You're welcome. Good luck with your condo purchase. With gas prices the way they are, Hoboken is looking like a better and better location for commuters! Values can only be helped if this continues.

-Marc

Wed Jun 11 2008, 14:52

thanks for all the insight Mark.

I'm sure the slope is somewhat reasonable. I'm probably just being too picky.

Wed Jun 11 2008, 14:25

Well, you are going to have a home inspection, so your inspector should be able to provide insight. I suppose you could strip the floors, shim the sloped floor joists and create a level floor but that seems like a lot of trouble to go through in a Hoboken condo. Check the house rules - they may not permit that type of improvement without approval since it is fairly major. With all the brownstone condos available, why bother?

Also, even if the floors could be made level for now, I would want to know what caused the settlement in the first place. I've been in many old Hoboken brownstones and really bad sloped floors are not the norm. If there is a foundation problem or a problem with a load bearing beam I'd want to be sure I knew about it.

If you do decide to go ahead with this, I'd make a substantial downward adjustment to my offer to get this paid for.

-Marc

Wed Jun 11 2008, 13:58

How would I know if it's really bad?

Can't I just strip the old floors and relevel it?

Wed Jun 11 2008, 13:44

This is an example of pronounced settlement. If it is really bad, I'd probably look elsewhere. At the very least, it will scare away buyers when it's time to re-sell.

A continuously sloping floor indicates a problem with the foundation or a load-bearing wall. While it may have stopped years ago, you have no way of knowing. So I'd probably stay away. Especially since it's a condo and you do not have the power to cure the problem anyway.

-Marc

Wed Jun 11 2008, 12:11