Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never even bother going in such houses. Potential for water issues and lack of usability of backyard make them not worth our time.

That's really silly and overbroad, we have a gently sloping yard w/ French drains and it's fully usable and the house is dry. Your loss.

How so? I have a house with a totally flat and usable yard. To each his own. However, someone buying such a house (w/yard sloped toward house) should be aware that some buyers will be turn off from the property on that basis.

Anonymous wrote:I never even bother going in such houses. Potential for water issues and lack of usability of backyard make them not worth our time.

That's really silly and overbroad, we have a gently sloping yard w/ French drains and it's fully usable and the house is dry. Your loss.

Anonymous wrote:Too little info to say; it could be an issue, and it isnt ideal at the very least.

But have your own inspection; ignore the seller's agent's inspection. Conflict of interest much?

This. Never rely on seller's agent's inspector.

Our house formerly (2 prev. owners ago) had water issues. French drains installed, no issues since then. We just did a major renov/addition and will have to do some more grading and drains to handle the water from the yard.

Get your own inspector, very important.

We bought a house like this but the slope was not extreme. We quickly installed a concrete patio slopped away from the house rebarred into the foundation.

The water hits the first 1/8 of the patio and runs away. No problem yet and it amazing the amount of water that runs away from the house.

Anonymous wrote:I would not buy a home with a yard that slopes down toward the home. I have seen too many with water issues. Of course you can try to address the issue with grading, pumps, etc., but do you really want to be anxious every time there is rain that you might lose power?

+1000

I wouldn't buy a house near a lake either. Lake front property- people will pay a LOT of money for, then whine when the lake overflows into their house. Sorry some people have no foresight.

Anonymous wrote:The mid-Atlantic region has a lot of rolling hills, folks. You're going to find otherwise desirable houses with yards that slope toward the house. A French drain is evidence of a fix, not a problem.

This.
(PP who found mold)

We bought a house with a backyard that sloped toward the house. The house has a walk-out basement. Six months after we bought the house, we discovered mold under the carpet and four feet of mold behind the drywall around the entire perimeter of the basement.

We had to basically gut the finished basement. We waterproofed and haven't had any problems since. But the mold did not turn up in the inspection and it's not covered by insurance.

I'm not saying don't buy a house with a backyard that slopes toward the house. We love our house, but that was a very expensive lesson to learn. Be vigilant.

When we were house hunting, I stayed away from slopey yards towards the house. The ground can settle even further making the slope worse. Our house now does not have a noticeable yard that slopes toward. But when we removed the deck to put a new one in, we discovered there was a bit of slope to the house under the deck. The wood there was in pretty bad shape.

Common sense tells me that there probably is water problem, especially if the water pools near the house and there's no where for it to go or cannot be diverted fast enough during epic rain falls.

The mid-Atlantic region has a lot of rolling hills, folks. You're going to find otherwise desirable houses with yards that slope toward the house. A French drain is evidence of a fix, not a problem.

I never even bother going in such houses. Potential for water issues and lack of usability of backyard make them not worth our time.