The danger of foreclosures . . . or what more could go wrong

[Jennifer A.]

So I posted awhile ago that my husband and I bought a home at a foreclosure sale.  We did not do much due diligence but actually worked out well as far as title and cost.  But it has been a story of if something can go wrong, it will.  After initial evaluation of the property, we anticipated replacing the air conditioning, redoing some drywall, paying an electrician to finish some electrical work, replacing the flooring through the whole house and having to pay a plumber to fix some potential leaks in the plumbing due to being abandoned.  We budgeted about $20,000 for those expenses.  Plus we knew we had tons of cosmetic things to fix ourselves (painting inside and out, replacing toilets, redoing the tile in the bathroom, etc.).  In addition, the city was repaving the street in front of the property and installing sidewalks.  While that didn't cost us money, it was a pain.  We did get the city to remove a big, dead pine tree from the front yard as we felt the integrity would be compromised by their sidewalk.  Saved us some serious dough for having to remove it.

Then, as we get into the property we start to find more problems.  The plumber determines that we need to repipe the whole house because there are so many leaks.  Which means we have to remove all the ceilings in the basement.  And then replace them.  We need to also replace the furnace because although newer, it isn't functioning correctly and will probably die soon.  Fortunately the electrician doesn't cost us as much money as I've budgeted and it will cover the cost of the repiping of the house.  We also have another tenant who does drywall on the side so we hire him to do the drywall for less than our usual professional.  Great.  We are still on budget.

However, the drains are not draining well and our plumber suggested we bring someone in to check out our septic line and clean it out.  He comes out yesterday and tells us that the pine tree that was removed in the front yard has roots that have grown into the septic and compromised the integrity of the sewer pipe to the point it has to be replaced.  Fart!!  That's a good $10,000 problem.  I did NOT budget for that.  Then he calls back and says, actually the sewer line has been crushed around where the sidewalk was installed.  Fabulous, except I have no proof that it wasn't like that before the work started as this house has been abandoned for two years.  Ugh!!  My husband calls the city and they inform him that they scoped all the sewers prior to beginning their work and ours was NOT crushed then so this is a contractor issue with the street and sidewalk crew that will be fixed at no cost to us.  Hallelujah!  But, it means scheduling the work, them ripping up their brand new sidewalk and all our new lawn that we seeded and is finally coming in nice.  Oh, and it has to be done before our tenants move in on October 1!

It just seems like nearly everything major that can go wrong has gone wrong with this house.  It has been a ton more time and energy than we originally predicted.  Of course that almost always seems to happen.  Buying foreclosed properties isn't for the weak.  Thankfully we've got good contractors and the funds to do these repairs.  If not, we could have easily ruined ourselves financially.  So for those considering buying a foreclosure, just make sure you have more money than you anticipated because so many things can happen.  Hopefully you won't need it, but better safe than sorry!!