It was a cold and rainy Sunday when Carla called me up to talk about houses. I hadn’t seen Carla in a few years, and it was nice to hear her voice again. She had just come from having a discount brokerage agent show her a house outside the San Geronimo Valley, and she wanted to know my thoughts about the property. Carla was in San Anselmo, and like me didn’t have any other plans for the morning so I offered to check it out with her again. We met in San Anselmo and I hopped in Carla’s stylish and comfortable Tesla. I took special pleasure both in seeing Carla again, and riding in the Telsa’s heated seats.
We talked a bit about Carla's discount brokerage experience, which notoriously lacks in customer service. I’ve had two different buyers in the past tell me they never want to work with that brokerage again. The agents don’t always return calls. The person showing you a house isn’t the same person who writes an offer for you, and that’s not the person who handles the escrow. It’s choppy and confusing and there’s little to no accountability. Because they are on salary there is less incentive to help clients get their deals done, and buyers often feel like they hanging out to dry.
The gentleman who showed Carla the property had literally only opened the door for her. He could answer no questions or offer any insight into the home or neighborhood. A wealth of knowledge he was not.
The house was built in the early 1900’s and basically needed everything. The floors were sloped, but not in a uniform fashion. There were waves and undulations, and it was generally sloping downward in the direction of the creek behind the house. The rain was coming down pretty hard but the creek seemed like it wasn’t in any danger of overflowing, which was another positive. I asked Carla if she’d like to see the basement, and she was very reluctant. I couldn’t say I blamed her, it was horror-movie creepy. The basement had two dirty windows, one of which was cracked. The gray day and constant rain completed the ominous scene. The discount broker didn’t suggest going into the basement, but I insisted.
We descended the concrete steps, and opened the weathered door that led into the basement. The ceiling height was a bit low, and about half the area under the house was covered in dirty concrete. The other half was just moist dirt, which is probably at least part of what we smelled in the house. Water was gathering and leaking onto the concrete ground. We suspected it may have been coming from underground seepage, because there was no obvious puddling outside.
Water intrusion was not a new issue in the basement. The washer and dryer were both on a wooden platform about 6 inches off the ground, obviously to avoid the water issue. There was an old, rusty sump pump in a shallow hole near the laundry platform, and I could just imagine whomever lived at the house owning rain boots so they could do their laundry in the winter. What a lovely place to do one’s laundry!
The foundation in the laundry section of the house was about three and a half feet tall, which was good, except there was a pretty big crack near the corner where the house seemed to have sunken the most. The house had obviously been settling due to the water issues and would keep settling unless something better was done with the drainage. We wondered though, was there some kind of underground spring, and how could you even solve that problem?
There were other issues with the house too, including needing a new roof. The pest report was ugly, expensive and extensive. The house was a money pit, plain and simple. It was cute, and could be a great home: for somebody else.
Carla and I decided to start looking at condos.