[quote=flu][quote=bearishgurl]
A few observations:
The 2011 “street view” pic reveals the following. There are no sidewalks or storm drains on this street (in an unincorporated area). The home is lower than the street. The crawlspace of this home could have been flooded multiple times in heavy rains over the years as there doesn’t appear to be any french drains installed in the front or side of the lot to drain off the backyard, which is lower still. The home and lot were likely in gross disrepair when the current seller/flipper purchased it. The June 2011 street view pic reveals a 20+ foot industrial-type trailer (as ucodegen mentioned) parked on the property in front of the house. A previous owner (before the flipper/seller) could have purchased it for almost nothing from DRMO or a local GSA auction.
I feel they may have acquired it to use to dispose of wild, overgrown landscaping and termite eaten and dry-rotted/moldy construction debris (due to previous flooding) as renting a “roll-on” can be prohibitively expensive. (The flipper/seller could have purchased the property with the trailer still there.) When the previous owner was gutting it and found the extent of the damage, they decided they didn’t (for whatever reason) want to put the money into it because in 2011/12, the market had literally gone to sh!t out there. They hung onto the property until they could unload it on a professional flipper in late 2015 and recover their money out of it (and likely more). The owner who sold to the flipper was likely a longtime owner or even an “heir” who very well may have borrowed money on it during the loose-lending era of the aughts. (Note: I have not viewed the public record chain-of-title on this property.)
The lot is essentially sloping down from the street to the house, with a third, lower tier as the backyard. The parcel may slope a little further downhill from the backyard but we can’t see it from the pics provided. The driveway in one place, in front of a window has an offset crack (we can’t tell exactly by how much). This nonetheless indicates soil movement because the concrete is so old that it is likely a tree was never growing there. The driveway was not repaired/replaced by the flipper/seller. There is another 1-2 feet of dirt between the driveway and a short retaining wall. The house is 1-2 feet lower than the retaining wall and was completely re-stuccoed, so we can’t tell if that crack (from moving soil over the years) has affected the short retaining wall (which could have been easily repaired) or penetrated the actual stemwall of the house.
In addition, its former roof (in 2011) was decrepit and probably leaked in one or more places. However the walls inside (possibly originally plaster) were likely replaced with drywall by the flipper.
If your offer is accepted and you open escrow, I would get a highly-qualified home inspector (or better yet, a civil engineer) out there pronto and go through the crawlspace with a high beam flashlight and a fine-toothed comb and whatever other meters/tools they use to look for dryrot in the subfloor and evidence of seepage (from cracks) and mold along the stemwalls.
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How the hell did you become an real estate expert (LETDLITA) in Lakeside and with this particular house simply by looking at a bunch pictures in an MLS listing???? Do you realize how ridiculous this is?????
Its like the last time you did this with the barrister(?) House in mira Mesa, in which your comments on that house, again , only based on the pictures you saw in an mls listing and from Google maps, was totally off too.[/quote]
I would have to agree with bearishgurl on this one, for most of the items brought up (condition), but not necessarily all(flipper vs prev buyer etc).
1) Houses out in this part of the countryside, built when this one was built.. did not have much if any in building codes, including compaction studies. The house is below the driveway and the driveway has an offset split. This means that there is movement that likely includes the house, moving away from the road. Gravity does not shift up hill. That area is not bedrock. The short retaining wall between the driveway and the house is severely cracked – to the point of almost being broken up. I don’t know the height of the wall, but fairly certain it does not have a proper foundation. There is also a height shift that can be seen on the driveway near the entrance. There is further confirmation on the road itself, the center of the road has a 3 to 6 foot long crack running the length of it, across from the house.
2) It is a downward sloping lot, the backyard does slope down further (one of the listing pictures shows a view). The house cuts across the lot and the old street view picture shows water staining on the bottom of the door (Since it is under a large eve, it would indicate water buildup). There also seems to be water staining on the stucco above the window, but below the eves (which would tend to indicate leaky roof). I don’t see any stucco cracking on this side though.
[img_assist|nid=25939|title=8683 Golden Ridge Rd, 92040 – in 2011 – annotated|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=100|height=54]
NOTE: look at it in original size to see the detail.
3) Looking at the 2011 Google street view shows that the asphalt shingles were decaying (the bonded colored stone aggregate on top was falling off showing that the asphalt was getting hard and brittle) – this is why the shingle surface looked the way it did. The asphalt shingles on it do tell me that it was at one time re-roofed (original would likely be wood/cedar(shake), asphalt was a bit expensive when originally built). It doesn’t look swaybacked – so the rafters are probably ok – though the ridgeboard may not be up to standard as well as the rafters (they are probably 2×4 no 2x6s then, and the centering might be further apart) – you can only use 2x4s on the type of braced rafters used on current construction – though the bracing does eat into attic space.
4) Electrical standards were also different when it was built. Basically no residential electrical standards. I suspect no 3rd wire ground wires anywhere in the house. Type of wire may be the old asbestos covered wires (which can short if they get wet). The ground rod that is currently supposed to be driven into the ground (generally near the utility service panel) may or may not be there, depth and condition probably unknown (check for a noisy somewhat ‘floaty’ ground, particularly if a medium to large appliance is plugged in and running).
5) Water plumbing will be the galvanized steel pipe unless changed. This stuff does last a long time – however it does get plugged up inside by hard water. The other problem with it is that you have to be careful mixing copper with the galvanized steel due to galvanic reaction causing corrosion near the joint. Galvanized steel also looses its corrosion resistance when the zinc coating erodes/corrodes off.
6) Internal wastewater drainage is probably cast iron. The area is probably not on sewer. Purchaser would need to find this out as well as where the septic tank accesses are and size of leach field.
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I don’t know who put the conex there. I think it was to hold tools while working on the house so that the tools would not be stolen – but this is just conjecture – though supported by the paint cans near the front door in the picture linked above. As to who did it, whether it was a failed flip picked up by another flip -dunno, I would be guessing. However it is 2011 to 2016. Long time for a rehab. If the conex was there because the owner needed to put stuff in there because the house was leaking… well that would really worry me.
I don’t think the conex was for debris because you don’t need a locking conex for that, you can just rent an open top dumpster – easier to dump into and cheaper than a conex. Often dumpster fees include the disposal cost of the contents while conex(s) don’t.
NOTE1: Pictures from Google maps can tell you a lot, if you know what to look for. They may not tell you the absolute truth, but it definitely gives you something to look at. Knowing the area and codes at the time of original construction also help.
NOTE2: When this house was originally built, 2x4s were really 2×4 – but rough sawn. Currently they are 1.75″ x 3.5″ .
