consequences of buying a former grow op [Archive]

fille

09-30-2006, 06:27 PM

i have been looking to buy a house for 6 months now and finally found the house of my dreams.

unfortunately, it was seized and is now deemed a former grow op.
the house is in good condition as the owners only had it in their posession for a few months.

my real estate agent wants nothing to do with it. my question is to anyone who might have any extra information is,
what are the consequences?

my real estate agent said that there lies a possibility that my house may be seized again if the original owners get convicted and they find out that the house was bought with illegal money.

mortgage and house insurance difficult?

please anyone, give me some clues.

sputskee

09-30-2006, 06:53 PM

Wow.

Remember that grow ups are places where people meet up and deal. You never know who can come up on your door and ask for some dope. Also, there can be enemies that know the place due to the previous owners. You never know what you are going to encounter.

fille

09-30-2006, 07:08 PM

well the owners only had the house for under a year before it was busted. i don't believe that it would become that popular of a place.

Aetios

09-30-2006, 08:08 PM

Just be aware of the mold issues. that is all I will say.

Razor Ramon HG

09-30-2006, 09:16 PM

Avoid it, why risk it?

amplified

09-30-2006, 09:27 PM

Originally posted by fille
well the owners only had the house for under a year before it was busted. i don't believe that it would become that popular of a place.

it's unlikely they just started those activities though. so like RCJS said they could have enemies which could lead to it being targeted by drive by shootings, theft etc.

also as someone else has mentioned look out for mold.

fille

10-01-2006, 12:08 AM

you guys don't understand, this is my dream home. it's gorgeous.

what also bothers me is that the real estate agent is listing it at a comparable price to other houses in the area.

shouldn't these homes be reduced in price?

Great68

10-01-2006, 12:47 AM

My uncle bought a former grow op, the house was completely rebuilt inside.

When I say rebuilt, I mean completely gutted, walls knocked out etc.

The funny thing is that the grow op wasn't inside the house, it was in two underground bunkers in the backyard and ran on diesel generators.

Now that it's all brand new inside it's a pretty fucking nice house. MASSIVE deck over where the bunkers were.

Aetios

10-01-2006, 01:14 AM

Originally posted by fille

what also bothers me is that the real estate agent is listing it at a comparable price to other houses in the area.

shouldn't these homes be reduced in price?

No, because if the house has passed inspection, then the house is perfectly fine to live in. As well, you might be able to use the fact that it has been in a grow-op as leverage for you to bargain down to a lower price than the ones in the neighborhood. The agent listed the price equivalent to the surrounding houses, but we all know that housing prices all can be dropped with a little bargaining, so he prob might go down lower than usual. If some areas of the house are rebuilt, then that factors into the price too because its brand new material. Its not the same as a car, a rebuilt car will still lose its value, but not a house. Market determines its value as well. But you already know that.

later.

SLOW_E36

10-01-2006, 09:28 AM

edited

fille

10-01-2006, 11:35 AM

they changed all the pipes i believe but did not do anything to the walls. (the grow op was in the crawl space)

still, i wonder about the risk of the contamination as the house was busted within a few months of its operation.
how many batches can you get out of that? and i thought that nowadays the "growers" put up plastic or something to prevent damage to the house?

i read that somewhere

misteranswer

10-01-2006, 12:56 PM

static

10-01-2006, 02:47 PM

Originally posted by SLOW_E36
The dry walls of your house will be containated with moles and pesticides. Also, the drainage might be clogged. Not the mention, the risk of waking up by a machine gun.

If i were you I would be accouting for atleast $10,000 for good renovations

At least being a very conservative minimum, i'd say easily 30-40 to rebuild the basement if it was damaged.

Aetios

10-01-2006, 02:49 PM

Originally posted by fille
they changed all the pipes i believe but did not do anything to the walls. (the grow op was in the crawl space)

still, i wonder about the risk of the contamination as the house was busted within a few months of its operation.
how many batches can you get out of that? and i thought that nowadays the "growers" put up plastic or something to prevent damage to the house?

i read that somewhere

They most likely only got one crop out of that. A few months is still enough time to inflict some damage onto the house, but not a lot. I say if you really like it, get it thoroughly inspected if not already, and go for it. What is the measured area of the crawl space? And as misteranswer said, it is also the value of the land, I don't know how large of a lot that house is sitting on.

fille

10-01-2006, 03:06 PM

the crawl space was about 35x8 feet
so im thinking not that many pots ?

value of the land? well it's a fair size lot, about 7000 sq ft.

billboa

10-02-2006, 12:10 PM

if this house is the house of ur dreams and it has only been tehre for that long then definitly do not let this get in the way of u buying it. if u r worried then get some carpenter or someone knoledgable about this kinda stuff and gt him to knock a couple walls outta the storagte place and see what they look like. most likely everythign is fine. there was not nearly enough amount of time to cause significant damage.

DJ Milk

10-02-2006, 04:44 PM

You will get better response from people who's job is dealing with real estate everyday. Lots of agents, brokers, and investor post here (http://www.realestatetalks.com/viewforum.php?f=8&sid=87eafc87f7c910898d45e6d89955adbc) . Do a search since there was a long thread on there with your topic a few months ago.

fille

10-02-2006, 04:58 PM

thanks snoop monky monk... (cute name)
i actually went and read every post related to my issue but there wasn't much that pertained to my situation, unless i missed a post

told you i researched a lot!

dr_squat

10-02-2006, 05:53 PM

Listen to your real estate agent!

Sw0op

10-03-2006, 12:14 AM

my old neighbour used to do grow op before they got busted after probably a year...they sold the house for dirt cheap but a couple years later the house was starting to show its true colours as the foundation to the bottom floor needed to be seriously fixed...so what they ended up doing was selling the house for its land value and it got demolished and rebuilt into a nice 3-story house..

fille

10-03-2006, 06:03 AM

well that's why im getting the environmental analysis done, it's going to cost about $3000 but i hope it will reveal all of the houses' dirty secrets

winks

10-04-2006, 08:36 AM

how much below market value are u getting it for?

6793026

10-04-2006, 08:49 AM

we spent 10000 on making the house look better, but we took down the walls, pretty much painted everything, the carpets and every freaking thing was replaced.

inspection is for the structure, what you are living in is a house full of dust and dirt and microorganism hiding in ur carpets etc...

fille

10-04-2006, 05:08 PM

the owner is trying to sell at cost, i tried going down by 20 but also the roof needs to be repaced (wood shingles)

sho_bc

10-07-2006, 10:37 AM

my family owns LARGE log house on a 5 acre property up in Prince George that we rent out. 5-6years ago (maybe more now?) we had some renters that were using the crawl spaces in the walls and the crawl space under the house for a grow-op. luckily they used heavy-duty industrial grade plastic sheeting to protect the areas they were using, but it still cost us THOUSANDS upon thousands of dollars to get the house properly cleaned out and fit for re-renting. we went up a couple summers ago to do some other small renovations, and everything was holding up well.
if it is indeed your "dream home" and you absolutely must have it, do what it takes to get it all cleared up before you move in. try to get as much as you can back through price negotiations, but expect to take a fairly significant hit as well.

fille

10-07-2006, 03:58 PM

just curious sho_bc, how long were the tenants renting for and how long do you suppose they were operating as a grow op?

sho_bc

10-07-2006, 04:50 PM

because we had awesome landlords who made sure to check the property every 6 months like they were supposed to ( :blueguy: ), we're not certain, but they had a LOT of plants growing. the living room itself is about 1500 sq.ft, about half the main floor, and upstairs, there is a crawlspace all around the outside of the floor between the inside wall and the outside wall. also, below the main floor, there is another crawl space about 4ft deep. both crawl spaces were full of plants. we assume anywhere between 6 months and a year, as they had been tenants for a little over a year.

Autorice

10-07-2006, 11:28 PM

I don't think the house can be seized as proceeds to crime if they rented the house. Your only concern is the mold, structural integrity and home invasions if anyone thinks it is still a grow op.

aznrsx1979

10-08-2006, 08:50 AM

if the owner really wants to sell at cost and isn't willing to budge it may not be worth it. and like you've said there are other repairs that need to be done to. my parents just had their roof redone and that was about $12k. If there are a lot of roof penetration ie. skylights, vents it'll cost even more.

bossxx

10-08-2006, 09:35 AM

Yeah we did our roof this summer (not wood shingles), cost us about $7,000 for an average sized home. I'm assuming wood shingles would cost a lot more.

As for the time it takes to do a full grow up. The minimum is roughly 8 weeks. But they can stretch it to 10 or 12 if they want more product.

I don't think strangers would be coming to your front door asking your dope. The house was used primarily for growing. Most (smart) people wouldn't tell others where their 'show is because then it could get potentially ripped. That kind of brings me to another point, as if some ppl did know about this home you may get break ins or something like that. Even tho the chances of that are pretty slim.

Like everyone else says just get it properly inspected. I personally would avoid it but if it's the house you've always wanted I guess you gotta go for it. How long have u been house searching? There has to be another one like it without the bad history.

fille

10-08-2006, 09:54 PM

another question about house insurance.
how much is it usually a month for fire and theft? and does it cost any extra because of the house's history?

oh by the way, they accepted our offer.

JLC

10-05-2010, 02:37 PM

Another thing you need to consider is whether or not the bank will lend you money to purchase a previous grow op.
TD for one will not approve a mortgage for a house that was a previous grow op. Its a no questions asked zero tolerance for homes that were previously grow ops.

I'm not sure about other big banks, but I have a feeling they all feel the same about homes that were previously grow ops.

I would stay away anyways...listen to your realtor...

hchang

10-06-2010, 12:02 PM

TheNewGirl

10-06-2010, 12:10 PM

I know someone who picked up a former grow op. They had all of the problems that have been described above, from strangers showing up in the middle of the night and multiple break ins to serious mold problems (despite passing an initial inspection prior to buying it).

Ultimately they had to do a complete remodel and had to install an extensive security system just to be able to sell it and it cost them quite a bit.

I agree if you MUST have the house you should demand any issues be taken care of prior to being bought at the owner's expensive. But still keep in mind you may have some very big bills creep up on you in the future and be prepared.