First Property Inspection

[Stephen Jenkins]

I had an inspection on my first potential rental property yesterday and discovered that there is 6 inches of standing water in the entire crawlspace. There was a sump pump, but obviously it was not working. I know that I have a couple of options, back away from the offer or request seller to drain water so that my inspector can go back to inspect crawlspace and possibly even hire a wet basement specialist to come take a look and see how the water is getting into the crawlspace. I am more concerned about how water is getting in there as this is not an issue that I want to continue to deal with for my first property. Also, would I have to pay for the specialist or could I ask the seller? There are a couple other repairs necessary that I would want to ask for quite a bit of concessions on. Any advice on whether I should back out now and take the loss of inspection or even bother with continuing to negotiate? Obviously, I have learned a valuable lesson to look into the crawlspace during walkthroughs when I can...