Question 1

Sellers market not many houses avail. I've never seen anything like this market. Can someone tell me what caused the shortage in houses for sale or is it an increase of buyers?

Question 2

Most of the homes I saw recently have the very same stairsteps in block basement wall often near the basement window.

I passed up 2 otherwise great bilevel homes except for this basement block issue and the below ground windows where water is settled in and around.

While walking the perimeter of todays home, I noticed the neighbors at todays showing has tightly affixed the clear plastic bubbles window covers along with a wide stretch of concentration of rocks surrounding her side of the house.

Are the bubble window covers really effective in keeping water out of the ditch?.. for lack of a better word..to describethe open below ground window area.

So I didn't offer on those 2 nice houses but someone did because they were quickly in contract.

I'll try your first question: Before the housing crash, around 2007, there was an abundance of homes/housing because contractors were continuing a frenetic pace of building primarily due to the lenders easy money policies (giving anyone and everyone a loan). Houses and apartments were overbuilt and housing prices were increasing at a fast pace.

When the housing crash hit, speculators and house flippers quickly owed more than their properties were worth. The stock market was also crashing. All housing pretty much came to a halt. Builders quit building and began going bankrupt. People had overextended themselves and had borrowed more money (especially from their home's equity) than they could repay. Interest rates had also started increasing and those people who had taken out loans with adjustable rate mortgages soon could not afford to pay back their loans. Lenders quit lending money. People also were losing their jobs and started losing their homes. Many also had to move in with friends, family, or became homeless.

Money was being lost in the stock market. Housing was crashing. Builders nearly all quit building. Within a few years, the oversupply of homes became an undersupply. Only in the last three to five years have builders slowly started building again and have not yet caught up with demand (where we are now). But they soon will.

Tight market is both shortage of houses and more people buying...

The better economy has people thinking about buying houses and many of them are rushing to do so in order to get the lower interest rate. There is plenty of talk about mortgage interest rates rising, and they are slowly increasing.

In my area, the regulations on building and the requirements of planning boards increase the cost of developing raw land. That cost is so high, they can't hide it in a simple affordable house. They have to have expensive houses to justify the building.

For example.. Storm water management requires building around swampy areas, putting in retention ponds, which all take up possible lots. Our town requires street trees and lot trees to be put in as well as "buffers" to the existing houses, sidewalks everywhere. A developer pays for an engineer to design these streets and lots and wetlands, then the planning department doesn't like it and the developer has to pay to redesign them. So in the end, a lot (including cost of buying the land) cost $90K or more. Kinda of hard to at that to a house that costs $100 to $150K to build. But easier to hide that in a $400K house.

In our area, all this makes the housing market tight. Add to that all the people who think they can flip houses or fixit up themselves because they watched it get done in an hour TV show.

I can see it slowing down a bit here, the houses are sitting on the market a little longer, the news is talking about how the interest rates are rising and you might be better renting. Like everything there are cycles.

The "open below ground window area" is called a window well. The stairstepping cracks in the basement walls show signs of ground movement, which could mean a major problem or just a minor one. Most basement water issues can be solved by grading and directing water away from the foundation.

The Guvmint is offering grants to First Time Mome Buyers to purchase homes. I think it is 15K. One of the desk clerks at the podiatrist's office got one and was then immediately let go from her job for clashing with the new doctor who bought the practice. And there in the nutshell is why these things don't work. If a person can't save money on their own and has bad judgement enough to fight with the boss and get fired, they are going to lose the home.

So I suspect that is why there is a seller's market but probably not everywhere. In 2006 the problem was again 200K mortgages to people with poor credit. Pretty soon every piece of junk property was 200K. I was closing out my mother's estate that year and got caught in that. So that time the authors of the legislation NP and HR, put a poison pill in the deal and the bome buyers could not sell for five years. So when they couldn't keep up with the mortgage they were evicted and the overpriced homes went back to the banks in large numbers and ruined a few banks and then hurt Wall Street also.

I'm 99 percent sure its the free guvmint grants but there are quite a few boarded up homes around here for cheap left over from the last giveaway.

Re the window wells, its a cut out into the ground and if the water table comes up it will fill with water like any other hole in the ground only this time it can come in the window.

I am a licensed home inspector and evaluate cracks every day. It is impossible to give an accurate assessment over the internet, but a few GENERAL rules.

1) Stairstep cracks are typically the least serious type...horizontal cracks with bowing of the wall are the most serious.

2) Stairstep cracks are usually caused by settling.

3) Further evaulation/information is needed to determine if they are an issue. For example, is the crack "offset" where one block sticks out towards you further than the other? If so, that is a more serious issue. Also, does the crack wider at one end than the other...sometimes called a "divergent" crack? If so, that is more serious. How wide is the crack at its widest point? If less than 1/8", usually not a concern.

Once we see these cracks and make all these observations, we look for other signs of trouble. There are too many to list here but a few include windows/doors that are "racked" (not square) or that have difficulty opening, floors that slope or sag, drywall corner tape seams that are "crumpled" due to variations in movement between one wall and the other.

The short answer, as you can see, is that dangerous for a layperson to think they can accurately diagnose a foundation crack without significant training or experience.

As for below grade windows...I'd need to see a photo of what you mean. Egress window? Window well? Coal chute on an old house? Something else?

As one other person said, the plastic covers will do no good unless you have good "grading" (slope) of the yard away from the house...we recommend 1/4" per foot for the first 10 feet minimum.

Hello,

I was out bid again. The offers were even higher and I was asked highest and best even tho I already stated that was already highest and best.

Current have a bid on a much nicer home with much milder fewer stairstwps again directly under the mostly finished basement window. this home is bigger nicer so I am really expecting some mechanical or otherwise problem or why else would it be on market so inexpensive?

But again lots of multiple over bidding and ill know in a couple days if i won that bid..