Failure One: The Offer Was Made From a Photograph
Pittsburgh terrain is unusual among American cities and a great many properties here sit above or below their street, on slopes, or down lanes that a machine cannot use.
An offer priced on a flat-lot assumption is not slightly optimistic, it is wrong by a margin large enough to force a revision. That revision arrives after a site visit, which is generally after you have stopped talking to everyone else.
The question that catches it: how do you intend to get equipment to the property. A buyer who works here answers specifically and immediately. One who does not will start describing a general approach.
Failure Two: Nobody Read What Is Under It
More than a million buildings across Pennsylvania sit above abandoned mines and a great deal of this county is undermined. Mine subsidence is excluded from standard homeowners policies, which is why the Commonwealth has run a separate fund for it since 1961.
The failure is not that a lot is undermined. It is that nobody establishes it until the buyer's own diligence, at which point it becomes a reason to renegotiate rather than a number that was priced from the start. The full position is on our page covering the six-month clock.
The question that catches it: have you looked at the mapping for this parcel. The Department of Environmental Protection publishes it and checking is free, so there is no honest reason not to have.
Should I Check It Before Taking Offers?
Failure Three: The Wall Belongs to Two People
A great deal of the older housing here is attached, and a shared wall carries the neighbour's structure as well as yours. Demolishing an attached house means stabilising and weatherproofing that wall and leaving it sound, and the obligation belongs to whoever does the demolition.
Buyers from outside the region price a teardown as a teardown. The party wall work is a line they have not included, and it surfaces when their contractor prices the job properly.
The question that catches it: what have you allowed for the party wall. If the answer is a blank, the number will move.
Failure Four: They Assumed the Wrong Municipality
Allegheny County contains a very large number of separate boroughs, townships and cities, and a postal address saying Pittsburgh frequently means somewhere that is not the City of Pittsburgh.
That changes which office issues the permit, what it costs, how long it takes, and the local realty transfer rate, since Pennsylvania's Commonwealth levy is matched by rates set at municipal and school district level rather than uniformly.
The question that catches it: which municipality is this in. It is on the county assessment record and anyone serious will already know.
Failure Five: The Buyer Was Never the Buyer
Some parties sign to buy and then sell the contract to somebody else before closing. Your property is marketed to a list you never see, and the sale depends on somebody in that list agreeing to the terms.
It is not always a problem and it is always a different transaction from the one you thought you were in.
The question that catches it: which entity will appear on the deed. A principal buyer answers with a name you can look up. Vagueness here is the answer.
The Records That Settle All Five
The mine mapping. Published by the Department of Environmental Protection, free, and used to identify coverage areas for the subsidence programme.
The county assessment record. Municipality, school district and assessed value, and it will show whether a catastrophic loss reduction has been applied.
The Recorder of Deeds. Search a buyer's exact entity as grantee. What a firm has actually taken title to is a better description of them than anything they say about themselves.
The licence lookup. A party marketing your property to others is brokering and needs a Pennsylvania licence. A principal buyer taking title does not.
One More Thing Worth Refusing
Anyone offering to handle your catastrophic loss application as part of a purchase conversation. It is your application, it is made to the county, it is free, and it is worth money to you whether or not any sale happens. It should not be bundled with anything.
Where We Fit, and Where We Do Not
We buy as principal, in our own entity, with our own funds, and we take title. We do not assign contracts. Put all five questions to us and see whether the answers are specific.
We are frequently not the right answer. On the pre-war stock here, where framing chars rather than failing and repair is a live option, a rehabber can pay closer to finished value than any buyer pricing a rebuild. Where the repair sits below finished value, doing it yourself keeps the whole margin. On a straightforward lot in a strong neighbourhood, a local builder with crews already nearby can outbid us. Our written figure says so when the numbers point there. What happens from there is on our page about how the process actually runs.
Questions About Buyers
One Offer Is Much Higher Than the Rest.
Put the five questions to that buyer. A number that is higher because work has not been done yet is not a higher number, it is an earlier one.
A Buyer Says the Undermining Does Not Matter.
It matters to their lender, their insurer and their foundation engineer even if it does not matter to them. Dismissal usually means inexperience rather than confidence.
Does a Buyer Need a Licence?
Not to buy as a principal and take title. Marketing property on behalf of others requires a Pennsylvania real estate licence, and the state lookup is free.