4 Unit First Purchase

[Joseph Russo]

My son has an offer pending on a 4 unit, above asking price. Its a 100 yr old house that hasn’t been maintained well. In the process of inspections, several “majors” were found. His lawyer, who also invests, said he needed further detail about repair costs. On the low side, he’s looking at another $50k over time, on the high side, it could balloon up to $100k. Some of the majors include: roof, 3 porches that are not sound (2 are two-level), power supply line to the house from the utility company is within grabbing distance to one of the 2nd floor porches, detached garage needs to be torn down, chimney needs to be lined and pointed, the chimney people said the capacity of the liner wouldn’t support the boilers and hot water tanks....now we’re talking about possibly replacing the water tanks with high efficiency direct vent, cracked and cobbed cast iron sewage, leaking vent stack, improperly supported/failing support structures in basement, asbestos wrapped pipes, etc. This process is in the 3rd week and now he’s worried that backing out will give him a bad reputation as an investor.

Any encouraging words or insight for this 1st time buyer?