In the areas we’re looking at, brick houses are out of reach and weatherboard houses are the only option. We have never lived in a weatherboard house before and would like to know the maintenance involved and the cost for the maintenance.
Also, when we go and inspect a weatherboard house, what to look? What conditions should we attach to our offer?
Thank you in advance.
Dry rot, wet rot & termites are your three main issues. Get a thorough building inspection.
Subject to….
– Results of building, pest and asbestos inspections being satisfactory to the buyer. (Cost of inspections to be worn by buyer).
– Buyer being able to secure insurance that is satisfactory to the buyer
– Finance. But not just "subject to finance". Be explicit. For example, "subject to 80% Residential Investment Property Finance by Commonwealth Bank of Australia".
– Vacant possession (meaning if there are tenants living in it, they have to be out by time of settlement).
Jacqui Middleton | Middleton Buyers Advocates
http://www.middletonbuyersadvocates.com.au
Email Me | Phone MeVIC Buyers' Agents for investors, home buyers & SMSFs.
Definitely ensure your building inspector checks out the stumps. Be present for the inspection and follow the guy around. You'll learn from it and see that he is actually inspecting things. Make sure he gets up on the roof and takes a look around too.
Do not go without a pest inspection. Just imagine if the place is currently being eaten by termites.
Jacqui Middleton | Middleton Buyers Advocates
http://www.middletonbuyersadvocates.com.au
Email Me | Phone MeVIC Buyers' Agents for investors, home buyers & SMSFs.
IP Freely wrote:Dry rot, wet rot & termites are your three main issues. Get a thorough building inspection.Thank you for your quick response.
Thank you, JacM.
When you say
– Buyer being able to secure insurance that is satisfactory to the buyerDo you mean building insurance? Is it hard/expensive to get a building insurance for a weatherboard house?
Can anyone recommend companies to do building, pest and asbestos inspections, who can do a thorough job?
We're in Melbourne (inner north). The property we're looking at is 60-70 years old and needs a good look at…
Thanks.Yes I mean building insurance. It actually needs to be house and contents insurance of course…. with enough contents cover to insure not only your furniture, clothes, personal effects etc, but also things like the carpets and curtains. They are contents, apparently… not part of the building. Ask the insurance company to explain what things are not part of the "building" to be sure. The last insurer I spoke to enlightened me that concrete and driveways and fences were covered under the building, but the gardens were not covered at all. Being an IP i thought well. If I have to redo the gardens, I'll ponder laying a concrete garden instead of plants!
I can't imagine you'd have a problem getting insurance, I just think this "subject to" clause is a nice get out of jail free card. What is the measure of "insurance satisfactory to the buyer" anyway. There is no measure. Wink wink. I've used the clause on a purchase of a block of units, and was starting to get jittery about how hard it was to get insurance for blocks of units that were not under a strata title arrangement. I thought oh wow, maybe I'll just have to use that clause after all! But it all worked out, so all ok. But equally, I could have pulled the deal simply because I didn't feel like buying the property any more, simply by saying "oh, sorry, it's terribly unfortunate, I just couldn't find insurance that was satisfactory to ME".
Remember to put a timeline on your subject to clauses. eg "subject to ME finding satisfactory insurance to ME within 14 days"…. "subject to finding 80% finance with CBA within 21 days" etc etc.
Jacqui Middleton | Middleton Buyers Advocates
http://www.middletonbuyersadvocates.com.au
Email Me | Phone MeVIC Buyers' Agents for investors, home buyers & SMSFs.
ps it is quite possible the same chap that does the building inspection can note any obvious asbestos and its associated risks (often fine if left undisturbed), and to note anywhere it could be lurking that is not visible (eg hessian underlay beneath old carpet, under floor tiles / lino……)
Jacqui Middleton | Middleton Buyers Advocates
http://www.middletonbuyersadvocates.com.au
Email Me | Phone MeVIC Buyers' Agents for investors, home buyers & SMSFs.
Thank you JacM! I feel enpowered! I'm going to inspect a property in the afternoon. What other questions should I ask the real estate agent?
In general it would be handy to know why the owners are selling, so you can find out if they are in a hurry to sell (eg have already bought their replacement house and need the cash), need to sell (little old lady needs cash to buy into a nursing home unit), hate the house and just want to be rid of it (divorce – don't want the memories associated with the house)……
Try to find out, without directly asking "why are they selling?"
Get yourself into a nice conversation about the weather or nearby beach activities or whatever,…. some kind of appropriate natural lead-up to "and are they moving to somewhere nice?" or something to that effect. And then couple that with "Oh, lovely, lucky them – when do they move there?" You ought to get an answer that tells you if they've already moved in, or have been forced to tenant the new house till the old house is sold, or whatever. It might also tell you if they are building a new place, and it is not ready yet. In that regard, you could make an offer that agrees that settlement date is not until just after their new house is ready. This is because you'll save the owners from moving to a temporary residence while they wait for their newbuild to complete. Often people will lower their price a little for this convenience.
If you see lots of family photos about, you could say something like "they look like lovely happy people – they look happy here – why are they moving?"
Weigh up this information – the answers could tell you that the vendors might accept a lower price just to be rid of the place, or if the timing of the settlement is convenient.
Jacqui Middleton | Middleton Buyers Advocates
http://www.middletonbuyersadvocates.com.au
Email Me | Phone MeVIC Buyers' Agents for investors, home buyers & SMSFs.
ChristinaM wrote:Can anyone recommend companies to do building, pest and asbestos inspections, who can do a thorough job?
We're in Melbourne (inner north). The property we're looking at is 60-70 years old and needs a good look at…
Thanks.I used Aussiespect to do my property inspection (http://www.aussiespect.com.au/) and I was really happy with their services. It was a rush job, and they did it within 2 days of me calling. I don't believe they cover asbestos, although if you ask them to look out for it they will. There's a sample report available on their website that shows the level of detail they go into.
When I was searching for quotes, the cheapest I could find for Building + Pest combined was $550. Aussiespect was $660 for both, but because I could see the sample report I felt like it was worth the extra $110 to know I would be getting a good one – have heard some bad stories about really brief reports that only pointed out the obivous – e.g. what a non-builder could already see.
One thing to be aware of is that the report costs don't cover the inspector moving anything – e.g. they won't move a couch out of the way to inspect behind it. So it's much easier to have an empty property inspected than one that is currently lived in – that way there's much less they can hide behind other 'stuff'.
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