Don’t worry about that. No sane seller is going to just say “Forget it, you can’t have the house” just because you’re negotiating over a valid house defect.
I’d say you’re doing the right thing - go ahead with the purchase, but try to negotiate over the radon. Remember, you’ll never find the perfect house. Sounds like this house has everything else going for it.
One question - you say you made a full price offer to begin with. If the asking price had been $1200 higher, would you still have made a full price offer? If so, and if the house is as good as you say in every other way, and if the seller plays hardball and refuses to budge on the radon issue, you should at least consider just eating the abatement costs yourself, annoying as that may be.
I have no other cite than personal experience several years ago when I was refused financing for a house that had (disclosed) asbestos lagging in the basement. I turned around and got immediate financing for The White Elephant Manor, a newer and different house, a month later. Radon, LBP, and termites were cited in the same breath as asbestos as deal-killers.
Wow, I’ve been trying to respond to this thread for some time, but the board keeps winking out or something.
Anyway, I think this is a great compromise. Just make sure that your real estate agent gets all of the correct signatures to release the money if and when the time comes.
I once got in a snafu when just prior to closing on a condo (my first attempt at a home purchase), the home inspector discovered several suspicious things, including damage to a door that clearly wasn’t there when I’d inspected the house to make an offer. I was in the final stages of negotiating, and when I made a similar offer to yours to put money in escrow to repair any additional damage that might occur prior to their moving out (they wanted 30 days after closing), the seller said “no.” According to the contract, the deal was then dead, as they’d turned down our counteroffer, and I was not obligated to purchase. However, when I tried to get my “good faith” money back, the seller refused to sign a release that allowed the money to come back to me. Essentially, it was in limbo, as neither of us could have access to it. Of course, I got my real estate agent to front me the money, with the agreement that when the paperwork was finally signed, I would endorse the cashier’s check back to the agent. But this was just petty silliness on the part of the seller that, somehow, was legal because of a loophole in the real estate law.
One final word on radon: There’s a lot of disagreement out there about what it’s health effects are. You can surf the Web, as I did, and find completely opposite opinions as to whether it’s a problem or not. Some people argue that the EPA regulations are nothing more than Big Government trying to scare us so that the abatement industry can make a buck. Others point out that many of the studies on radon are flawed, as they were based on exposures to uranium miners, who do not represent the typical homeowner. And even if you are exposed to radon, there’s no guarantee of getting cancer, as genetics and environmental variables come into play.
I did, however, talk to an M.D. researcher who recently published findings of a longitudinal study in Iowa on the effects of radon exposure. He’s convinced there’s a correlation between even low levels of exposure and the risk of lung cancer. In the past, studies have been problematic because it may take years after exposure before any ill health effects are seen–and by that time, isolating the variables that may have caused illness is difficult. However, his team’s study seems pretty solid, as it tried to isolate as many of the variables as possible, such as focusing on people who remained in the same residence for years.
Will there ever be absoluate proof? Probably not. Scientists love to argue about such things and rarely, if ever, seem to feel any personal responsibility when they mislead people with opinions that turn out to be wrong. It all reminds me of the decades-long debates about whether smoking actually caused cancer or not. But I think for peace of mind and resale down the road, investing $1,000 or so now makes a lot more sense that waiting till later. At the very least, if you thwart illness, that $1,000 will be a lot cheaper than what you’ll pay a team of physicians to treat you.
I don’t really doubt that it is a health risk. I just think that if your house has high levels of Radon, your front lawn, car, and everywhere else you will be near and around your house will have similar levels. Granted, even the most active person spends approximately 1/3 of their time in the house, asleep, so reducing the levels in the house isn’t in the category of pissing in the wind. However, given the fact that if you’re in an area that has frequent temperature inversions (the atmospheric condition that allows for Radon build up in local areas) you’ll be facing higher levels every time you leave the house or open a window… <shrug>
When the levels involved are that close to the limit, I’d rather worry about fallout, Chernobyl bits, and cosmic rays, if I have to worry about a radiation hazard.
Of course, I’m also the person who keeps telling all his friends that radiation prevents Alzheimer’s disease. And if it weren’t for them pesky medical ethicists, I could prove it, too!
Actually, radon gas dissipates almost immediately in open air, so it’s much more likely that the outside radon levels will be lower than indoor ones, usually in the .5 picocuries per liter to 1.5 picocuries per liter range. There would have to be extraordinarily high levels of radon gas seeping from the earth for the outside levels to be high. At least, that’s what I was told by the experts. I agree with you, though, that there are lots of other things environmentally to be concerned with!
The radon remediation will cost $1200 according to my expert’s estimate (there’s a bearing wall in the middle so there need to be two suction pipes drilled and a horizontal pipe to connect them). The seller is giving me $600 off purchase price. I’m going to do a long-term test, 6 to 9 months, and get the reading then. We’ll see what that is, since the levels fluctuate a lot, and the reading I got was done in the depths of winter after heavy rains when no one had been in the house for at least 3 weeks, a recipe for a high score. Also, apparently the short-term tests have as high as a 20% margin of error (!). Once those long-term results are in, I’ll decide if I need to remediate. If it’s not below 3.7, I probably will.
I don’t have time to read the other posts, so here’s my experience/advice.
I bought my current house new and tested it for radon. Came back at 4.4 picocuries. I didn’t have to do anything, but got it abated anyway. Most European governments long ago set a 2.0 picocurie standard, so I put little credence in what the stooges at EPA said. Cost me $600, because the house already had the piping in place. Now it tests at about .5 picocuries.
Actually, your dream house might have a worse radon problem than it tested at. It’s illegal and outrageous, but equally common, for realtors to direct sellers to air out their basements just prior to testing. They know that airing it out will give an artificially low value. The person who pays is the buyer: you and your renter, with your health.
No one wants to waste money, but $1200 is chump change compared to chemotherapy. Find a company that takes VISA and pay $30 a month. First, however, I’d first try caulking any cracks and gaps.
BTW, IIRC, don’t know if you have well water, but about 50 percent of all wells have elevated radon levels. That’s a problem, especially if you take showers and your head is right next to the shower head.
This didn’t happen. No one lives in the house and the tenant was on Xmas recess and was gone for at least 2 weeks. The house was totally shut tight for that time. Houses test higher in winter and higher when it’s wet out (and boy has it been bloody wet lately), so all those facts combine with the margin of error on the 3 day test, and I need to retest. The NYS website in fact indicates a long-term test as the next step.
There are no cracks or gaps, nor open drains, nor a sump pump. Nary an opening to caulk anywhere. I wasn’t kidding when I said this basement was tight.
This is not to say I won’t remediate. But I need more data.
Not sure in what state ‘south of heaven’ is located Rubystreak, but PA has done their best to make it another unlegislated tax, by requiring registration to test for radon unless you are the owner or builder. Gee, I guess the owner would do a much better job of putting those charcoal cans in the basement for 48 hours than I could possibly manage. :rolleyes:
After that, being an abatement contractor is another racket requiring a special license and certification of CEUs per annum. You betcha. There’s no way that a simple contractor as I could know enough to break up a corner of the slab, install an extraction fan with venting outside the dwelling unless I was certified by the state and paid all of those fees. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
