Removing a pool: Any gotchas?

[KS]

Quick intro – I have been long-time lurker here, gaining a lot of wisdom from all the fascinating posts and discussion topics. We just started looking for our first home, and as duly noted by many others the inventory situation is frustrating.

We came across this house on the market with a swimming pool, which would normally be a cool thing except that the pool takes up most of the small backyard and also that we have 2 small children. So, the pool is more a liability for us. So, if we were to buy this house, we would like to remove the pool. When the pickings are slim, one has to resort to such crazy measures, I guess:-)

I called up a couple of pool guys about having the pool removed and apparently it’s doable. I wanted to get your opinions/insights on whether this is a good idea and whether there are are gotchas involved. Also, do you have any recommendations for a good pool removal expert?

-ks

[Anonymous]

There was a thread here a while back with a similar question. I think it was called “filling a pool” or something like that.

I seem to remember that many said that it was more expensive to do than one would expect.

[an]

I got an estimate for doing this and it was around $7-8k. So, you have to decide for yourself, is it worth to spend $7-8k to reduce your equity. When you refi, appraiser will give you around $10k (depending on the size and condition of the pool) in equity for having the pool. So, in essence, you’re “spending” $17-18k to remove the pool (combination of cost and lost of equity). This is the reason why we decide to just keep the pool. Although our two little babies might not use it now, I can see them making good use of it in 5-7 years.

[sdrealtor]

AN,
I think thats flawed logic. Its about market value not appraised value. In some cases a house is worth more without a pool so removing it would add value.

Its also about what you pay for the house. The pool could be preventing the house from selling which is often the case in homes with small yards that are nearly all pool. If you can get it for a price that compensates you for the removal cost it could make sense. The numbers either make sense or they dont.

[sdduuuude]

The “gotcha” with filling a pool is properly compacting the dirt. If you just drop a bunch of dirt in there and call it a day without compacting it, whatever you put on top of it will sink over time. If it is just a garden, then it isn’t a big problem (just keep adding dirt) but if you put concrete or tile or footings for a patio, it could be bad. May want to look up the permit requirements for it. They often spell out exactly how to do it.

Better to use concrete (without rebar) than dirt for the bottom part.

Maybe you could get in touch with some concrete contractors, concrete pumpers, etc. and have them dump spare concrete in the pool so they don’t have to clean out their trucks and dispose of extra concrete properly.

I once had a project at my house where I had to remove alot of dirt (about 100 yards over the course of a year). I found people on craigslist who needed dirt and I would bring it to them in a rented dump truck. One guy asked me to drop a dump-truck load in his pool because he was filling it in. OK. No problem. I show up and they had a couch and some furniture and boxes and trash in the pool and I just unloaded the dirt right on top of it. Holy crap. What a riot. I just dumped it and left.

I think it is a great do-it-yourself job. Find people who are ripping out driveways, rent a bobcat and dump truck, go pick up their concrete, charge them $50 a load (they will have to pay to get rid of it otherwise). Bring the stuff to your pool and drop it in. It is cheaper if you can dump right in the pool instead of hand-carting the fill.

[sdduuuude]

I once used a guy who might be really good at this – Danner Bobcat. I have no contact info for him.

The key is finding free fill dirt. Dirt is always expensive. You have to buy it when you need it and you have to pay to get rid of it. It makes no sense.

Might be cheaper to teach the kids how to swim. Try Noonan swim school.

[an]

[quote=sdrealtor]AN,
I think thats flawed logic. Its about market value not appraised value. In some cases a house is worth more without a pool so removing it would add value.

Its also about what you pay for the house. The pool could be preventing the house from selling which is often the case in homes with small yards that are nearly all pool. If you can get it for a price that compensates you for the removal cost it could make sense. The numbers either make sense or they dont.[/quote]
You’re right, that logic only apply if you plan to keep that house for a long time and/or plan to refi before you sell it. Lets say you want to refi, if you demo the pool, then you’re not getting that $10k-ish in appraise value, which mean either you have to bring money to closing, or you can’t refi at all. So, it depends on how much equity you would have in the house and if you plan to refi in the future.

Maybe other areas might be different, but for my area, I don’t see houses with a pool selling at $7-8k less than comparable houses without a pool. My area have pretty small yard too, so most pools does take up 60% of the yard. Keep in mind that $7-8k can easily balloon to $10k+ if you run into issue. That doesn’t include the cost of landscaping the new dirt area too, which would be at least a few grand.

[sdrealtor]

Still flawed. What if they buy the house under appraised value? What if the house goes up in value? Over time you will pay down the loan etc. Too many variables to make a blanket statement about refiing in the future.

Pools are an interesting thing and hard to quantify how much value they add to a house. People who want them will pay extra for them. However, the majority of people dont want them so it reduces the demand for houses with pools. There really is no simple answer to how much value a pool adds or not.

[Coronita]

[quote=sdduuuude]I once used a guy who might be really good at this – Danner Bobcat. I have no contact info for him.

The key is finding free fill dirt. Dirt is always expensive. You have to buy it when you need it and you have to pay to get rid of it. It makes no sense.

Might be cheaper to teach the kids how to swim. Try Noonan swim school.[/quote]

Noonan takes to damn long with their color band system.

Dude, does everyone take their kids to the same place in SD?

[UCGal]

There used to be a pool in my backyard. Here’s what I learned by the way my dad did it.

– Get a permit. If not the city will think you have a pool forever. Even with a permit, they will still have it in some of their databases.

– The basic process is drilling big holes in the side and bottom so that it can drain when it rains. Then filling it up with big stuff… In my dad’s case he was also removing some of the old hardscape patio around the pool to get a rectangular (vs kidney shaped) garden. He tossed all the concrete from the patio and coping and the first few feet of the sides of the pool, into the bottom.

– He then got the free mulch from the dump and filled it up… truckful by truckful. He rented a compactor and ran that over it in 8″ lifts. Rinse and repeat over many days.

– Then he put weed killer over the whole thing – since the free mulch has lots of weed seeds. Waited 2 weeks for new sprouts and retreated.

– finally he filled the top 18″ with a combination of clean fill and top soil.

My dad did it DIY style with some hired handyman help for the hauling of the free mulch.

There’s an entire subculture on moving around fill dirt in San Diego. Contractors are always looking for places to get fill dirt, or to dump fill dirt. Craigslist can be your friend if you’re willing to do the work. Make friends with a pool contractor – they are ALWAYS looking for places to dump fill dirt.

[SD Realtor]

Excellent advice UC… Did you guys need to have the city inspector come out at various points during the process or did you guys just take pictures and document all of it?

[UCGal]

I was living in another state at the time. But I vaguely recall that he had to get an inspector to verify the holes were drilled, before it was filled in, and again at the end to verify that there wasn’t a a hazardous hole in the ground anymore.

But I could be wrong.

Since I now own the house – I know that we’re still on some list, somewhere, as having a pool. Zillow says we have one. And we get junk mail from pool supply companies trying to sell us chlorine, pool covers, etc. But mailing lists live forever. My dad removed the pool 20 years ago.

[an]

[quote=sdrealtor]Still flawed. What if they buy the house under appraised value? What if the house goes up in value? Over time you will pay down the loan etc. Too many variables to make a blanket statement about refiing in the future.

Pools are an interesting thing and hard to quantify how much value they add to a house. People who want them will pay extra for them. However, the majority of people dont want them so it reduces the demand for houses with pools. There really is no simple answer to how much value a pool adds or not.[/quote]
Not flawed if you want to cash out refi and stay at 80% LTV. Not flawed if you bought and it appraised for the amount you paid for and you already have a max LTV. Not flawed if the house value goes down. Not flawed if the house value stay flat, you paid the original appraised value, demolish the pool and want to refi. There are many scenarios where it would adversely affect you, if you fill in the pool. I never said to never fill in the pool or any blanket statement (at least not intentionally). I was just saying there’s the lost in “equity” when we’re talking about appraised value on top of the cost of the actual removal of the pool and the cost of landscaping after the pool is removed. One would have to weigh the pro & con for themselves to see if it’s worth the cost.

[sdrealtor]

My point exactly. You cant predict. You could get 3 appraisals and they could all be radically different too. The main point is appraised value is not market value.

[an]

First, I never said appraised value is market value. However, I will say this, lenders ONLY care about appraise value, not market value. You’ve proved this before with a house in your hood that’s sell for more than what the appraiser can appraise it for and the buyer have to come up with the cash difference. This is not a prediction. I’ve seen many appraisal and they ALL gave additional appraised value for the pool. The amount are different between the different appraiser, but they all gave you something.

So, no, you can’t predict appraised or market value, but you can know with 100% certainty that appraiser will give you a few grand (in my previous experiences, it’s $10k+) in appraised value. It doesn’t matter if appraised value are all over the map, it only matter if the one appraisal for your refi. I’ve been in situation where the loan fell through because the appraisal came in 15% below what it should be. The variance of appraised value is irrelevant to the discussion though. My point is that, ALL appraiser will give you some “value” for the pool. If you remove it, you’re essentially removing that value.

So, for example, if you buy the house at appraised value and you remove the pool. The initial appraisal gave you $x,000 value for the pool. Assuming we can remove the variance from appraise value, you can be certain that you won’t have $x,000 value in the new appraisal. Which mean, if rates drop right after you remove the pool, you either have to come up with $x,000 to make up for the difference or you’re SOL for the refi.

Another example would be, your house value went up and you want to cash out. If you remove the pool, your appraisal will be $x,000 less than if you didn’t (from the exact same appraiser at the exact same time). I know this, because they won’t fill in the box that say you have a pool and it increase your appraise value by $x,000. Which means, you won’t be able to cash out as much as if you didn’t remove the pool.

Another example would be, you’re unlucky and got a low appraisal when you try to refi. If you decide to go forward and bring cash to the table at closing, I know for certain that you will have to bring $x,000 more to the table if you remove the pool than if you didn’t remove the pool.

Another example is if you’re trying to sell your house. Lets say you list it at $500k and you got an offer at $500k. If the appraisal came in at $450k, I’m pretty sure if you didn’t remove the pool, it would have been appraised for $450k + $x,000. I’m pretty sure the buyer will most likely want to lower the price down the appraised value. Unless you have a strong buyer that don’t care about appraise value, which, I think is a very small group of buyer.

I can give you many more scenarios where removing the pool will adversely affect your situation and limit your options. But you get the point. It’s not always about market value. Market value is important when you try to sell. However, appraised value is important if you want to refi. Lender won’t care about market value, but buyers will care about appraised value.

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