Recently a client couple of mine, relatively new homeowners, had some repair work done on their house.
Oh the joys of homeownership – we’ve all been there!
It all started when they called a plumber to come and inspect their pipes after that epic cold storm we had in February. Fortunately, their pipes looked good, but he was troubled because even with the water not running in their house, their main water meter was showing that water was definitely flowing…somewhere.
That prompted the wife to show him a mysterious bit of outside pipe at the side of their house. The pipe was surrounded by concrete and stuck up only about an inch out of the ground. They have been in that house a year now, and during all that time, water was continuously trickling out of that pipe. No one they’d called previously could tell them what it was, but all had assured them that it wasn’t causing damage to the house, so they’d let it be…That is until the plumber made the discovery that the leaking water was tied to their main water line and was the reason their water bill had been so high lately. So they scheduled to have the source of the leak identified and fixed.
While this was going on, the toilets in all three bathrooms started to clog. They called the plumbers back out to clear their sewage pipe and discovered that the clog was caused by something blocking the line. The source of that problem turned out to be the main city sewage line. A piece of it had broken off and had caused the blockage.
When all was said and done, it took about a month to get everything fixed. And in the meantime, they’d gotten a whole crash course’s worth of life lessons.
They’d never thought about a house’s sewage system before, but oh boy are they aware of it now! And they have a much better understanding of it.
“It was like Christmas come early when we had the ability to use our water again!” the wife said. “You know having running water is important, but we didn’t fully appreciate just how dependent we are on it until we suddenly didn’t have it anymore. Even something as simple as pouring ourselves a glass of water was out of the question.”
They also learned a bit of street smarts for when it comes time to purchase a new home in the future. Their biggest lesson was purchasing a home “as is”.
Right now, pretty much every house on the market is being sold “as is”. It’s the new norm, so to speak.
Keep in mind: “as is” does NOT preclude inspections. You as the potential buyer are free to do inspections before purchasing the home. Take advantage of that, and do some of your own inspecting too: look everywhere, open every drawer, go into the attic, etc. My clients did inspections before they purchased their new home, but in hindsight realized there were things missed simply because they didn’t think to check on them.
Double down on those inspections, be picky! You can’t be too careful because with “as is”, once you sign off on it, that’s it. And it’s so easy to miss things, especially if you’re buying a house Speedy Gonzales style. So aggressively inspect a house and then make the decision about purchasing. It’s impossible to catch everything, but what you do catch could mean the difference between a great buy and a money pit.
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