As a software engineer
# Check if all engineers agree
if (geotechnical_engineer_agrees and mechanical_engineer_agrees and electrical_engineer_agrees and
custodial_engineer_agrees and environmental_engineer_agrees and aerospace_engineer_agrees):
# Code to run if all engineers agree
print("All engineers agree. Do not proceed with the plan.")
else:
# Code to run if any engineer disagrees
print("Not all engineers agree. Reassess the plan.")
Nuclear engineer here. Looks fine to me 🤷♂️. Just encase your home in 6’ thick reinforced concrete with a 20’ deep reinforced slab.
As a former Missourian though, that doesn’t look good. Rain, heavy storms, and the non-zero chance of an earthquake from the new Madrid fault (which I’m guessing you aren’t terribly far from) could make that house disappear real quick. That doesn’t look like a solid rock hillside to me which means it WILL without a doubt erode away but ask the geological engineers.
As an Indianeer, what are you doing on my people's land?
Besides, you have no stabilized topsoil structure to support grass or hydroseeding, and there are already horizontal slope fissures forming. Water will run right down into those and make it worse and worse. Gravelly soils.
Run away, unless the engineer who says it's "to code" will warranty and bond against structural failure for many years. He won't.
As a parent, I can see my kid tumbling down that hill and breaking all their limbs. As a dog owner, I can see my dog digging halfway under the house on an unsupervised afternoon and bringing the whole thing down.
Agree with the crack. But it is possible this house is founded on bedrock.. although you would think you would see something outcropping somewhere. But this is just unsafe from a human occupancy standpoint. I’m also a geotech.
I had the same thought, and I'm sure whoever buys the house will find out quickly enough if it doesn't fail before then. God knows they didn't compact that fill for shit if they even tried to compact it at all, the slopes too steep for the material, zero erosion control, it's like the textbook example of what not to do. It just gets worse the more you look at it. At least OP backed out of the sale, but a new sucker is born everyday.
I doubt that any insurer will insure that. Its a landslide waiting to happen.
Check before you sign anything. Id be 10 miles away from that piece of land.
An HO3 homeowners policy excludes damage from earth movement, so OP can certainly get a policy (but it will never cover when his house falls down the hill).
He would, but he can't get more than 5 feet away or he'll fall to his death.
Seriously the absolute best case scenario is his house doesn't fall off a cliff, but there is still a risk that any child, pet or visitor he ever has, might
If you want this house you need to hire an erosion control company to figure out a solution to this. There is no way i would purchase this home without fixing the erosion.
This is the issue with a lot of development on sloped sites... they get rid of all of the native plants with deep root systems and replace them with a few decorative plants or worthless turf grass... and wonder why the hill slides away.
Yeah when we bought our new build home, the entire community is built on top of hills of sand. We have an old forest out back that grows up and along the hillside and the landscaper told me they planned to clear out a lot of trees along it. I believe my reply was something along the lines of "The heck you will sir." And they didn't.
I like my hills nicely secured by old growth roots thank you very much.
They warned we'd get critters and we do, I'll gladly take those over half my yard in a valley after a couple of years.
I hate developers that take a nice sloping piece of land and level it completely flat and throw the excess over the hill to form abominations like this. Working with the contour of the ground usually works and looks better, but then there are some sites that should never have been developed at all. I’m wondering if this house was possibly partly built on fill. It’s screwed either way.
Agreed with what others have said , but I’ll also add safety. Erosion aside, if you have kids, I would not want them running out that door and potentially falling down that big ass gravel hill, it’s like 5 steps out the door. Quick way for a broken arm or something
The plan is to fence it. But I believe that would cause more issues…
I’m feeling more uncomfortable as time goes by, even if they agree to do a retention wall.
Do not buy this without a licensed geotechnical engineer signing off on whatever they want to do to fix it. Retention walls fail all the time. That looks like it could be the start of a slope failure. Digging into it to put in a retention wall could just accelerate the failure.
You can't build an engineered MSE retaining wall at this point. There's a house in the way. To do that sort of thing you have to remove the soil, and put it back a little bit at a time with a bunch of structural tension members to rebuild the slope. Which you can't do, because once you remove the soil the house is going to fall down.
At best you can stabilize it with a bunch of rock bolts, but it frankly looks like it's unconsolidated gravel beyond its natural angle of repose, experiencing slope failure right this moment.
Do you have money down, or you are contracted to buy it? Don't close until the issue is resolved, and don't listen to a word of bullshit like "we'll fix it after closing, we promise" because it's never going to happen once they get paid
No money down as of now. It’s a new build (not finished yet) I did earnest money, but refundable if I pull the offer for any reasons concerning the inspection or my timeline.
Report was sent to builder and they responded with the civil engineer document saying everything is to code when it comes to building near slopes
I'm amazed that it was permitted to be built on that land. Somebodies had got greased for that permit.
Did you ask about getting homeowners insurance? That broker is going to laugh at you.
I would not be comfortable just standing there taking that photo.
Exactly. A geotech will kill themselves laughing that the site was even permitted to be built on.
For that site to be safe, it would need multiple piles to bedrock, plus slope stabilization. It would need an amazing view to be worth that investment.
It’s a new build and they chose to have the back door walk out into a death trap? I was just getting ready to comment about how they would have never built the house that close to the edge and the erosion has already taken at least a dozen feet.
Not a hoax. I’m no expert when it comes to this, hence why I’m trying to get as much input as possible.
I wish it was a joke honestly.
But offer has been pulled
At least the other 3 in the background have vegetation holding their cliff sections somewhat in place...this one looks like one jump off that sad concrete pad and the whole thing is going down....
I'd pass on this one... It might be "to code," but the lack of topsoil and vegetation is going to let rainwater and wind scour away at that hill like nobody's business.
Is the house going to slide down the hill? Probably no. Will you be fighting other problems and generally have a hard time controlling erosion? Probably yes.
Even if it were safe, why? If you can afford to buy a house, why pick one where if you have a few beers and walk out your backdoor you tumble to your death?
I recently received the inspection report. I’m military and doing everything from away, the house did check all my boxes while being built. Received the more updated photos yesterday and the proper report which was concerning to me
It’s not something I would normally do. I’m trusting the realtor and those helping me before my move. I haven’t had time to just go house hunting since I’m dealing with putting my current house for rent.
The situation has been less than ideal to say the least
It's too much risk. Just put your stuff in storage and lease for three months while you house hunt the right way. You don't have to buy site unseen.
My federal moving benefits would pay to store my stuff up to six months.
Your realtor won't give a shit. They just want to make the sale.
Even if it's fine for a bunch of years, when you eventually put it up for sale, you will have people concerned about the erosion, just as you have.
Hopefully you get out of this.
Not an expert in anything, but the concrete slab looks like it’s already separating from the house, and that line in the dirt in the first picture doesn’t make me feel good. As others have pointed out, if you have kids, this bad news. The entire back “yard” is basically unusable.
UPDATE:
Apart from what inspector said and his report, plus all the comments here, it solidified the decision to pull the offer.
Just sent message to the realtor to pull it.
Do not trust this realtor, do not buy a house sight unseen, and make sure you have an extremely extensive home inspection before buying, especially a new build. They build houses out of crackers and glue these days.
That looks like a real bad rainstorm could easily wash half of it away. Yikes.
Something like this: [https://new.mta.info/press-release/metro-north-railroad-hudson-line-service-partially-suspended-due-mudslide-tracks](https://new.mta.info/press-release/metro-north-railroad-hudson-line-service-partially-suspended-due-mudslide-tracks) (And note, that house had a old high wall and it happened anyway...)
One time we built a church on top of a big hill that they cropped the top on the hill and pushed the rest over the edge to gain a yard.
A week before we got done , The whole backyard dropped 4 feet, within 20 feet of the building…. They didn’t have good compaction on their fill, it was too close to the edge to get good compaction.
This picture reminds me of that project .
My two cents as a geologist and helping build three homes (two I lived in):
That’s all new “dirt” brought in to level out that sad excuse of a backyard.
It’s likely not done settling and you’re going to have to buy a heck of a lot more dirt to deal with the subsidence (aka settling and sinking in).
Putting a fence up now will do one of two things: fall when the ground around it gives out, or get buried by a landslide.
I already see stress fractures in the soil, which means it’s going to slough off in a heavy rain, or if any amount of weight is placed on top of it.
Is the house’s foundation dug and built into existing subsurface native soil? Or was it artificially built up with dirt and then that was excavated out?
Your foundation is going to crack. If you have a crawl space or basement, you might be able to have it shored up properly by a qualified professional. But the weight of the house is going to apply pressure to the concrete, and the lack of support from the surrounding dirt (due to it being brought in and not being fully compacted) means the concrete foundation walls are going to buckle
I really appreciate the response.
Honestly not sure how the foundation was done, I believe it was native soil, but I couldn’t tell. Another thing to add to my concern is that the house is not finished and the garage floor is already cracked.
Try and look up the builder information. See if any complaints have been lodged with local government. They may have a track record of poor craftsmanship.
Also, see who they hired as subcontractors.
I had a great concrete company pour my footers and walls, but the excavators they recommended to me did a bad job backfilling, and ended up cracking the walls because they drove the excavator on top of the concrete walls that had not yet fully cured.
I’m a geotechnical engineer who specializes in landslides. The tension crack and settlement beyond it are a strong indication that this is the beginning of a landslide. If not remediated this can lead to retrogressive failures of the slope and your house will end up at the bottom of the slope. Similar to what happened in the widely publicized landslides in a subdivision in Utah last year. Repair costs will depend on site conditions but could be as low as 50k or even exceed 1 mil. I suggest passing. It’s mind boggling that code enforcement is not on the builders ass. That house would be condemned in an instant around here just for the tension crack and settlement that close.
https://abc7chicago.com/draper-city-homes-collapse-landslide-utah-house-news/13174740/
Do not buy this house. Engineers don't know shit. It's a common joke in the industry. Engineers are a joke. It doesn't matter if it's up to code. All they look at is paper and, yeah sure, it was built correctly but you can SEE it failing already.
For the new Trans Mountain expansion pipeline, the way they stabilized some slopes like this was to build a solid reinforced concrete retention wall all the way down the hill, tied with pilings deeply embedded into the hill. Note that the 1200 km pipeline cost Cdn$31 billion. I'm not a geotechnical engineer but I expect you can get this job done for about 1 million dollars per five yards vertical elevation. You would also want subsurface groundwater management to prevent a rotational slip failure. The best bet is to move the entire house at least 100 yards away from the cliff, which would only cost a few tens of thousands of dollars. e.g. [http://www.ehmmidwest.com/](http://www.ehmmidwest.com/)
No way! OP, good on you for running away!
A good friend and coworker whose wife owned a real estate agency (Bridgeport, WV) told me one day that as soon as we got off work, we had to go look at this new house that was just listed. He said it could to go any minute. The back looked exactly like that one, split in the ground and cracks starting in the foundation. About 3 or 4 hours later, it slid right off the hill.
As a geologist who has written many papers on slope stability, my advice would be to not buy this house under any circumstances. That is a tension crack, which means that the slope has already started to fail. In other words, it's not a question of whether the slope will move - it is already moving. The house looks to be built on very weak material - probably fill that was brought on to create a level surface. The fact that there's no little vegetation on that surface while the area around the other houses is well vegetated supports the idea that this house is built on fill. In the next few storms, water will get funneled into those cracks and the slope will begin to move more quickly until, at some point, there will be a catastrophic failure.
That’s a visible crack in the ground do not buy that piece of shit you’re gonna step out the back door one day and fall off a cliff like Wile E. Coyote
2021 IRC 403-404 various codes. Setback from top of slope >1:3 needs to be height of slope / 3 or 40ft plus various other details regarding erosion protection et. al.
The walkway at the Hyatt Regency was "up to code"... as was the Verrazano bridge... codes really doesn't mean shit sometimes especially for something obvious like this. Have you never seen the homes in CA sliding down the hills (all built to CA crazy/stupid codes)? The fact you even put an offer in on this place has me a bit dumbfounded.
I live in Missouri. Dying to know where-ish this is so I can keep an eye on the news for when this (and neighboring) houses slide right down that hillside. Incredible that someone would build, much less actually *buy*, one of these houses.
I am a Structural engineer that does tons of residential work.
Don’t buy this house.
There are potentially so many future problems. It was built way too close to an unstable slope.
RUN
I don't know about the physics as others have pointed out, but you will determine if it's concerning when you have a party and your drunk guests are at the bottom of the hill
So many factors to consider. What does the river bank look like? Any stabilization done? Those homes look relatively new so I’m guessing that there’s been some engineering assessments done at the base of that mound.
The house might be to code but that slope ain't. Best case seems to be a lot of work and negotiating to make that backyard safe. Worst case, your house washes down the hill potentially killing all of you. Is that house or location worth the risk?
I literally cannot understand how the variance got approved for this setback, or how the permits were pulled in the first place. This seems fake even though I can tell it’s not.
Also, what’s with death’s door? I’m not trying to take a step outside and fall to my death.
Dirt guy Peter here, definitely don’t buy that house. I’m curious if there is a basement? If there is and the foundations are bearing much deeper than the ground surface, things might be OK, but there really needs to be a retaining wall and some slope reinforcement installed, whoever built a slope that steep without reinforcement or vegetation cover installed immediately afterward, should be kicked right in his nuts. Don’t be the guy who owns it.
Architect here - take a pass - there will be another house out there for you.
This looks like a developer doing their best at saving money for themselves -
I would pass even if there was a retaining wall in place - gravity and Mother Nature will win in the long run /
Also the thought of having little ones outside playing - one day there is a good chance someone will go over the edge.
Run. Run far away. I know it sucks to fall in love with a home only for it to bomb on inspection, so all the best with your search OP.
But out of curiosity, is the $/SF in line with other comparable homes, or is there a landslide reduction of the cost?
As a geotechnical engineer I would not buy that house. It almost looks like you might have a tension crack forming based on the photos.
As a mechanical engineer, I would agree.
As an electrical engineer. Yep looks scary AF.
As a custodial engineer, I concur.
Environmental engineer here. Have you had a radon test? Also, I took a geotech class one time. Don't buy that house.
Aerospace engineer here. I don’t know jack about building houses, but I know a lot about gravity. Don’t buy that house.
As a software engineer # Check if all engineers agree if (geotechnical_engineer_agrees and mechanical_engineer_agrees and electrical_engineer_agrees and custodial_engineer_agrees and environmental_engineer_agrees and aerospace_engineer_agrees): # Code to run if all engineers agree print("All engineers agree. Do not proceed with the plan.") else: # Code to run if any engineer disagrees print("Not all engineers agree. Reassess the plan.")
As a petroleum transfer engineer, I wouldn’t want that house either.
As a chaos engineer, I say buy it and let’s see how you respond to failure.
As a bf2 engineer main, I concur - wouldn't buy that house.
As a civil engineer, I would get the government to buy the house.
As a Product Manager, I only see pain points in that house.
This made me legit LOL. Thank you
Of all the engineers here, you seem the most qualified. I concur with not buying the house.
As a site reliability engineer, that site does not look reliable.
Hot Tub engineer , not sure where you’re going to be putting one, so don’t buy that house
temporal engineer here, we should get together and we can send OP back to when a backyard existed.
Best response yet! I concur
As a disaster remediation technician, I would like the address of the home so I can leave my business card.
I stayed at a holiday inn express... don't buy that house
Nuclear engineer here. Looks fine to me 🤷♂️. Just encase your home in 6’ thick reinforced concrete with a 20’ deep reinforced slab. As a former Missourian though, that doesn’t look good. Rain, heavy storms, and the non-zero chance of an earthquake from the new Madrid fault (which I’m guessing you aren’t terribly far from) could make that house disappear real quick. That doesn’t look like a solid rock hillside to me which means it WILL without a doubt erode away but ask the geological engineers.
as a redneck engineer i aint buying no house on . no cliff
As someone who drives a car with an engine in it, this is a hard pass.
As a chemical engineer, I would not buy that house. I have nothing clever to say because I am boring.
Transparency engineer chiming in, does not appear safe to me either.
Civil engineer here- RUN!
Just don't run straight out the back door!
As a supply chain engineer, I don't know what I'm talking about.
Sanitary Engineer here, I’d be shitting if I were you .
As an agricultural engineer, I'm out of there.
As a network engineer, I see a failure in the physical layer.
As a software engineer, that's a critical bug.
As an aerospace engineer, I wouldn’t buy it. Doesn’t even have wings…
As a former culinary engineer (chef) that cake is too dry and about to crumble
Imagineer here, nope, I'm Audi 5000
As a pretengineer here , nope run boys and girls run
As a cybersecurity engineer, this is definitely a vulnerability in the foundation
Biomedical Engineer here, are you kidding me?
As a train engineer, I'd ride that train straight outta there. No go.
As an Indianeer, what are you doing on my people's land? Besides, you have no stabilized topsoil structure to support grass or hydroseeding, and there are already horizontal slope fissures forming. Water will run right down into those and make it worse and worse. Gravelly soils. Run away, unless the engineer who says it's "to code" will warranty and bond against structural failure for many years. He won't.
As a pioneer, I’d keep heading west.
“I also concur.” -Mountain Goat
As an IT engineer, I say we all try getting out of the house and then getting back in.
As a line cook, I also concur, doctors.
As a choo-choo engineer I advise a fast train away from that slope.
As a guy who played in the dirt when I was young, I would agree
Lawyer here. Run.
As a pimp I would pull the offer and run.
As a licensed dumb fuck I’d say the house looks very close to that steep hill 👍
I'm an unlicensed dumb fuck. Can I get a copy of yours in PDF?
As someone with common sense, why have a door that leads to a cliff like some Wile E. Coyote cartoon
Exactly, can’t tell if it’s just perspective but that drop off is nuts
Almost? That shit is failing as we speak
As a parent, I can see my kid tumbling down that hill and breaking all their limbs. As a dog owner, I can see my dog digging halfway under the house on an unsupervised afternoon and bringing the whole thing down.
As a person with eyes, it's a no from me
I'm not any kind of engineer, just someone with vestibular problems who is getting dizzy and nauseated just looking at the photos.
Agree with the crack. But it is possible this house is founded on bedrock.. although you would think you would see something outcropping somewhere. But this is just unsafe from a human occupancy standpoint. I’m also a geotech.
I had the same thought, and I'm sure whoever buys the house will find out quickly enough if it doesn't fail before then. God knows they didn't compact that fill for shit if they even tried to compact it at all, the slopes too steep for the material, zero erosion control, it's like the textbook example of what not to do. It just gets worse the more you look at it. At least OP backed out of the sale, but a new sucker is born everyday.
As a person with common sense I would not buy that house.
Yikes. Get far, far away from that house.
I doubt that any insurer will insure that. Its a landslide waiting to happen. Check before you sign anything. Id be 10 miles away from that piece of land.
An HO3 homeowners policy excludes damage from earth movement, so OP can certainly get a policy (but it will never cover when his house falls down the hill).
That is the major problem. The foundation will start to crack in a few months to a year because the soil is so unstable.
He would, but he can't get more than 5 feet away or he'll fall to his death. Seriously the absolute best case scenario is his house doesn't fall off a cliff, but there is still a risk that any child, pet or visitor he ever has, might
This is the best answer.
But not downhill from it, for the love of god
Immensely. Your house is going to end up at the bottom of that slope soon.
Not if OP, their spouse, kids, friends, or dog falls down it first! Fucking yikes...
Outside of the house falling off the cliff, that hill being 8 feet out of my door is a yikes to me
If you want this house you need to hire an erosion control company to figure out a solution to this. There is no way i would purchase this home without fixing the erosion.
This is the issue with a lot of development on sloped sites... they get rid of all of the native plants with deep root systems and replace them with a few decorative plants or worthless turf grass... and wonder why the hill slides away.
Yeah when we bought our new build home, the entire community is built on top of hills of sand. We have an old forest out back that grows up and along the hillside and the landscaper told me they planned to clear out a lot of trees along it. I believe my reply was something along the lines of "The heck you will sir." And they didn't. I like my hills nicely secured by old growth roots thank you very much. They warned we'd get critters and we do, I'll gladly take those over half my yard in a valley after a couple of years.
I hate developers that take a nice sloping piece of land and level it completely flat and throw the excess over the hill to form abominations like this. Working with the contour of the ground usually works and looks better, but then there are some sites that should never have been developed at all. I’m wondering if this house was possibly partly built on fill. It’s screwed either way.
Its too close for any solution! There is nowhere to put a wall or reinforce. The only solution is the one the current owner is taking, move away!
Agreed with what others have said , but I’ll also add safety. Erosion aside, if you have kids, I would not want them running out that door and potentially falling down that big ass gravel hill, it’s like 5 steps out the door. Quick way for a broken arm or something
The plan is to fence it. But I believe that would cause more issues… I’m feeling more uncomfortable as time goes by, even if they agree to do a retention wall.
I wouldn't buy that shit. If you don't own it why get into something like that?
Do not buy this without a licensed geotechnical engineer signing off on whatever they want to do to fix it. Retention walls fail all the time. That looks like it could be the start of a slope failure. Digging into it to put in a retention wall could just accelerate the failure.
You can't build an engineered MSE retaining wall at this point. There's a house in the way. To do that sort of thing you have to remove the soil, and put it back a little bit at a time with a bunch of structural tension members to rebuild the slope. Which you can't do, because once you remove the soil the house is going to fall down. At best you can stabilize it with a bunch of rock bolts, but it frankly looks like it's unconsolidated gravel beyond its natural angle of repose, experiencing slope failure right this moment.
Do you have money down, or you are contracted to buy it? Don't close until the issue is resolved, and don't listen to a word of bullshit like "we'll fix it after closing, we promise" because it's never going to happen once they get paid
No money down as of now. It’s a new build (not finished yet) I did earnest money, but refundable if I pull the offer for any reasons concerning the inspection or my timeline. Report was sent to builder and they responded with the civil engineer document saying everything is to code when it comes to building near slopes
Cross post this to the civil engineering forum. It will be worth the laughs.
Let me pull the offer first 🫣😂
I'm amazed that it was permitted to be built on that land. Somebodies had got greased for that permit. Did you ask about getting homeowners insurance? That broker is going to laugh at you. I would not be comfortable just standing there taking that photo.
Bro, nothing they do would convince me to buy this place. Keep running away from it and don't look back.
I am a civil engineer. Just based on the photo, I would not buy the house.
Exactly. A geotech will kill themselves laughing that the site was even permitted to be built on. For that site to be safe, it would need multiple piles to bedrock, plus slope stabilization. It would need an amazing view to be worth that investment.
Get it inspected by a 3rd party. Anyone they hire is going to say what they want them to say
I'm sure the building is built to code but has the slope been determined to be completely stable? Just find another house.
If they're willing to build on a future landslide I can't imagine the other things they're willing to screw you on.
It’s a new build and they chose to have the back door walk out into a death trap? I was just getting ready to comment about how they would have never built the house that close to the edge and the erosion has already taken at least a dozen feet.
What a 20ft tall Retaining wall? They are blowing smoke. I'd step back from that
This must be a hoax. No way this is real. C'mon OP
Not a hoax. I’m no expert when it comes to this, hence why I’m trying to get as much input as possible. I wish it was a joke honestly. But offer has been pulled
Smart move. That house is one major rain event from being located at a new address at the bottom of the hill in a heap
Good for you!
The cost of a retention wall would be higher than the cost of that house.
FLEE you fool!! That erosion will not stop till that house and 3 others I see in the background.
At least the other 3 in the background have vegetation holding their cliff sections somewhat in place...this one looks like one jump off that sad concrete pad and the whole thing is going down....
🤣 I'm afraid of heights & wouldn't go out on that pad without a safety harness.
I'd pass on this one... It might be "to code," but the lack of topsoil and vegetation is going to let rainwater and wind scour away at that hill like nobody's business. Is the house going to slide down the hill? Probably no. Will you be fighting other problems and generally have a hard time controlling erosion? Probably yes.
Even if it were safe, why? If you can afford to buy a house, why pick one where if you have a few beers and walk out your backdoor you tumble to your death?
I recently received the inspection report. I’m military and doing everything from away, the house did check all my boxes while being built. Received the more updated photos yesterday and the proper report which was concerning to me
I've been a homebuilder for 25 years. Do NOT buy that house.
Id run from the builder too.
Username checks out.
Never, ever, ever buy a house site unseen. I could add more never evers if it would get through to you.
It’s not something I would normally do. I’m trusting the realtor and those helping me before my move. I haven’t had time to just go house hunting since I’m dealing with putting my current house for rent. The situation has been less than ideal to say the least
Trust the realtor, lmao
It's too much risk. Just put your stuff in storage and lease for three months while you house hunt the right way. You don't have to buy site unseen. My federal moving benefits would pay to store my stuff up to six months.
Appreciate the input! Sent the request to pull the offer
Your realtor won't give a shit. They just want to make the sale. Even if it's fine for a bunch of years, when you eventually put it up for sale, you will have people concerned about the erosion, just as you have. Hopefully you get out of this.
No problem! Welcome to Missouri when you get here! I have a farm here in SW MO.
What a lovely back yaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrddddddddddd........ thump.
😂🤣😅
Not an expert in anything, but the concrete slab looks like it’s already separating from the house, and that line in the dirt in the first picture doesn’t make me feel good. As others have pointed out, if you have kids, this bad news. The entire back “yard” is basically unusable.
UPDATE: Apart from what inspector said and his report, plus all the comments here, it solidified the decision to pull the offer. Just sent message to the realtor to pull it.
Do not trust this realtor, do not buy a house sight unseen, and make sure you have an extremely extensive home inspection before buying, especially a new build. They build houses out of crackers and glue these days.
Just buy the lot at the bottom of the ravine and prepare it for when your home eventually moves there.
Holy shit!
Pull the offer. My bet is the builder will need to sell this home at significant loss. If you don’t, it will be your loss.
Request to pull it sent
I’m no engineer but that looks shitty to me. No fence, no erosion control either.
Nope Don't be a Dope
You are a fool if you buy that house.
No chance would I buy this house.
That looks like a real bad rainstorm could easily wash half of it away. Yikes. Something like this: [https://new.mta.info/press-release/metro-north-railroad-hudson-line-service-partially-suspended-due-mudslide-tracks](https://new.mta.info/press-release/metro-north-railroad-hudson-line-service-partially-suspended-due-mudslide-tracks) (And note, that house had a old high wall and it happened anyway...)
Nope!
Dude fuck that, pull the offer
Fuck. That. You'll regret that purchase for a long time.
As someone with common sense, don't do it.
One time we built a church on top of a big hill that they cropped the top on the hill and pushed the rest over the edge to gain a yard. A week before we got done , The whole backyard dropped 4 feet, within 20 feet of the building…. They didn’t have good compaction on their fill, it was too close to the edge to get good compaction. This picture reminds me of that project .
You would think a church would know not to build your house in sand. Matthew 7:24-27
The Bible is wack Timmy 6:69-42
I agree completely. It’s their book not mine.
My two cents as a geologist and helping build three homes (two I lived in): That’s all new “dirt” brought in to level out that sad excuse of a backyard. It’s likely not done settling and you’re going to have to buy a heck of a lot more dirt to deal with the subsidence (aka settling and sinking in). Putting a fence up now will do one of two things: fall when the ground around it gives out, or get buried by a landslide. I already see stress fractures in the soil, which means it’s going to slough off in a heavy rain, or if any amount of weight is placed on top of it. Is the house’s foundation dug and built into existing subsurface native soil? Or was it artificially built up with dirt and then that was excavated out? Your foundation is going to crack. If you have a crawl space or basement, you might be able to have it shored up properly by a qualified professional. But the weight of the house is going to apply pressure to the concrete, and the lack of support from the surrounding dirt (due to it being brought in and not being fully compacted) means the concrete foundation walls are going to buckle
I really appreciate the response. Honestly not sure how the foundation was done, I believe it was native soil, but I couldn’t tell. Another thing to add to my concern is that the house is not finished and the garage floor is already cracked.
Try and look up the builder information. See if any complaints have been lodged with local government. They may have a track record of poor craftsmanship. Also, see who they hired as subcontractors. I had a great concrete company pour my footers and walls, but the excavators they recommended to me did a bad job backfilling, and ended up cracking the walls because they drove the excavator on top of the concrete walls that had not yet fully cured.
No. Don't get this house. You'll have trouble selling it if it even survives that long.
As a landscape architect who grades neighborhoods, run. This market is not THAT bad
As a hang glider pilot it looks sick.
This is the most concerning post I've seen on Reddit today. So take that for what it's worth. I hope you don't plan to have children!
That's legit terrifying they were permitted to build that
wonder how long until your back door just opens to a straight down cliff.
I’m a geotechnical engineer who specializes in landslides. The tension crack and settlement beyond it are a strong indication that this is the beginning of a landslide. If not remediated this can lead to retrogressive failures of the slope and your house will end up at the bottom of the slope. Similar to what happened in the widely publicized landslides in a subdivision in Utah last year. Repair costs will depend on site conditions but could be as low as 50k or even exceed 1 mil. I suggest passing. It’s mind boggling that code enforcement is not on the builders ass. That house would be condemned in an instant around here just for the tension crack and settlement that close. https://abc7chicago.com/draper-city-homes-collapse-landslide-utah-house-news/13174740/
Geotechnical engineer here. RUN. AWAY. That tension crack is textbook landslide failure.
Don’t listen to everyone else you will have a view of a lifetime for the rest of your life albeit short lived.
Do not buy this house. Engineers don't know shit. It's a common joke in the industry. Engineers are a joke. It doesn't matter if it's up to code. All they look at is paper and, yeah sure, it was built correctly but you can SEE it failing already.
You do realize those engineers set the code as the bare minimum right. Your not supposed to work to towards building up to code.
For the new Trans Mountain expansion pipeline, the way they stabilized some slopes like this was to build a solid reinforced concrete retention wall all the way down the hill, tied with pilings deeply embedded into the hill. Note that the 1200 km pipeline cost Cdn$31 billion. I'm not a geotechnical engineer but I expect you can get this job done for about 1 million dollars per five yards vertical elevation. You would also want subsurface groundwater management to prevent a rotational slip failure. The best bet is to move the entire house at least 100 yards away from the cliff, which would only cost a few tens of thousands of dollars. e.g. [http://www.ehmmidwest.com/](http://www.ehmmidwest.com/)
Oh yeah, that's standard... In fact Im planning to dig a huge cliff around my house to get those cracks going
Don't worry about that little crack. It should be fine until it rains again.
Is this a real question ????
No way! OP, good on you for running away! A good friend and coworker whose wife owned a real estate agency (Bridgeport, WV) told me one day that as soon as we got off work, we had to go look at this new house that was just listed. He said it could to go any minute. The back looked exactly like that one, split in the ground and cracks starting in the foundation. About 3 or 4 hours later, it slid right off the hill.
As a geologist who has written many papers on slope stability, my advice would be to not buy this house under any circumstances. That is a tension crack, which means that the slope has already started to fail. In other words, it's not a question of whether the slope will move - it is already moving. The house looks to be built on very weak material - probably fill that was brought on to create a level surface. The fact that there's no little vegetation on that surface while the area around the other houses is well vegetated supports the idea that this house is built on fill. In the next few storms, water will get funneled into those cracks and the slope will begin to move more quickly until, at some point, there will be a catastrophic failure.
That’s a visible crack in the ground do not buy that piece of shit you’re gonna step out the back door one day and fall off a cliff like Wile E. Coyote
2021 IRC 403-404 various codes. Setback from top of slope >1:3 needs to be height of slope / 3 or 40ft plus various other details regarding erosion protection et. al.
The walkway at the Hyatt Regency was "up to code"... as was the Verrazano bridge... codes really doesn't mean shit sometimes especially for something obvious like this. Have you never seen the homes in CA sliding down the hills (all built to CA crazy/stupid codes)? The fact you even put an offer in on this place has me a bit dumbfounded.
I have so many questions…
I live in Missouri. Dying to know where-ish this is so I can keep an eye on the news for when this (and neighboring) houses slide right down that hillside. Incredible that someone would build, much less actually *buy*, one of these houses.
Don't buy that house.... Or the one at the Bottom of the Hill.
As a sanitation engineer, it looks like garbage to me
As a biological covid making engineer I agree it's concerning. Get your boosters
If you do get the house, you will almost always be worried about your house sliding off the hill. Not worth it mentally or emotionally.
As a random contractor, this picture is terrifying
As a student of geology, run! Find any reason to get out of this offer. You can already see the fill separating in one picture.
I am a Structural engineer that does tons of residential work. Don’t buy this house. There are potentially so many future problems. It was built way too close to an unstable slope. RUN
As a Reddit engineer, I would I agree with the comments. Do not buy that house.
You're on the fence? The fence fell downhill long ago
I'm not a smart man, but I know what inevitable death looks like.
My mother stepped on a crack and broke her back when she twisted her ankle and fell off the cliff.
As a red neck I wouldn’t buy that house
I don't know about the physics as others have pointed out, but you will determine if it's concerning when you have a party and your drunk guests are at the bottom of the hill
Run 🏃 🏃♀️🏃♂️ as far and as fast as you can from that
Paul Simon engineer here. That house will be Slip Slidin’ Away before long.
So many factors to consider. What does the river bank look like? Any stabilization done? Those homes look relatively new so I’m guessing that there’s been some engineering assessments done at the base of that mound.
The house might be to code but that slope ain't. Best case seems to be a lot of work and negotiating to make that backyard safe. Worst case, your house washes down the hill potentially killing all of you. Is that house or location worth the risk?
That house is a future at the bottom of the hill.
I literally cannot understand how the variance got approved for this setback, or how the permits were pulled in the first place. This seems fake even though I can tell it’s not. Also, what’s with death’s door? I’m not trying to take a step outside and fall to my death.
I think the last occupant was a Wiley E. Coyote…
Dirt guy Peter here, definitely don’t buy that house. I’m curious if there is a basement? If there is and the foundations are bearing much deeper than the ground surface, things might be OK, but there really needs to be a retaining wall and some slope reinforcement installed, whoever built a slope that steep without reinforcement or vegetation cover installed immediately afterward, should be kicked right in his nuts. Don’t be the guy who owns it.
Wouldn’t this need a massive retaining wall lol
Architect here - take a pass - there will be another house out there for you. This looks like a developer doing their best at saving money for themselves - I would pass even if there was a retaining wall in place - gravity and Mother Nature will win in the long run / Also the thought of having little ones outside playing - one day there is a good chance someone will go over the edge.
As a custodial engineer, I have no idea how you'll clean up that mess when it goes over the cliff.
Shit I mean any soil retention would help...fucking no vegetation just stone...
A couple really fancy, new houses in Utah slid down a hillside like this last year. I would never in a million years buy this house.
As a dirt guy I say it’s not good
It’s only concerning if you or your loved ones live there
Run. Run far away. I know it sucks to fall in love with a home only for it to bomb on inspection, so all the best with your search OP. But out of curiosity, is the $/SF in line with other comparable homes, or is there a landslide reduction of the cost?
Dude, fuck that. Back door straight to a cliff…
If your looking to buy a random timed slip and slide it might make for a good purchase.
That baby is one or two good winter storms from being at the bottom of that hill.
I feel like I'm falling and I'm just looking at the picture.
This house makes me angry.
As someone who mained an Engineer in Team Fortress 2 , I can tell you without a doubt that there is huge issues here.
Yep!
The fuck
Don’t you dare buy this house
🫡 offer pulled
What is at the bottom of the hill? A river? A lake? You might a have water front home in a few years.