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.

I explained that home sellers who do not disclose former or present groundwater problems and installed groundwater solutions, are putting themselves at risk legally under state law, and that it was not ethical as well.

I told her that in the Portland, Oregon area many homes are affected by groundwater, and that buyers expect honesty, and are not put off by, but encouraged by, the evidence of groundwater problems solved with hand excavated french drains.

If you are a buyer of real estate anywhere, make home drainage the first item on your home checklist to ask about, and look for.

Look for evidence of groundwater problems already installed by someone, by using the information contained within articles pertaining to this subject on this website. Watch for homeowners like the one just mentioned who believe they can circumvent the state mandated home disclosure laws and attempt to trick home buyers into thinking no groundwater problems have ever existed.

Let the buyer beware, with respect to homeowners with this mentality. There are probably thousands of these non-disclosing types in Oregon alone. I see them all the time. They cause unsuspecting buyers monetary and emotional damage at here to fore not understood degree. They can bankrupt a family. These home sellers perpetuate home selling and lender fraud on the public without so much as a thought to the damage they do to individuals and to the real estate market in general.

Help me stamp out non-disclosure of home drainage problems.

Learn, empower, and insulate yourself from home drainage ploys, ignorance and scammers.

There is a repairs cap generally in every earnest money agreement. Don’t make the amount too low if you really want to own the home and get the home drainage problems solved at the sellers expense prior to closing of escrow, like your lender wants. That is why your lender will have you contact a licensed, bonded and insured home drainage contractor when a home drainage problem is found in the home you are selling or you wish to purchase.

Specify home drainage repairs in the language of the earnest money agreement and discuss the subject on your first meeting with the sellers while all the real estate agents are around. Indicate your interest in the home but identify your concern over what you believe to be a home drainage problem.

Write the earnest money agreement only after conducting a personal home inspection with the information I have included in my e-book on the subject of “buyers due diligence for groundwater problems prior to purchasing a home” and by reading other lessons on the subject within this website on how to conduct your own home inspection prior to writing the earnest money agreement. This is home drainage due diligence that will save you lots of money and prevent you from getting stuck with the sellers groundwater problems and you getting trapped in a well known lender trap.

Most often the seller and their agent will want to limit the repair cap amount in the earnest money agreement to $500.-$1500. This won’t even dent the cost of most major home repairs in this day and age, like dry rot or to solve home groundwater problems with properly designed, engineered and installed hand excavated french drains.

The $3500.-$5000. range is a more likely price with which to fund the hiring of a professional licensed, bonded and insured home drainage contractor for the average home drainage job. Large homes and tough topography are going to cost much more than small homes with home sites that are easy to work on.

If you don’t set the repairs cap amount high enough to begin with you will likely be forced to settle for some stupid band aid approach to drainage when the bid exceeds the cap amount specified in the earnest money agreement and your lender already has trapped you into paying the fees for the loan before you know the condition of the home with respect to any required home repairs needed to fund the loan.

You may end up being trapped into accepting the installation of a sump pump, under the gun, to give yourself and the lender the impression that a home drainage groundwater entry solution has been installed and to get the property financed and closed.

Read in more detail on this subject on this website.

You may not get the home closed at all in todays real estate market if the lender recognizes that there is a significant home drainage problem and neither the seller or the buyer are willing to pay for the repair work prior to closing of escrow.

Lenders are much tougher on this subject under the current home market constraints that everyone is facing with respect to the condition of the home from a home drainage perspective which will influence the lenders desire to fund the loan, regardless of the buyers good credit status.

Lenders do not want the home back, period. It is not like the old days of price inflated home markets when the logic of the lenders was to allow leveraged purchases, knowing that the lender would just make more money on the home in the near future if they were forced to take it back in foreclosure.

If you can’t afford to solve the home drainage problem yourself after closing, with hand excavated french drains, I advise you to not buy the home as more serious financial, emotional and structural damage is likely in your future as a result of the procrastinated solution to the home drainage problem affecting the homes health.

If it isn’t a monetary concern it will be a health concern from breathing bad air. If you do not solve the home drainage problem you will suffer worse in the future, perhaps with health issues as well. If you do not solve the home drainage problems, in the future you will likely become that same non disclosing seller that you bought the home from, complete with all the bad seller motivations based on immeadiate financial needs rather than doing what is right in the end.

The standard home seller cop out justifying non disclosing of home drainage problems goes something like this. ” We bought it that way, and we are going to sell it that way come hell or high water.” Appropriate I think. Kind of bold too in the face of lawsuits to correct their non-disclosure. This is quite a cavalier sellers approach alright that will likely crumble into dust as the scene unfolds.

This may be the sellers position, even if they bought the home knowing that a groundwater problem existed and did nothing nothing to solve it with hand excavated french drains, even after receiving an additional monetary discount off the accepted purchase price from the former sellers to do so.

On top of that, in time, many of these types of home sellers decided to enter fraudulent information on their state home disclosure form when selling the home and swear no home drainage problem ever existed. “You lie about it honey, and I’ll swear to it”. Great plan, right? Sounds like the military doesn’t it?

Sellers will try to play hard ball with you as home buyers. Something like “it’s my way or the highway.” The sellers, conditioned to believe they are going to skate on the problem, and their real estate agent in many cases, will choke on the amount of repair cap in the earnest money agreement you have suggested is required because many of these types of home sellers know very well how much it costs to make these home drainage groundwater capital improvements and have passed many tines in the past to pay for the professional installation of hand excavated french drains. These sellers often already know they have a serious home drainage problem. These home sellers probably have a stack of drainage proposals in their desk drawers to prove my point even as they lie to home buyers straight faced.

That’s likely why they have not installed the hand excavated french drains before. “Pennywise and pound foolish as the saying goes.” Write the repairs clause trigger subject to the home inspector inspectors agreement that a home drainage problem in fact exists. This clause covers any repairs needed to fund the loan, not just home drainage. The clause should indicate the need for professional inspection and the determination of the home drainage contractor that there is indeed a home drainage problem.

Specify that the contractor choice is the buyers and the sellers agree to pay for the selected the work to be done up to the agreed repairs cap amount in the repairs clause of the earnest money agreement. The sellers real estate agent may come off their chair on that one too. Let them dance. Stick to your plan.

That is certainly a fair proposition and anyone but sellers that already assume or know there is a drainage problem or other repairs will agree to this type of earnest money repairs clause. After all, if no problem exists, they pay nothing and the home closes. Never let the lender order your inspection. Check with your lender when you pre-qualify for the loan and specify that this is your elective and not their choice, as long as the home inspector is a state licensed inspector. The lender must agree to accept the eventual finding of the inspector and any professional home drainage contractor of your choice that agrees with the home inspector.

The home inspection, specified in the home repairs contingency in the earnest money agreement, should be ordered and paid for by the buyer prior to the buyer spending more money ordering appraisals and making application for a loan on a property that does not have a clean bill of health. If you get flack over this, walk and find a better home and truthful sellers.

If there is no home drainage problem as you think the seller is off the hook and no harm, no foul, the home closes. This is a fair and reasonable situation for both parties. Home sellers who already know there is a groundwater problem or other repairs will not want to go there. Just a word to the wise if you are the buyer, do not be afraid to walk and find a better home, no matter how much you like the pool, for example.

Unless you plan to solve the groundwater problem with hand excavated french drains and other related “green” construction techniques as described in my e-books, be smart buyers and just pass on that home no matter how the nice cosmetics call to you and your family.

If you find a home that has a groundwater drainage problem with evidence of groundwater in the crawlspace or basement and the sellers have not disclosed it in writing on their Oregon state property condition disclosure, as required by state of Oregon law, and does not acknowledge previous knowledge of the drainage problem and refuses to solve their own deferred maintenance home drainage problems at their own expense find another home without home drainage problems and truthful sellers. There are lots of good homes for sale in any market but especially in this buyers market in the United States.

Evidence of a former home drainage problem that was solved with hand excavated french drains installed by a licensed, bonded and insured home drainage professional should not dissuade you from buying the home. The main squeeze here is, “did those french drains they are showing you actually stop the groundwater entry below grade and solve the problem”.

Find a home with hand excavated french drains to protect your homes environment and subsequently your families health. You will be glad you did in the long run and that home will be more healthy than one without the benefit of home drainage expertise protecting it from serious damage, even “during hell or high water.”

Sellers should proudly show off the value added existence of their hand excavated french drains rather than hide the existence of them from buyers. Some sellers still look at hand excavated french drains as an admission of a problem rather than the proud evidence of a home drainage problem solved.