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I am looking at purchasing a house that is all brick and almost 100 years old. The second and third floor front bedrooms both slightly slope to the corner of the front of the house. The basement is good and does not indicate a structural issue. There is a brick porch and pad in front (see picture) and a deck on the back side of the house causing cracks on the 2nd and 3rd floor walls in 2-3 corners, which I think may be the problem. Anyone know? Should I run? If this is not a huge fix, I would put an offer on the house.
Only a fool would assume that info from the interwebs is enough to make a decision about a home!
I know several licensed Professional Engineers that have been burned by trick older homes -- they get called in on iffy house, set-up some lasers and measure everything and say something along the line of "in my professional opinion, using the most widely adopted standards, the current home appears to be essentially free of major defects"... Then the new owners decide to rip out the bathrooms or kitchens and it turns out that the main supporting beams are so compromised that no contractor will remodel without first redoing all the structural elements. The home owner sues the engineer and their professional liability insurance gets so expensive they no longer do "pre-purchase opinions" ONLY the more lucrative and less risky "remediation plans"...
The image is just 768x1024 pixels, I think web cams from the claw machine at a carnival / arcade are higher resolution these days. The home appears to be half a duplex. The duplex appears to have some kind of addition, the quality of the original home appears less than stellar and maybe the addition is better or not. The idea that anyone could make any useful judgement over the interwebs is real real real tenuous ...
I am no expert, but cracks in the wall would send me running. At the least, you are looking at extensive plaster repair. Another red flag is the slope of the house. But the other posters are right--you can't tell anything from the posted pics.
Cracks in the wall don't bother me at all (old plaster loses keys and can pull away from the wall, it's nothing a tube of glue can't fix), but a sloping floor makes me very nervous for foundation issues and/or the perception of foundation issues when it comes time to sell.
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Who knows...
