FHA 203k in the snow?
By Mike Young
Home Inspector with 203kOnLine.com, covering the USA S0289
December 12, 2014 11:19 PM

Shared 3/14/2024

Many areas of the country get a bit of snow and the homes located in those areas need the FHA 203k too. FHA 203k in the snow

I must have driven by this one house 200 times on my way to other projects over a period of a few years and watched this home in need of repair every time I went by. It stood out like a sore thumb. My wife would always point it out as we drove by saying "there is a 203k" then one day she asked "why doesn't anyone fix it up?"

There are many people that dont' understand renovation loans and if they do there is another group of Realtors that say irresponsible things like "stay away from the 203k as they take forever to close the loan". These types comments are irresponsible and mostly come from someone who doesn't really know, they may have heard someone in their office say that so they just jump on that bandwagon.

Don't be caught in that trap. The fastest way to close an FHA 203k loan is through one of our teams. When I say one of our teams I mean one of the many 203k consultant's teams out there not just MY teams. We can tell you who can actually close these loans fast and who just is a bunch of talk.

Back to the snow. Finally one day I get a call to do an inspection and low-and-behold it turns out to be this home. Now under 6-9" of snow. Describe the driveway and it's condition, the roof type and condition, and so on. There was a well, and a septic system, luckily we have someone else test those items. It was a challenge but luckily my wife had me stop just a few months before and get a photo of the home in it's present condition so I was able to look that up and include it in the report.

Inside? Thought you would never ask. Inside there was no snow thank goodness but one of the bedrooms was taped off with "caution tape" and looking into the room from the door the floor had dropped about two feet. There was a 48" crawl space under this home and the rim joists had given up as well as the sill plate on two sides of the room's exterior walls. It was the front left corner of the home.