Housing Dirt

Yesterday I was looking at my rear kitchen wall which has some fairly new and widening cracks (ah the joys of home ownership). Because of some funky fencing, part of my wall is on my neighbor’s side of the fence. So I went over to his place and took a look at the part of the wall I couldn’t see from my side of the fence. While I was over on his side chatting with him I did mention some of the dirt some of the other neighbors were saying about the construction quality of his place. From what I can remember the guys said that the contractor didn’t make the foundation for the addition deep enough and the addition violated the 60-40 rule.
I’m glad I mentioned it as I felt bad about warning/ telling him early on as a buyer. But really how do you which people are actually going to buy the house?
And yesterday I got an email asking about a house, that is up for sale. The email wanted to know about the neighborhood and the street and so on, but the description of the house was close enough to a house I know that more than likely has some serious structural issues. So let me say if you’re thinking of buying a house on the 100-200 block of Q Street, check the roof structure. If you or your home inspector can’t see the roof joists, don’t buy unless you are prepared to replace the whole roof.