Exposed rock hand excavated french drains are both ancient and modern.
Hand excavated french drains cost less than they pay in any market, but especially in a buyers market, with record high home inventory and falling prices.
Todays home buyers have much to choose from. The bank will love the fact that professionally installed hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems were previously installed, as they know how well they work when installed properly. Tough real estate market? You bet.
Tough real estate marketing conditions exist most everywhere in the U.S. right now. This makes it necessary for properties to show value added features in order to get the kind of home buyers with strong credit who can get the deal done.
Many of these home buyers are first time home buyers who want “green” homes, and are home drainage smart and studied. They know it is not a subject to be taken lightly.
Eventually the home inspection report identifies the groundwater problem however, and the gig is up. The home sellers are left kicking and screaming all the way to the bank as they are forced to deal with it finally, as the new proposal price is twice what it was 10 years ago when they bought the home that way.
Now these sellers are left to deal with it, under the worst of circumstances.
Homes with hand excavated french drains, professionally installed, are value added features. They are capital improvements actually, from a tax standpoint, as they are not a home repair, and are value added groundwater removal systems, that did not exist previously at the home, and are recognized by the I.R.S. too.
Home buyers should come to home sellers with pre-approval letters in hand, solid credit, and a great plan to sniff out any home drainage problems that may exist at the home they are looking at right away. In the first 15 minutes.
If these home buyers use my home buyers due diligence check lists, provided for free on this site, and created to help home buyers find drainage problems, home buyers can pull honesty out of the most hesitant non-disclosing types of home sellers, with respect to finding out the truth from them, or their desire to hide it, and identifying any existing home drainage issues at the home that may exist.
When home sellers install hand excavated french drains at their home, the home stands out among the inventory of homes for sale. It has a value added feature that most do not.
There are few homes without the need for home drainage attention at some level around Portland, for example. All homes benefit from having hand excavated french drains installed. Some just benefit more than others.
Few homes will actually have hand excavated french drains professionally installed.
Very few homes in America that is, compared to all the homeowners wasting their money on sump pump installations that do not prevent groundwater from running below grade into crawl spaces.
Some homeowners feel they should not disclose groundwater problems, even after they have been solved. Many have not been solved, and they know opening up their mouths about home drainage will likely cause them to make a much fought trip to the bank required again, to pay for solving the drainage problem that belongs to them.
The non-disclosure of home drainage problems, past or present, as it pertains to a home, is in violation of state disclosure laws in Oregon.
Many homeowners have cosmetic enhancements, or a nice water feature to highlight when selling their home, but fewer homes have structural or environmental enhancements, such as hand excavated french drains, that positively impact the health of the home in many ways.
Hand excavated french drains are value added features that prevent dry rot, maintain the structural health and stability of the home, and remove groundwater that accumulates in basements and crawl spaces, before it saturates to that level, just to name a few. Groundwater can cause mildew, pests, mold and dryrot in your crawl space or basement.
Saturated foundation areas create moisture and mold problems in the home. When installed in conjunction with raising the foundation grade, as well as using a compacted splash block in that area, and installing rain drain discharges to vent gutter systems, hand excavated french drains pay huge groundwater removal dividends.
Be a home seller that proudly references the groundwater removal systems that were installed at the property to protect the infrastructure of the home.
Show off exposed river rock hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems proudly.
Hand excavated french drains are well known among professional contractors, by name, but poorly understood and installed by them in general, as a result of their limited experience with many types of home drainage problems.
Home sellers who have solved home drainage problems with hand excavated french drains should give home buyers a copy of the completed contract for drainage work. It probably was not cheap, and the buyers will also see the hand excavated french drain installation as a capital improvement and not a liability.
Home buyers are actively looking for properties with these home drainage solutions, and they will gladly pay for them in the home they wish to buy, unless they feel they can buy a home without them cheaper and install hand excavated french drains themselves at that home.
Sellers are obligated to at least disclose their experience with drainage problems, if not give the buyers a copy of the completed home drainage proposal, increasing their chances to be seen as honest sellers. Provide a copy of your completed french drain contract and many buyers will believe the honesty of your statements there after, and they will have a connection to whom ever did the drainage work, and likely be more inclined to meet you half way in negotiations, as a result of your honesty.
Stand out in the crowd and sell your home by showing off and promoting the ownership of hand excavated french drains when many homeowners flounder with groundwater problems and do not even have the courage to disclose them, and in legal opposition to state home quality disclosure laws that mandate them to disclose everything they know about the former and present health of the home, to include home drainage.
Show off your success with stopping groundwater entry. “Green home buyers” will like the fact that this will not be one of the many homes that they will find on the market with seller undisclosed groundwater problems, at least.
Many home sellers do not have any moral or karmic problem at all withholding information on home drainage systems that were formerly installed at the home, or anything to do with the subject for that matter, because they feel that the disclosure is a deal killer. Pure and simple and worth being a home drainage liar over apparently in many cases.
Actually it works just the opposite. The home buyers who go on to the next home, after the disclosure, would have done so anyway.
If a home buyer wants the home, a home drainage solution is value added, not an encumbrance. If they don’t want the home, it does not matter to them either way really. If they want the home and a problem exists, they will negotiate to fix it prior to closing of escrow and still buy the home in most cases.