Need basement/foundation repair, any recommendations?

[awsomeears]

I guess you have to weigh out 2 Options :

Sell home as-is in a shitty market w/ issues disclosed

Sell home totally redone in a shitty market and possibly get lucky to get more vs. home left in the condition. If were you gauranteed at least 50% return of that $50k invested then your out $25k

But if you got xxxx more for the home because of the work done that amount can be taken off the $50k basement fund.

But I'm not to sure you'd even get %50 back as the potential buyer will use the basement problems as a reason to slash the price.

My personal opinion is this Try to sell the home with issues disclosed, if they want to deal then Deal. If they say " I won't buy the home unless its all done " then Ok your back to this point witch is no shocker and you get the work done.

Spending $50,000 on something that the Investment Outcome or Return is unknown does not sit with me well as this is not Life or Death type of situation. Will the house still stand ? Yea. You said its common around there and how many homes fell over ?

Your better off dealing with the new owners, you may come out on top. Or hell Even witch is better.

Just my 0.02

[animal]

If they say " I won't buy the home unless its all done " then Ok your back to this point witch is no shocker and you get the work done.

More likely banks will say "Can't buy home unless its all done." Any bank appraiser that comes in and sees that disclosed is going to look at it and note it for the bank to review. The likeliest outcome is that the bank will demand the work be done prior to issuing the mortage on it. I know my bank was real concerned when they found out the basement needed braces even. I had to submit proof of the completed work before final approval of the mortgage.

[jbiscuit]

the future buyer will have a really hard time securing financing with those cracks like that. The issue wouldn't be finding a buyer but rather getting the OK from the bank to do the deal. But I can see your point also of not wanting to dumb crazy money into the house only to lose your ass when you sell.

What if you got the work done but then revised your plan to stay in the house a few more years? The market turns around and people are eager to buy etc. Use it as a selling point (positive) rather than a negative?

[ND4SPD]

We already know that we would only be able to sell it to a cash buyer without the work being done because our own CU wouldn't even let us refinance it without the work being done (which became a catch-22 since we needed the refi to pay for the work).

The problem with remaining here (more appropriately in 'tosa) is AFAIK they don't do bussing for the school kids. That's a major logistical problem for us. I have to leave for work at 5AM to get to work on time so obviously I can't drop them off (or pick them up since I work 24 hour shifts). My wife usually drops them off at the babysitter at 6 or so and picks them up by 3. The later she gets into work, the later she has to leave work. So if she hangs around to drop them off at 7:30 or whatever, she won't get done with work until 4:30.

[awsomeears]

Ahh yes didn't think about them Locking you into doing it........ Dam !

[ND4SPD]

Mudjackers came back at about $28,000. I've E-mailed a few questions into Badger to see if they try to BS me. Looks like it's going to pretty much be a 4-wall excavation. Each contractor seems to be able to shave about 5 or 6 feet off a couple of walls, but that's about it.

[drewbird91]

ND4SPD,
I know this tread is more than 2 years old but curious what happened, who did you end up with? I'm in the same boat. This thread had a lot of good info in it.

[ND4SPD]

ND4SPD,
I know this tread is more than 2 years old but curious what happened, who did you end up with? I'm in the same boat. This thread had a lot of good info in it.

Glad you asked, well, here's what happened. Basically a fortuitous turn of events made things work out better than we could have imagined. That being a friend of the family was interested in buying our house for assessed value on a land contract (once the basement was fixed). Basically all of this really got rolling about a year ago and ended up with us moving into our new house just before Christmas of last year.

Anyway as mentioned all but one of the contractors came in north of $30k... we took the one that didn't require excavating... Badger Basement Systems which came in right around $17k-$19k. We talked it over with the buyers, gave them the estimates, engineering studys, etc... and they agreed that Badger's plan was acceptable. After dealing with something like 8 different SE Wisconsin foundation contractors I got the impression that there was a lot of money changing hands between the foundation contractors, one camp of engineers, home inspectors, etc... basically such that the inspectors would call anything but full excavation "crap" even if it wasn't required by the engineering report. One of the contractors even went so far as to say in a round about way they were trying to grease the local politicians to adopt *their* standards into the building code. The idea obviously is to drum up business for the foundation repair places and so on. We have three different engineering studies from two different engineers verifying that the recommended course of action was "stabilize in place".

Anyway, the buyers were VERY happy with the quality of the job and we're going on a year and I've heard no complaints. As far as I know they're finishing off the basement, it's dry as a bone, and everyone is happy.

[ND4SPD]

These are the only after pix I can get ahold of...

[awsomeears]

I give it no more the 8-10 years......

Badger basements are Scum, you should go see my buddy's basement who now has almost one cinder block falling out, permits were never pulled and every SINGLE beam was installed wrong......

This is not hearsay its real, I have seen it and its a mess, my buddy was going to take them to court but he's broke as he was going threw a nasty divorce.....

Just my 0.02

[ND4SPD]

I basically took the concerns you mentioned and had them write it into the warranty for 15 years... if the blocks start getting crushed, falling apart, falling out, cracking, etc... they have to fix it. It's also the new owner's problem now anyway... unless they default on the land contract in which case we get the house back. The $30k-$40k estimates we got from everyone else just weren't going to happen. Had I gone with one of the other guys, I would have gone with Accurate. He seemed the most trustworthy out of all of them.

I guess I also forgot to mention that they re-did the drain tile and added a sump.

[awsomeears]

Well for what its worth the pictures you posted does not look anyway shape or form similar to my buddy's nightmare , maybe new crew I don't know ?