It’s good that they conducted many inspections prior to their offer. Many people making no contingency offers have far more limited inspections, if any, which can lead to some unpleasant surprises.
I am a home owner in North County and have some experience with the SD market. The market has changed a great deal since COVID. There was a time in 2019 where El Cajon homes typically were on the market 50+ days before sale and had an median sale price of under $500k. Now median time on market to sale is ~10 days, and median sale price is over $600k, like the CC Flip house.
However, this does not mean every family has to spend >$600k on a house, often spending the vast majority of their income and savings on home ownership and related expenses. There are also several less expensive options for real estate. For example, I mentioned condos. Condos start at closer to $300k in the El Cajon area. It’s still expensive, but can be on option for persons who do not want to over extend themselves financially or younger persons who may have less experience with home ownership. There are also many positives to renting, saving, and having the flexibility to move, particularly in the uncertain times of a COVID-fueled housing boom.
The previous owner of my home purchased the home in a housing boom. By the time I purchased it several years later, the market had cooled off. When I bought the home, the former owner owed the bank ~$600k more than the the price I paid. The bank handling his loan agreed to take the ~$600k loss, so I guess the previous owner came out okay. But not everyone who overextends themselves financially to purchase homes during a housing boom has as good an outcome.
That said, it sounds like the new owners have carefully thought things out, and I hope it works out well for them. I look forward to seeing the transformation.
We got a rat in our home a few years ago when we were traveling. After the pest guys filled all the little spots that might allow ingress, we also had to remove several runs of insulation in the unfinished crawl space under the kitchen floor. The jerk rat had gone back and forth along it and peed and pooped such that I could smell it in the house, DH could not smell it, but I totally could. Yuck!
It was a different time. San Diego real estate prices had a rapid increase until peaking around 2005, then had a rapid decrease. Median home values didn’t return back to 2005 levels until 2017 if you use nominal prices… or until this summer with strong influence from COVID, if you adjust for inflation. Other regions like Las Vegas, Miami, and Phoenix had a similar pattern.
A decade ago ~35% San Diego home owners with a mortgage had negative equity in their home, meaning they owed more than the home value. It was common for banks to take a loss and have short sales for less than mortgage amount to avoid going through the foreclosure process. With the typically higher SD real estate prices than other regions, there were also often larger bank losses on short sales than in other regions. I’ve heard of banks taking losses in the 7 figures on other SD homes during this period.
How much would it cost to take out the ceilings and replace with new drywall? I am really grossed out by the rat residue. I think I would have to give up something else in order to make that a priority.
I’m not sure there is asbestos is in the ceilings. I think floor coverings were mentioned… Just saying… The fact that these new owners are going to tackle asbestos themselves is scary! You don’t want any of that dust in the house. Period. Mr. and I would have handled this without any issues, but we both had hazmat training in the past.
I estimated about $1700 to replace ceilings. I think the owners are counting on the pest company’s definition of ‘sanitizing’ attic after removal. I’d be OK if it was a recent infestation, but a 10 year infestation means no amount of sprinkling some bleach around would appease me.
Asbestos abatement should be handled by professionals. I would think that is something like installing a hot water heater. You could do it by yourself, but isn’t there any regulations on DYI asbestos abatement?
My husband did a lot of abatement back in the day.
There is probably more than just rat urine embedded in that drywall… Now would be the most appropriate time to do any drywall projects! They might regret not doing this when their stuff is already in the house!
I could find $1700 or a little more to get a clean start on the ceilings. I could trim my budget in lots of ways, both on the house renovations or in my grocery budget to make new ceilings happen, but maybe that’s just me. I would have a really hard time crawling in bed at night and looking up at those ceilings without constantly thinking of the rats.
There is a definite mildew type smell every time I walk in the house. Like old stuff. We haven’t found any water damage in walls or behind plumbing and I just cannot isolate what the smell is. It could just be stuff up in attic.
Attic clear out is this weekend so I will see next week if smell continues. We are laughing because the only attic access is a cutout about 20” by 20” in hallway ceiling. That is going to be tough to pull everything through. We have a running bet that we are coming back on Monday and some ceilings are opened up to pull the crap out
What all is up in the attic? Does AC ducting run up there? Where is the AC? That could be a source of moisture. If the drain pipe is clogged then water could spill out. Even if it had a shut off valve if the AC is kept super high then the water just evaporates on a continuous basis.
How about house insulation? I’m guessing the rats have used it for nesting purposes. Okay–I need to eat dinner and this train of thought is not helping.
And the kitchen cabinet/quartzite combo makes me seasick.
I’m guessing the AC hasn’t been on for 10 years. The ducting is shot. As soon as the attic is ‘sanitized’ this weekend, one of my lucky guys gets to go up there and pull all the ducting out and replace it all.
The smell is just strange because the house is really dry
Does the AC even work? I ask because my dad’s house is about the same age and he had kept his old AC limping along for years but getting replacement parts last time was a real hassle.
It’s finally been replaced–not cheap.
There’s been a lot of rain in the last week or so - by now they should have an idea of smell under those conditions.
We had rat issues in our attic and ended up having to get it emptied out down the wood and sanitized. The rat control companies we had previously used couldn’t find all the entry points but this company did. Apparently the smell in the attic was pretty bad but we never sensed it inside the house. We could hear them though. I don’t want to even say how many dead rats they found because I still shudder thinking about it.
