I’m starting a new thread for a short project (well, hoping it’s short). I think this will be interesting because we are following a young couple trying to buy their first home in the hot San Diego market.
The buyers have been looking for over 9 months desperately trying to buy their first home. They have been outbid or had to back out of escrows. This house was listed at $599,000 which is in an older neighborhood in an inland community called Fletcher Hills which is technically in the City of El Cajon. It is not the most desireable neighborhood, I would consider it mid range but pretty far inland in San Diego.
In order to get the house they offered $635,000 with no contingencies. It was the only way to get considered. They asked me to come look at the house after they went into contract. I took one look at the house and asked them how long it had been vacant. There were tell tale signs. Later they found out that the house had been vacant for over 10 years and it was never disclosed in the disclosures. That is a big red flag.
Here are the key issues discovered:
Attic is completely infested with rats and they have been there a long time.
The cast iron drain lines are corroded and rusted shut. All drain lines have to be replaced and they are buried in the concrete slab foundation.
Main panel is really old, nothing grounded, and does not have enough circuits - bathrooms don’t even have an outlet!
And the obvious grandma stuff. Old carpet everywhere, including the bathrooms. Lots of old wallpaper.
Scope of Work (before we find anything else!!!)
Remove all flooring
Clear out the attic and shore up all the open access. There are decorative openings everywhere that have no screens or covers!
Remove outlets/switches and rewire to ground everything all the way back to panel
Probably replace main panel
New Kitchen
Cut and trench concrete slab and replace all drain lines out to street
New bathrooms (because we have to pull everything up to replace drain lines)
Remove pop corn ceilings
Remove all wallpaper
Paint Interior
New flooring
And, we are trying very hard to get this all done for about $65,000. Money is tight.
Today’s biggest problem is that we cannot get an IKEA kitchen. IKEA is out of stock on most of their cabinets!! This is my biggest headache. That is my go-to for in stock kitchens. Everywhere else I’m looking is 12 weeks out.
I loaded some preliminary photos. I don’t think I’m allowed to post a link to the photos.
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Not sure how to find the new photo group but I’ll log into the host site and see if I can track it down. Is the house the one with one room all red carpet and another all green shag?
I found it on the photo host site! Yes, that’s the one.
Hmm - seems like listing photos and a few you took were added to the old group.
When the photo site is straightened out, can someone DM me with it? TIA.
This house sounds – challenging.
Go to Flickr and search for First Time Homebuyer.
Came right up.
@coralbrook, you are a saint! That couple is so lucky to have found you.
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OMG RATS??? $635K??? Ack!!! Tell me again why people live in CA? ; )
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Omg! And going for $635k! I can’t even. 
That’s a true project!!
Go to Flickr - then search “First Time Homebuyer” in Groups. It will come right up.
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I did this…and it didn’t come up.
I have the link. Thank you!
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Clearing the rats out of the attic is doable for only a couple of thousand. I suggested that we tear off all the ceilings and let it all drop down and get it out of the house easily. But no!!! they were worried about the cost of having to put in new drywall ceilings (which, by the way, would not have rat urine in them!). I told them they would have to find ‘experts’ (read… we don’t want to crawl through low attic and try to pull out all that crap!!) to clear out the attic. So, that is happening on Saturday and we don’t have to deal with it
Replacing all the sewer lines in a slab foundation is a big big cost. I’m estimating about $12,000. They got an estimate from a plumbing company at $23,000.
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The back yard looks nice! I mean the plant part.
Please tell me you are replacing those windows!
It’s a great amount of space…but geez…what a mess!
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Yup, pest decon is best left to a pro!! Cost us $1500 to do de-ratting of the attic 5 years ago, which was money well spent! Thankfully, it was not as bad as theirs, so plywood and drywall underneath were not impacted.
I wish we could replace the windows. The front ones are true divided glass but Grandma style. Unfortunately, the big ones are set really low and I would really like to extend the kitchen over in that area but the windows are too low.
The rest of the windows are single pane corroded aluminum. But, they don’t have the budget to replace the windows or fix the failing stucco around the exterior.
So…are you going to replace all that drywall? I would want that done!
Nope, not replacing the ceiling drywall. They did not want to spend the money to do that. Oh well
We are opening up the wall surrounding the kitchen for an open room. Kitchen will have an island. But we have to keep one post in the configuration to add a structural beam. But bigger issue is the electrical and gas lines are coming down from the ceiling, so I need a post to run lines down to the island
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Just looked at the photos. Man… so sad that the couple is already stretched thin. I would have gutted the entire place… too bad they will have to live with crappy windows and the other stuff. 
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I would be shocked to find a house on the West Coast that is not a new constitution that has never dealt with pest infestation. 
The non-functional plumbing is a whole different story!! 