Floor Settling

[Gary St. Armand]

I have an appointment to look at a house that is a duplex that was built 1954. The lowest comp I saw, on cyberhomes was 439K. The seller was told by a contractor that the floor is settling, and it will cost him about 75K to repair the floor. I wanted to know if any of the veterans in the CT area had faced such an issue. I am not looking to rehab the house, I just want to get a real sense of what kind of repair cost the rehaber-end buyer will face, and so that I can make an intelligent offer to the homeowner. The owners seems to think I may need to start from scratch and rebuild. The property is located in CT, if that helps. I will not be rehab this house. The goal is to flip it to a rehabber. It would really help to hear from the rehabber that has personally delt with this issue or has been in the game for more than a decade.

[Brian Levredge]

It really depends on how out whack the flooring is and if the foundation is still settling. I can tell you that it is a huge proposition and your best case scenario is to have the house lifted of the foundation, have the foundation torn out and replaced, and then set the house back down on top of the new one. That doesn't account for soil testing, engineering, plan review, etc. You could end up have to put in large pads and piles which will only add to the cost.

I live in CA but given the cost of housing in CT, I would imagine construction costs are pretty close. I am a General Contractor in addition to being a RE investor and I wouldn't touch that deal with a 10 foot pole unless you could get 5 or 6k per unit in rent monthly.