Home buying no gutters

What is the problem ? For a small percentage of the price, just buy the home and put up your own gutters.

It always amazes me that on a $ 100,000 or more deal people worry about little things that can be rectified for less than $ 1000.

I bought a house about 10 years ago and it needed many small things like the dishwasher was making a lot of noise. The roof looked like it would need replacing in a few years. The popcorn on the garage cealing was starting to come off. I took all that into concideration and made an offer without saying anything on a $ 170,000 house.

Bought the house and had all the repairs made for about $ 6,000 that included a total remodel on the bathroom.

So? If you like the house and the price, you put the gutters you want on it.

Do you even need gutters? Some houses in the right places do fine without them, other places need them.

I don't see it as a deal breaker, just factor in the cost of gutters and see if you still like it. Same with carpet or tile you don't like. All those things happen in every house sale.

Basement below ground equals gutters. No basement equals no gutters.

Can you Col, beat peeler for the most hated on usenet? I bet peeler trumps you bar far. Jealous?

As others have stated, it's not a major ordeal. You have two options, don't buy because of the gutters, or lack thereof, or purchase if the price is right when factoring in new gutters, which, BTW, are cheap to install.

True. Not always needed. I have one that would just dump water in driveway where it would run off. It's not really needed. I also just put gutter guard in my low hanging gutters. Otherwise with no guards gutters might need cleaning twice a year.

My favorite is when I'm selling a house and buyers tell my realtor that they really like the house, but they don't like the color in one of the rooms. Then they leave without making an offer. If I'm selling a house, I'll negotiate on the gosh darned paint. Paint is one of the easiest things to change.

Exactly.

Average cost for gutter installation on medium-sized house is under $1,000.

If you want gutters, reduce whatever you planned to offer the seller by that amount, then call Gary the Gutter Guy ;-)

Estimate the cost of gutters and delete that from the price you offer. Guters are pretty cheap. About $2.10 a foot plus installation

Make sure that all contact surfaces between the exterior walls and the slab are not damaged due to chronic excessive moisture. If there's a basement, the foundation may not be in good condition unless excellent grading has existed all around the perimeter of the structure. Also, termites tend to prefer moist ground so a competent termite inspection should be done prior to proceeding with the purchase. If in doubt, the cost of hiring a professional real estate inspector may be a good investment.

It is pretty common in the south not to have gutters. It really depends on how long the overhang is and how well the ground drains. If you get down far enough south we don't have basements to worry about in the first place. A rain gutter full of leaves is far worse than any gutter at all, no matter where you live and in a heavy rain, those screens shuttle most of the water over the side anyway. People are just not willing to go out in the rain to look.

And your absence of basements magnifies your risk of injury/death when tornadoes come unless you're fortunate enough to have a storm cellar. I lived for two years in "tornado alley" where the ground was hard red clay. My house was a typical modest rancher on a slab in a modest income development. None of the houses had storm cellars. I spent many anxious minutes in an interior bathroom tub with a mattress pulled over me whenever the sirens sounded. Much more anxiety provoking than the few times I had to mop up basement seepage from my clogged gutters in my other places in the northeast and mid-Atlantic.

That varies depending on where you live. Florida gets quite a few tornadoes, usually not as severe as other places. If I was to dig a hole to hide in I would also need a diving bell to use it.

If I lived in tornado alley most of my house would be underground. Especially the sleeping quarters or bed rooms.

I have a basement where I live now. In an area where tornados are not too bad. A small one came within about 1000 feet from my house during the day about 10 years ago. I was at work. My wife was home, but did not notice it. All it did was rip a few pieces of tin roof off a building it passed over and blew down about a dozen small trees.

Florida definition of a basement? An indoor swimming pool.

A basement in Florida is called an inside swimming pool. You can dig a well here with a post hole digger. FEMA does have plans for above ground safe rooms that will survive an F4 but I have never heard of anyone building one. The reality is the cyclones we get here are usually not much more powerful than the eye wall of a hurricane. They are usually small, skip and go things. Not the monster that eats half of Oklahoma. We do build to the 150 MPH wind code here and it is 160 a couple miles west of me. A little dust devil doesn't really scare us that badly.