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Don’t the buyers know all this stuff before they plunk down hard cash? Surely the horrible paint jobs, rooms full of garbage and filth, etc. at least are known ahead of time. As far as the structural stuff, didn’t the buyers get an independent inspection? When it comes to general cleanup, etc., isn’t there a pre-closing walkthrough, with checklists and requirements for specific fixes or deductions from the cost for unrepaired items?
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In the case of my brother and his wife, they bought a house based on “potential”. To put it another way, what do they say are the three most important things in real estate? Location, location, location.
The house they bought was a mile from my brother’s workplace, and 5 miles from my sister-in-law’s workplace. It had a reasonable amount of property, enough bedrooms to permit a computer room, plus two or three bedrooms for children (planned, but not yet concieved). And it was affordable–in part because no one else wanted it. My brother and his wife were willing to put forth some sweat equity in their new house.
They did have it professionally inspected, but most of the stuff about which we roll our eyes and ask “How could you be so disrespectful to this nice property?” isn’t really in the inspector’s domain.
And really, compared to some of the stories in this thread, my brother and his wife got off easy.
The bad wallpaper and bad paint jobs they knew about. The master bathroom needing work, they knew (fixing it turned into a saga in and of itself, but that’s not the fault of the sellers, it’s the fault of the guy my brother and his wife hired to do the work).
The filth? They kind of knew and kind of didn’t. It’s a bad sign when there are dust bunnies dangling from cold air returns in plain sight. But it doesn’t exactly tip you off to the massive amounts of grease which had floated through the air and deposited themselves on all concieveable surfaces. (The only problem with bodily function related filth was a stinky bathroom, which became less stinky with use. )