Steve D Valentine warns about two hidden, high-cost maintenance items in older homes: tile roof underlayment (requires replacement roughly every 20 years) and older sewer piping (clay or cast iron that can fail). He recommends sewer-scopes and highlights potential repair/replacement costs that can reach tens of thousands and significantly affect buyers or sellers.
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Big expense that nobody realizes, and everybody's like, is fine. Tile roof and sewers are the two underlying, hidden, most expensive costs. Tile roof has underlayment. It has to be replaced about every 20 years, depending on how they maintained it. So this one's got to go. It's about 20 grand to redo it. Big expense that nobody realizes, and everybody's like, the roof is fine. It's underneath the roof is the problem. Just like the sewer in an older home, you guys are anywhere like 1980 and older, the sewer systems were either archbish, which is a clay piping underground, which crumbles, or cast iron, which eventually deteriorates. And they really didn't go to the ABS plastic until the 80s, where you're a little bit safer. I still highly recommend to do sewer scopes on those things, and here's why is because when you get into these pieces, you have no idea what's underneath. And those are two major expenses that can be between 30 and $50,000, which can really take out you or a seller in this case.