Foundation issues in house

[Miguel Horta]

I recently purchased a house in Indiana. 2 bed 1 bath about 1200 sq ft. Looks like it needs a decent amount of foundation work. Can anyone provide a estimate of what those cost are to fix the foundation? just want to get a general estimate to start budgeting. Anybody who can provide any advice on these repairs would be greatly appreciated.

[Joe Splitrock]

@Miguel Horta depending on the location and property, you may not want to do anything. There are a lot of old properties in my city with foundation issues and they basically brace up the structure and leave it. If you are not using the basement as living space, that may be the best option. The problem is, as a California investor, you are going to get soaked by a local foundation company. You say California and they hear "rich sucker". You could dump $20K into that and it may not increase property value a penny. Foundation companies are notorious for over charging and over engineering fixes. 

The big concern is structural integrity, so you look for signs of floor joists not being properly supported or unlevel. Another concern is water penetration, so you want to see what happens after a rain storm. 

You can also try to find a contractor or structural engineer that doesn't do foundation work to give you their opinion. That will help with a less bias analysis.