When we were selling my mom’s condo, we had one guy who wanted us to accept a lowball offer with a contingency that he had to sell his condo, which he hadn’t even started to put on the market. No thanks! He still hadn’t sold his when we closed on Mom’s six months later.
Oy. That’s not good.
Yes…nested layers of contingencies.
If the sale of this house does not go through - can you buy it yourself and flip it?
I posted a link in the #7 thread. There is a reason people accept a lower cash offer over a contingent higher offer… Gosh. What a ball of %#@&$
Fingers crossed for the grandma and your crew!!
@thumper1
The swimming pool looks good in photo. But imo it is small and useless. I have a bigger one in my yard and I rarely swim in it because two or three strokes, I am at the other end. However, the cost of maintenance is no less. It is about $2000/ year to maintain a pool, counting the labor, chemicals, electricity for the pump, water and equipment. I am about to give up and spend the $10,000 to close it and grow flowers.
I’m late to the party, but OMG, I had to comment on the house. My 90 year old mother lives in the Mid-west. If I didn’t know I was looking at pictures from So California, I would think several of these shots were her home - complete with green carpet. Much of the furniture is identical to hers as well. Very eerie feeling!
When we bought our house 20 years ago, the kitchen had wall paper including on the ceiling and one of the bedrooms was papered as well. I hired a wallpaper specialist who steamed and carefully scraped. The process took multiple days and she renegotiated price with me after she discovered more than 5 layers of wallpaper in the bedroom. I didn’t have a problem paying - I was home throughout much of the work and was quite impressed with how difficult it can be remove the paper while not destroying the underlying wall. It does make you wonder about the previous owners!
@artloversplus - it is very hot in the summer in the El Cajon area where this house is located so I think that even a small pool would get a lot of use there. I have a friend that lives in the area and they use their pool all the time.
If the house is unoccupied and you are not keeping the carpet, it is fairly easy to remove wall paper. I can take care of that house with 4 people in a day. What you do is hook up a hose on to the hot water heater and just wash the walls with hot water three times, wait about 1/2 hour between each until the glue softens in the back. Scrap it off. Depends on what kind of wall paper, if you lucky got those thick plastic one, its almost instant, just peel it off. However, if it is the really thin paper type, you need some time to scrap it off.
You will have pools of water everywhere in the house, but who cares, once it is mopped up, the wall papers are gone.
@artloversplus, Ouch!!
We had moved into our home which has hardwood floors throughout. Kitchen fully equipped with appliances that would not have taken well to the wall above being power washed. The room with the 5 layers of wallpaper included silk and fiber applications. The room had belonged to the daughter of the house who must have totally redecorated at least 5 times as she grew up. At the time of our move in, I had no re-hab plans, just a simple re-decorate sans wall paper.
I have never heard of taking a hose and spraying down the interior of the house. It would be too risky to me… could cause major water damage. I suppose that is the same effect as using a steamer, but covering less square footage than a water hose just going to town inside a bedroom 
It looks like the elderly couple already have another offer on their house but it definitely drags out the close of escrow on their purchase.
So…you wouldn’t have any water damage to the subflooring, Sheetrock or plaster? No mildew or lingering water issues?
I have never had those problems, the water is there only for a short time, mop it up right after will be good. You are not flooding the house and let the water stay there for days. Its matter of hours. Put plastics along the wall will minimize the pooling.
PLEASE note this is can only be done in a VACANT home undergone renovation.
And a home where all the flooring is torn up and you have exposed concrete floors. I’m not sure I would do it on plywood sub floors because the water might soak into the plywood and cause expansion or deterioration. I suppose you could try to lay plastic carefully but my luck would have water seeping under the exposed bottom of the drywall and getting sucked in
true, but a short time water soaking will not do much damage, just like if you have a water leak under the sink. It will be good once the leak is stopped. You don’t pull out/replace the wall board when that happens, do you?
No but a leak under the sink does not hit ALL of the walls in the room or house.
@artloversplus if that works for you…and saves you money…fine.
But I would not do it at all…unless I had tons of days to be certain all was dried out…no mildew, and no damage to drywall or subflooring.
Well, your mileage may vary…
We had a hot water pipe leak in our kitchen. Water came up from the slab and wasn’t spraying all over, but built up about 3/4" and then flowed out under the sills into the garage. We had the water off at the curb within an hour, restoration folks there within two hours. Our MDF builder grade cabinets were trashed. (Much to my delight).
We had industrial grade dehumidifiers going around the clock for five days and yet had mold under the hardwood floors (which had to be trashed) in adjacent rooms. Then there were the bookcases and cabinets that sat on the hardwood floors. Fortunately we were there, awake and able to move all of our possessions away from the water. No “things” were damaged. (If you want an early morning wake-up exercise, try carrying everything from your under the stairs closet upstairs at 5:30 AM)
Our insurance company paid over $45,000 for damage caused by about 45 minutes of water damage just seeping up from below. I can’t even imagine if we had told them " yes, we were hosing down the walls to remove wallpaper. ".
The elderly buyers went into escrow again to sell their house. It looks like this sale may go through. Their buyers have finished inspections and their loan is almost approved. They will probably close at end of August and purchase their new Grandma House simultaneously. I just have no idea where they are going to live while all the work is being completed on their purchase house.
Have you made it clear to them that they cannot live in the house while you’re working on it? That would be a nightmare for all of you.
Definitely NOT when the asbestos removal will be happening or for some time after that!