Woman buys a house for $ 430,000: when she visits it, she is shocked by the state of the property

by Mark Bennett

July 04, 2022

Woman buys a house for $ 430,000: when she visits it, she is shocked by the state of the property
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When you decide to buy a house, there are steps you cannot ignore. You browse the ads, choose a shortlist of possibles and, before making any offer, you pay a visit to the building to be sure about the condition of the property. Otherwise, the risks are too great and you could buy a house for an amount that does not correspond with its real value. This is exactly what happened in the story we are about to tell you about in this article.

The affair involved a widow who put her house up for sale and a naive buyer who bought the place without first visiting the property. Here is how things went:

via Reddit

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Sue Thompson/Flickr - Not the actual photo

Sue Thompson/Flickr - Not the actual photo

In a post on Reddit, a woman told her experience about the incident involving her parents' neighbor. As the latter had moved away, the subject of this story bought the plot of land on which her neighbor's house had been built. Inhabited for over 20 years, the house had never been renovated, except for the roof. Then, when the owner's husband passed away, and the house proved to be too big for one person, the widow decided to put it up for sale.

The asking price was $ 400,000 dollars - a figure that was already quite substantial considering the poor condition of the house by that time. Obviously, this wasn't the seller's problem, but was rather the concern (or should of been) of the person who was going to buy the property. At the time, not many properties were up for sale in the area and the house was sold to an inexperienced buyer. This buyer, a woman immediately paid the necessary amount so that the house would taken off the for-sale list, also offered $ 30,000 more than the asking price for the home.

If you think there is nothing strange with this scenario, you are very wrong. The critical mistake made by this buyer is that she did not bother to inspect the property first, and discover that it was actually far from perfect. Only after the deed of sale went through and when she went to site, did she realize how urgently the house was in need of a extensive rennovation. At this point, she contacted the former owner and asked her to do the restoration work immediately. The widow's answer was icy, albeit justifiable: she no longer had anything to do with the house, and as she was now no longer the owner, she didn't have to do anything.

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Pxhere - Not the actual photo

Pxhere - Not the actual photo

This was a major setback for the buyer who, attracted by the deal, made a beginner's mistake in order to grab it quickly - but ended up losing a lot of money. According to the Reddit post, the woman would tried to resell the property for the same price - but few people will make the same mistake of buying a house without first taking a look.  Consequently, no one would ever spend $ 430,000 dollars on a house in need of a full restoration.

Users of the Redditt community have told similar stories and could not help but agree with the behavior of the seller. Who would not have acted the same way? Let's face it: nobody -  especially if we consider that she had received an offer which was higher than the price she set herself. Indeed, the seller had done nothing wrong and need not feel guilty or be labelled as a scammer.  And remember, there is the famous expression: "caveat emptor" ("let the buyer beware").

What do you think about this story?

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