1. Look for things that don't fit the architectural style of the La Mesa home.
2. Go to the county and pull the tax records to find out if there's ever been permits pulled on this.
3. You're going to have to disclose that this is an unpermitted project that you've done
4. If you purchase a La Mesa property with unpermitted structure on it and then you, later on after owning it, try to build something else and get permits, they're going to see it.
Welcome to another edition of Real Estate Life Hacks with the Realtor Dad. Part of my value proposition that I offer to home buyers when I work with them is the ability to point out features and undesirable features in a home.
Let's talk about unpermitted structures in La Mesa, CA homes for sale.
They're extremely common here in San Diego and La Mesa, and you want the ability to be able to pick them out as you're viewing properties for sale.
For example, everyone's seen the classic covered patio. You walk outside off the living room, and it's another sunroom, but it's enclosed with either a lot of windows or they actually walled it all off. That is extremely common. Out of everything, it's probably the least big of deal out of most unpermitted structures in San Diego because everyone does it.
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Look for things that don't fit the architectural style of the La Mesa home.
Thing you really want to look for is unpermitted structures like another bedroom, a garage conversion, building up, and anything that has to do with plumbing, like building a whole new bathroom.
You can get a lot of shoddy plumbing guys in there to do some work, and if it's not looked at and brought up to code, you might have problems down the road.
So what do you do if you come across a structure you want to buy and it has something that's unpermitted on it?
Well, number one, you can go to the county and pull the tax records to find out if there's ever been permits pulled on this. You will need the La Mesa Home seller's signed signature in order to do that. A lot of La Mesa sellers aren't going to be willing to do that simply because I don't think they want red flags being raised on anything they've done, people going to the county.
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One drawback is down the road after you've purchased and you want to sell later on, you're going to have to deal with the same issue this current La Mesa seller's having.
You're going to have to disclose that this is an unpermitted project that you've done and you're going to have to hope that the potential La Mesa Home buyer is okay with that.
A big thing is appraisers.
Now, appraiser's going to come and they're going to assess the value of the property according to what's in the tax rolls and what they see. If they see an extra bedroom or some extra square footage that looks really good and looks like it's done very well, they might give you value, full value for it.
I've seen some appraisers give partial value towards something, and I've seen other appraisers not give it at all because it's just shoddy work, it looks awful. So it all depend on the home appraiser, who you get and how good of work was done.
Now, from my Real Estate experience, what I understand is, nobody drives around from the county looking for anyone that has unpermitted structures on their La Mesa property. The number one way people get caught with unpermitted structures is from the neighbor.
Did you piss your neighbor off? Is it a salty guy living there and he just doesn't like you?
That's how they find out. Neighbors end up calling code enforcement and say, "Hey, this has been built unpermitted. I know it from the past, you better come take a look at it." That's the number one way you get caught.
The number two way you get caught is if you purchase a La Mesa property with unpermitted structure on it and then you, later on after owning it, try to build something else and get permits, they're going to see it. Typically, what they end up making you do is bringing the structure up to code. Now, that can mean a lot of things. Most of the time it means you've got to tear the whole thing down.
Thanks for watching this episode of Real Estate Life Hacks with the Realtor Dad. I hope everyone has a really great week. If you have any questions at all, please PM me. Private message, ask me questions, I'll answer them right away. If you know anyone that can use my help, please send them my way.
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