Buying a house "as is"

[bluebunny]

Anyone buy a house "as is"? There is a neighborhood that we are interested in and a house just came on the market. I talked to the agent yesterday and she said the owner is selling "as is". I asked her if she knew of any major issues and she said that there were no known roof leaks but there was some water occasionally in the basement. The owner is going through a messy divorce and the house is priced $40K below what he paid for it. A neighbor told me that the owner's wife destroyed some plumbing and carpeting during a fight, which might be the cause of the water in the basement.

I have an appointment to see the house on Saturday. Besides getting my own inspector, is there anything else I should explore?

[provocativa]

Try to find a really good inspector- they really make a difference. You could also look into home warranties. Some have to be purchased by the seller and some by the buyer. We just bought a really crap house, but the owner purchased a warranty for us, which we didn't upgrade because we know some fixit types. The warranty will get us through stuff that breaks in the first year, and then we will have that big tax return to help with new windows. I think some of the home warranties are a rip-off, but hey, he paid for it and it is reassuring. Also, you would want to make sure whatever insurance policy you buy has the added flood insurance, or whatever issues. When buying some houses, you can negotiate with the seller to fix some things first. If someone is selling as is then they are unwilling to fix stuff in order to sell it.

[pbjmama]

Agree with pp, as is only means no price adjustment for problems in the house. So for me the real question would be does is have 40k worth of problems that need to fixed? Are the cosmetic? Do you have the money that would be required to fix the problems?

I can not imagine a fight that would destroy plumbing enough for the basement to have water damage.

[neetling]

Be aware that your lender may well require that things be fixed/brought up to code before they will fund your loan and it doesn't sound as if the seller will be contributing any funds towards this. That can either give you an out if the defects are too numerous or costly for you to want to deal with, or you may have to front more money to get things fixed. I'd want a good inspector. The seller would still be required to disclose any known defects.

[seeing_stars]

We bought as is with a 203k rehab loan to make the repairs. It was a bit more complicated of a process, but we got an amazing house for a great deal because of the condition.

[holidaymama]

my only advice after buying a foreclosure, which I realize is a little different from just "as is" is to make sure you have enough cash to fix things.

Although we got a great price on our house, $30K less than what it was built for 4 years previous, the owner had done nothing to it so we were stuck with a lot of up front costs because it was "as is".

Luckily, we had some cash to fix the most important things and two years later, we have done quite a bit.

So, if you have the cash to fix things that may come up and you had a great inspection...then go for it! I hope it works out for you!

[Ornery]

Something that I did when we were looking at buying a foreclosure was call my insurance agent and request she pull the CLUE report. Not sure what it stands for but it can tell you if there have been any insurance claims made on the house. We found out the foreclosure we were looking at had a basement that flooded every winter. Not something we were interested in dealing with.

It gives you another piece of the puzzle.

[provocativa]

also, right af9ter you buy a house you can often get a home equity line of credit for that fixing things money. we are paupers and closed on our house june 30. banks have already sent us line credit bs for over what we have invested in the house. my sis dates a real estate investor and he does this- gets a home equity line of credit right away to cover stuff that might happen that first year. the interest on the line of credit is not as steep as a credit card. wish we had known about that clue report!