Do I need to replace support beam?

[Frank Jiang]

A house I'm looking at has some stress in its internal support and I'm unsure of what's causing the problem.  I know basically nothing about this sort of issue.  Possible culprits are the house had an addition built on the front side of the second floor, it has a free hanging patio, and there looks like there might have been some water damage in the garage at some point.

Load bearing beam in garage (basement) of a house I'm looking at has cracks along the entire width and some slight bowing towards the front of the house.  Cracks are maybe half a centimenter wide at worst points.

There also appears to be some integrity issues outside.  This photo is of the area right above the garage on the side of the house.

Here's a photo of the front of the house with the addition at the top and the free hanging patio shown.  Window shown in the third picture is the window on the right side of the house above the garage.

Any suggestions on what I should be looking for to remedy and how much it might cost me?

[Chris Seveney]

If the house is a very good deal hire an engineer which will cost $200-$500 to evaluate it as this could be a small problem or a very large problem