Older (1950's and older) San Diego multi-family

[Mike Hsiao]

I've been looking around San Diego for small multi-family properties.  I've come across a few interesting ones, but they are built in the 1950's, 40's and 30's.

I know some of the things that I need to consider in these older properties when deciding what price to offer is potentially upgrading the plumbing, electrical, insulation, etc.

So I wanted to get some feedback on how to get a sense on how to estimate the costs to repair plumbing and electrical?

I was thinking during the inspection phase, I would hire a professional plumbing and electrical inspector, in addition to the normal home inspection.  Can they get a pretty good feel of what needs to be repaired/upgraded just by looking at exterior features?  I know it's impossible to truly know what's going on without opening up all the floors and walls, but just curious how others here go about this with older properties?

And what other things I should consider if I move forward with an older property?

[Dan H.]

Quote from @Twana Rasoul:

@Dan H. yes I always get sewer lines scoped for sure...so far only one of the inspections came back very bad where I had to replace a section and then reline the rest.  It is definitely nicer to have ABS vs cast iron but cast iron is great still as long as no roots and still in decent shape.

I am very surprised that you have had scopes on cast iron of homes older than early 1950s show not significantly degraded. 

 I have yet to see the connections of cast iron not greatly reduced on diameter on any property that I have had scoped from early 1950s or older (likely more than a dozen scopes).  Common is to have ~1.5” diameter at the connections on 3” pipes or ~2” at the connections on 4” pipes.  Other than the connections, the pipe diameter usually is near original but the connections have corroded inwards.   You can continue in either of these cases realizing that there will be more clogs, but dealing with more drain issues may still be cheaper than re-plumbing the sewer.

Collapsed is worse.  I recently had to re-line due to a collapsed section.  It required concrete work in two locations and a fairly large hole at each location.  It was not cheap.  

5 of my properties have had significant cast iron sewer pipe work in recent years.  The oldest was from I believe 1906 (something close to that, mission beach), but 3 properties are circa 1960 (Pt Loma, two in Escondido) (the other was 1954, Claremont).  

If your cast iron pipes are 1950s or older, I believe they can go at any time or seal so bad at the pipe connections that they no longer are functional.  definitely should at least be prepared for a large cap expense related to the sewer lines.  

For water lines, Maybe there is something about raised foundation versus slab.  Of my slabs, all but one has had a foundation leak.  Of my raised foundations (3), none have had an under foundation leak.  This includes 1906, 1954, and circa 1960 properties, so the age does not seem to be the difference.  If you have a slab that is 50 years old, you can get a foundation leak at any time and should have cap expense reserves to handle a slab leak.  

Good luck