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I agree that there are too many big ticket renovations you want to make. I would fix the back yard flooding issue and sell. Purchase a home that meets you needs!
The home meets my needs just fine. Its just has some challenges and things that could be improved on. IMO selling now is bad advice. To sell a home lived in for less than 5 years minimum doesn't make any sense in today's market unless you are an RE investor. Better to choose to live with some of the things I don't "love" than to throw away thousands of dollars by turning around and selling.
The home meets my needs just fine. Its just has some challenges and things that could be improved on. IMO selling now is bad advice. To sell a home lived in for less than 5 years minimum doesn't make any sense in today's market unless you are an RE investor. Better to choose to live with some of the things I don't "love" than to throw away thousands of dollars by turning around and selling.
Sorry, you asked for our opinion and my first post was the order I would take to do the renovations you posted. After thinking more about it I stated the advice to sell and buy a home that suites your needs better. It's not bad advice if the home is too small (which by your posts it appears to be) and you want to do lots of renovations to make it work. The renovations you are wanting to do are big ticket renovations that you may or may not see a return on.
I purchased a home with the intention of living in it long term. I realized soon after that it was not working for me and my family. We lived there for 3 years and it was a sellers market so we sold (took a huge profit) and looked for a home that worked better for us. I'm not sure where you are located, but here it IS a sellers marketright now and that is why I suggested you sell. If you fix the yard and can get back what you have currently put in to the home, you can take the money you would have used for renovations and buy a home that is already done and more suitable for your needs.
Sorry, you asked for our opinion and my first post was the order I would take to do the renovations you posted. After thinking more about it I stated the advice to sell and buy a home that suites your needs better. It's not bad advice if the home is too small (which by your posts it appears to be) and you want to do lots of renovations to make it work. The renovations you are wanting to do are big ticket renovations that you may or may not see a return on.
I purchased a home with the intention of living in it long term. I realized soon after that it was not working for me and my family. We lived there for 3 years and it was a sellers market so we sold (took a huge profit) and looked for a home that worked better for us. I'm not sure where you are located, but here it IS a sellers marketright now and that is why I suggested you sell. If you fix the yard and can get back what you have currently put in to the home, you can take the money you would have used for renovations and buy a home that is already done and more suitable for your needs.
I did ask for opinions and thank you for replying. Some of your input was terrific, but your opinion to sell the house now is not advisable or wise. I'm not sure where you live, but I live in a major metropolitan area in the midwest and it certainly is not a sellers market here and will not be so anytime soon. Houses still consistently sell for 2-5% below list price and in some of those cases the final sale is 10% off the original listing.
So then your advice may have been wise in certain situations, but in this case I guess you didn't have enough information to make that call.
Never said the house was "too small"... Are you referring to this, "Master Suite: Its an odd space that is too small @ 10x11"? The master is very small by master suite standards. The house is fine in size. Its a smallish house, but fine for our needs.
Some of your input was terrific, but your opinion to sell the house now is not advisable or wise.
What did the previous owner do about the water problem before they got you to buy?
I suspect it's little more than the swamp pump you proposed using "short term"
...and I'll suggest that you do little more than that for the foreseeable future.
And learn to live with all the rest of the 'shortcomings' as well.
If/when you're ready to sell... show it during the dry months.
THIS! What I mean by deciding where to put it, is where exactly to eject the water to out front. Going under the sidewalk into the parkway will require I hire the village to do that work. $$$$$$$$$ So either coming along the driveway and ejecting it right by the sidewalk (still checking codes), or dumping it into the front yard, are the two options. The front yard may require some re-grading to make it work.
Its a 150x50 lot. The first 1/3 of the lot is roughly level and the back 2/3's slopes away from the house.
Do you mind my asking what your solution ended up costing you in the end? Feel free to PM me if you don't want to share on the forum.
Oh, no problem. Couple of thousand on the drainage pond and the holes and pipe, I think. Unfortunately, the drainage "specialists" didn't account for the fact that when the dry pond filled up with water, it wouldn't drain the fenced yard. It took a second project involving my side yard and a landscaper, who suggested installing the sump pump in the dry pond, to actually solve the problem. That was several thousand more. That's one of the issues with living 3 blocks from a major river and having an extremely high water table. However, the bright side is that aside from the small fenced portion of my yard, everything else drains like a sieve naturally, and if you stick a seed, a bulb, or a plant in the ground, it WILL grow. Gardeners' paradise!
Any money is wasted if you don't stabilize the house first as far as water, erosion. Not sure how much water you get in and around your house since you do mention the drop off but....
Stabilizing means take care of the stability of the house first which refers to the water issue first. There may be a good university in your area that has an environmental program or group that can give ideas on this....directing the water with dams and ditches, etc. However, you do it, you need it gone.
Then assess the damage to the house. There will be less upstairs than down, even if there may be a lot of cracks. You'll be looking for cracks that resulted from the erosion caused by the house being at least partly on mud or water and the water weakening the soil deeper down.
Some cracks may be around windows and moreso in the back where the water is and may have been painted over by the former owners although they should be showing by now.
Check the house for cracks all over, including the basement. Look as much as possible behind the walls in case some damage was covered up in the flip. In the furnace room, in closets, behind the washer, etc.
See if the walls on the lower level show much water. See if you can check under the carpet and under any floors that may be wood. You may have water coming up through the basement floor. Actually a good nose or a mold detector can help.
You may need things like a french drain and may need the floor dug up anyway and that would be a good time to get great drainage in the house and essentially dig far enough to make the ceiling higher.
BUT you still need that egress from the basement. Imagine if there was a fire down there! So you would need to put in windows as well.
Do you have an issue with radon in your area? You might check that because you may eventually need a permanent system.
After that messy stuff, consider your siding issues and in there someplace your porch dirt floor issue.
There is not much if any water invasion or damage in the house. Good news is that the back yard is low enough that the water remains least 10' away from the foundation wall. I get the tiniest amount of seepage due to the water table when the standing water gets above 1' in the back. That happens just a few times/year. This is the midwest and we are on clay which I believe helps the erosion situation.
What did the previous owner do about the water problem before they got you to buy?
I suspect it's little more than the swamp pump you proposed using "short term"
...and I'll suggest that you do little more than that for the foreseeable future.
And learn to live with all the rest of the 'shortcomings' as well.
If/when you're ready to sell... show it during the dry months.
If the house meets your needs, why are you hellbent about adding basement bedrooms? They don't necessarily add value to the house, proper egress or no. And they're certainly no fun to spend any time in.
The family room in the basement looks perfect as is. What's the problem?
Fix the yard first, for crying out loud. Then move forward from there.
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