Just Got Back From The Inspection On That House I WAS Going To Buy...
 

Motherf*cking MODULAR like Peabody and Black94 thought it might be.

Listing agent said it wasn't TWICE, and I specifically asked TWICE before we signed the contract, when I saw the skinny kitchen wall and the through-wall fans.

The VA had to do their inspection (VA loan) which the place passed, but I hadn't seen the docs on that yet, but I went ahead and had my guy do my own inspection at my own cost because I only trust my guy and he took one look and said "why are you looking at a double-wide?"

Listing agent starts bitching...

30 seconds in the attic, 30 seconds in the crawlspace and, bingo-bango, WHERE'S MAH F*CKIN' EARNEST MONEY MOTHERF*CKER?

I hate looking for a house.

Hey, now I get to call the landlord and tell him the garage got peeled like a grape last night, come fix it, and I'm still not moving...

Hating the world continues...

Sorry to hear that. But although being a modular can affect things like financing and insurance, it should not have to be an automatic deal-breaker. Thing like it's age, what it is sitting on, how well it's insulated, etc. can make a difference. I've lived in a few modular rentals, and they are not all bad. If it's livable and meets some of the standards mentioned above, the only thing that needs to happen is a large price drop. Make a low ball offer and see what happens.

And I don't know how important that garage is to you, but you're not going to run into many liken the one next to this house.

Tell me about it.

The house is nearly all aluminum wiring as well, and we're already at the seller's bottom dollar.

Thing is, now he's got to change his listing, doesn't he? He's got it listed as a site built... and it's not... so the listing is a clear misrepresentation...

Sometimes I think the world is full of dumbasses quite often. :toetap:

Keep pressing, Apex. :seasix:

Aluminum wiring would be a deal breaker for me. It's the first thing I checked when I was looking for mobile homes. Generally, thy stopped using it around '74. I'm surprised the VA was even willing to finance it. I paid cash for my mobile, but I hear no one will finance one with aluminum wiring. I hope you get your earnest $ back. If not, threaten to complain about the realtor to whoever in your state issues his license. That should get his attention.

Just burns my ass... another month wasted... and that garage was perfect for my plans for world domina... I mean fruit canning... that's it... fruit canning... :leaving:

I agree with MrPeabody; wouldn't the seller's misrepresentation give you some leverage to bring the price down? What is the market value on a modular in your area? Hopefully you might be in a position to do some pretty severe arm twisting.


Edit: Oops, missed the aluminum wiring. See if they'll replace it.

:iagree: NFW would I inhabit a house with aluminum wiring.

My agent (not the listing agent) told me I'll get my earnest back because this is a failure of the inspection, simple as that, contract is invalid, nothing they can do.

Yeah, you should have heard the listing agent squeal. His balls are in a vice and I'll tell you why.

He sold the place to the current owner. Now, I haven't met the current owner in person, and I'd have a hard time believing that anyone that owned a building for 16 years and supposedly redid the place once 16 years ago, and then paid to have it done a second time two years ago, wouldn't know it was a modular home, especially since my inspector only had to climb halfway up a ladder and shimmy halfway into a crawlspace to know the place was a modular, but apparently the current owner actually believes the place to have been stick built in 1968.

Now, the listing agent has to go back and tell the current owner why his house failed the inspection, and he's got no other way to justify it other than "it's a modular with aluminum wiring" and "it's not worth what you're asking", which I'm told is just a couple thousand dollars more than the seller needs to break even on the place, but that's probably just a bargaining tactic...

At any rate, I'm not sure what modulars are worth around here, I dismiss them out of hand because trailers and modulars have a stigma and I don't want to deal with it...

I didn't even know aluminum wiring was a thing until today... I thought my inspector was filling me full of shit.... but no, he wasn't funnin' me at all...

I understand it was a cause of a lot of mobile home fires back when they used it.

Speaking of fruit canning. I just put up some spicy pickled pineapple. We'll see how it turns out.

:iagree: The connections don't seem to stay tight as well as copper. Loose connections can cause arcing which can cause fires.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With modular construction versus stick, value I would offer just went down at least 30%

Damn shame, it looks like a decent place.

aluminum wiring expands more than copper, and when attached to outlets designed for copper, will work the screws loose over time. there are viable solutions, or you can look at another house and let someone else deal with it.

:iagree:
Aluminum connections heat up like crazy if they aren't a perfectly clean connection. Aluminum oxide is almost immediate to the surface of the metal as well as other corrosions and contaminates that are always present in a connection. With less area to connect because of corrosion, the resistance rises, the heat rises, and since aluminum doesn't stand up well to heat, it melts and bad things happen.

From the photos of the house, I assumed it was modular. Sucks that the realtor was a lying piece of shit.

Good luck with house hunting.

Sorry to hear that, it definitely looked like a modular, too bad the realtor was more interested than selling it than learning/telling the truth. Modular would not be a deal breaker for me, just a cost adjustment, but it sounds like the seller may be at the bottom already and with the wiring, I'd walk away

Interesting in that my burb here built in the early 70's all had aluminum wiring, and they use aluminum all over hell for decades now, for Service Entrance Cable (SEC)........including the lines to the weatherhead on the house with good size screw base union couplings.....

NOW having said that, when I added the addition, redone the baths, and completely rewired the kitchen and the main panel replaced, much less the garage and storage sheds....lets just say that maybe 4 rooms of just lighting circuits remain aluminum, all the power stuff if heavy copper.....I get a short I melt that pole transformer........

Only thing I see about a 'modular' home is the open space and cold air under the flooring, much less the thin walls, and that means of course....STORM damage, as in FLORIDA hurry cains.....

I"m a believer in solid walls of masonry construction.....cinder block faced with 4" of brick is fine....hell my house is 8" block with just brick styled stucco over it.....

and over some 20 years in this burb, I am aware of just two house fires....both kitchen stove oriented....not wiring....

BUT having said that, one of the homes was rebuilt, but the other was a total loss, how in HELL a fire could destroy a slab and block walls I got no clue, but they cleaned the lot so 1/4 acre is for sale.....just dirt, .....

:dance::seasix:

So - how would you NOT know this was a modular house before you put down earnest money - did you not see the house in person first? If you did, you can spot a modular home a mile away - easy to see if you go inside and do a thorough look around.