting down to do my business, but the stairs went over the toilet in such a way that my husband had to stand with his head cocked on his shoulder while he peed. He hit it on the stairs in a stupor three or four times in the early mornings when we first moved in, but eventually, he trained himself to naturally stand in that position to pee.
Then he noticed that men were avoiding him at public urinals (more than always happens, I mean). I think it was at least a year after we moved out of that house before he was back to peeing while looking straight ahead.
When I told my husband about this thread, he immediately said, “Green…” Guess it made a big impression on him, too.
By the way, we did our house-hunting almost two decades ago.
That is the thing I don’t understand about some buyers. They look at things that aren’t even going there when they move in if they buy the house. A lot of people comment not just on weird things like the condition of the owner’s things but also their furniture. I don’t even think the current paint colors should matter much. Carpet doesn’t cost much to replace either. I always block the current state of the house out of my mind and just try to view it as a blank slate with my tastes added in.
I agree with you on things like furniture and such, but I can understand where the quote is coming from. If the seller thought a microwave that was incredibly rusty was fine to leave out like that it shows what the seller things is appropriate. Who knows what kind of hidden damage a house inspector will find.
A few years ago, my parents were looking for a new house. They found a beautiful house on a hill overlooking much of the town, with a fantastic view, and an amazing yard full of picturesque rock outcroppings. The house itself was large, stately, with new cherry wood floors and a great layout.
There was another house sharing the driveway, some distance away, constructed at the same time by the same builder.
My parents loved the house and made an offer, which was accepted. They had a home inspection, which went well enough, and were about to consider it a done deal when the inspector called with the radon test results.
The radon levels were the highest he had ever seen. With a little digging, my parents found out the previous owner had died of lung cancer. The neighbor, in the “sibling” house, had terminal lung cancer as well.
It would have been technically possible to install a ventilation system, but even the radon system installer was reluctant to guarantee that it would work. Needless to say, they retracted the offer.
My parents bought a house with filthy white carpet on both floors, including the bathrooms & kitchen/dining area. And a large pool of water on the floor of the (white carpeted) basement. And a 2 car garage filled completely (and I mean every inch of floor space) with newspapers & garbage and with boarded up windows. Also, just looked in general very run down - roof, paint, chimney askew, pea gravel instead of yard, etc. Just generally dirty. I thought they were insane but they’d always wanted a house on the water & couldn’t be reasoned with.
Had to eat my words when it turned out the white carpet on the main floor was hiding beautiful hardwoods, only needing refinishing. The water in the basement was due to a faulty water heater, not foundation issues. Once the garage was cleaned out they discovered a decent studio apartment in the back end with 3/4 bath with nice tile. Roof turned out to need patching, not replacing. Chimney shortened which didn’t require as much rebuilding. The studio has turned out to be a real plus now that they’re older - they trade rent for caretaker duties. It’s a very solidly build house and, compared to what their waterfront neighbors paid, unbelievable deal. 15 years later they’ve got a showplace on the water.
OK, I’ve been thinking “heh, country differences” for the last several posts (in Spain it’s very common to see “sale by owner”; my own flat was one), but this one made me LOL. Tile floors throughout are extremely common in mediterranean countries; the other frequent option is parquet (except for the tiled kitchen and bathrooms), sometimes you find hardwood or marble.
My generation is over 100 people counting both sides of the family. There are two of us who’ve had head wounds, both of us as little kids, and in both cases it was caused by a parent opening a door too fast without realizing the kid was close to it. The handles on the door which left this scar breaking one of my eyebrows in half wasn’t even sharp.
I fell in love with the last apartment I had in Miami because it had tile floors - no carpet! Yes! The owners of the apartment complex were jews who’d returned to the US after several years in Israel and put tile throughout because it’s more expensive to install but oh, so much easier to maintain.