All Forum Posts by: S Buhidma Caudill

Thanks everyone for taking the time to share your input and suggestions! I asked the company for the actual report and it looks like it's a much more complex issue than I understood at first:

There's two breaks under the house and a fall in the line. There's water leaking under the house, and there's water backed up under the sewer line in the yard. It's, in a word, a mess.

@Aaron Gordy - you're correct, it was built in 1975. Since purchasing it 5 years ago, I've discovered it's been "jerry-rigged' in every way possible. I'll file this under "lessons learned the hard way."

@Darius Ogloza - great question, I'll look into that. It looks like I need ask the company for an itemized estimate.

@Christopher Phillips - “For a job like that, you should get three quotes and have them try and break the quotes down by labor, parts, permits, and such. Sometimes they won't be able to give you much detail because it's just based on averages that they've charged in the past for similar work.” Thank you for this great advice.

@Aaron Gordy - They’re a foundation company that has a group of master plumbers on staff. They did not do the original foundation work. They came highly recommended to me through a friend of a friend because they'd use a scope to identify the problem (the first plumber I called out said they'd just start digging to look for the problem...no thanks!). They scoped the line (as @Danny Webber suggested) and found the origin of the leak was not under the slap but along the pipe reaching to the city line. In addition, they found two different kinds of pipes down there, and said they’d replace it to bring it up to code.

@Bjorn Ahlblad - your story definitely makes me feel better...thank you!

I own a duplex in Austin, very close to the Domain (an ever expanding area, even during the pandemic). I got it at a great price about 5 years ago, due to its foundation issues.

During the sale, our real estate agent successfully negotiated for the seller to pay the cost of the foundation repair, and then we eventually split the cost of resulting plumbing repair with the seller (a very expensive endeavor).

My husband and I are househacking. The initial plumbing repair took up enough of our startup money that we were only able to repair the side we wanted to rent out, and basically have done nothing to our side (our side is NOT rent ready...it still has lots of wall and floor damage from the initial foundation repair).

Fast forward to today - I’ve discovered they only repaired HALF of the foundation. Our previous tenant moved out in February. We discovered a lot of damage from foundation movement on that side. So much, that we decided to go ahead and fix the foundation on that side.

As luck would have it, the company we used repaired the foundation - they dug through several places in the floor to do it, then back filled the dirt, THEN they did the hydrostatic test, only to discover it failed. (Note to self - next time go with a company that does a preliminary test before doing the work, and then does not back-fill the dirt until they’ve done the final test!)

Anyway, I found another, much better company who was able to locate a pretty big sewer leak under the house. The repair requires them to tunnel 40 feet and replace the pipes all the way out to the city sewer line. It’s a $14000 price tag. Understandably so.

My husband and I are reeling from the sticker shock. We’d love to get y’alls take on this - is this just part of the investment game, and totally worth it, given the location of our property? Or does this sound like way too much money, better to just “sit on it” on it for a while, or get out from under it completely?

Ultimately we just want to know how you guys would think through this problem.

Thanks in advance for any ideas you can share!

Thanks Alex! It does!

Hi everyone! I’m pretty new to this, so I apologize if my question seems basic or obvious. I’m in the middle of Brandon Turner’s awesome book on Rental Property Investing, but I could use some advice sooner than later.

The question: should I refinance my property to complete the house-hacking rehab I started? Or refinance to acquire an additional property? Or refinance for both (and is that an option?)?

My goal is to build a strong foundation for a small, but strong investment portfolio. (I’d prefer quality over quantity, though I’m sure that could change down the line).

The context: my real estate agent sent me a property this week that failed the 2% (and 1%!) test and the 50% rule actually showed it giving me negative cash flow. The only clear benefits I see to pursuing this duplex for a much lower price is 1) it’s appreciation is pretty sure because of its location and 2) it’s two houses down from the duplex I currently own and am house-hacking.

My current property: my husband and I bought this duplex 5 years ago with ZERO education on what we were doing. We lucked out - it was super cheap for the location due to foundation issues. We leased it to a (patient) friend while we threw all our startup money into rehabing it. We ran out of said startup money just as we got the first side rentable.

Now that side looks beautiful, but the side we live on is NOT renter-ready (cabinets pulled away from the walls, holes in the laminate floor where they had to fix plumbing the foundation repair broke, etc).

Thankfully the last 5 years has not been a complete loss: we’ve paid down the mortgage loan a good amount and between a combination of appreciation and forced appreciation, we’ve got some equity in the property.

The economic climate presents some interesting possibilities for us, but I don’t want to pursue something blindly and overleverage myself.

Thanks in advance for any feedback you can give me!