Kim bought a house in the Los Angeles Northridge/Reseda/San Fernando area and.. (up and coming neighbourhood, near a great one that a lot of NYers were moving to) ($560k in 2015. Kim was moving back. Man! 560k for a house built in 1929!)
(they moved from NY to LA thinking they could take advantage of simpleton southerners, without realizing the southwest ain't exactly the south.. ha ha.. just kidding folks.. read on)
The stucco : was brand new. But, once the recent heavy rains started, it started cracking and so bad that they were sure it was going to fall off. Attorney brings a GC (general contractor) who confirms the stucco was just slapped on top of the old stucco! A ha!
Lesson learnt : The podcast is 5 min long. Keep it handy on your phone and play it the first time your meet your home-inspector and buyer's agent. Ask your home inspector the specific question - if this is what they did, how would you find out about it?
Then, attorney says, sure, stucco bad, but foundation worse - it's rotting and slipping. Right-hand front corner has sunk 0.5" since moving in. Pillar and post foundation - a problem had been pointed out and seller had "shored up" that part of the foundation. (wha?)
Roof has leaked.. roofers say - no good, spanish tiles have been patched together with roofing tar - a no - no.
Spending an additional $6k. Wha? What's that compared to 560k?
This house survived the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Mark Hammerich (new Washington DC bureau chief at bankrate.com ) :
common problem? when housing mkts heat up, strange things heat up :) If bartenders in Florida are in the real-estate game, that's never a good sign.
what to do? First, are you sure it's safe to even live there? Q Fottrell says stay and fight. Sounds like the sellers were flippers. Get em!
MH : report to LA department of homeowners affairs. He asked Holden and that guy said to walk away because litigation can take over your life - you get emotionally attached.
Kim's letter to WSJ says she thought it was worth $700k. Based on current valuation, says $600k. Houses down the street on smaller lots but higher square footage with almost no work done to them have been netting $650k. Sweet.
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