How do you feel about foundation cracks?

Question

Anyone have any opinions on foundation cracks? I'm a Real Estate Agent in Missouri and the soil table in some areas is really bad and we see a lot of foundation cracks. It doesn't help in my opinion that we have a big boom in New home builds and the companies will put a house up in 3 months or less. I've seen all sort of repairs, crack packs with epoxy injections, carbon fiber, piers... Would you buy an investment property or personal home with these repairs?

Kim Tucker · Answer

we sell a lot and not all cracks are bad.

Hairline cracks with no movement - we just seal or epoxy inject and go on.

Cracks that are substantial with no movement we also seal.

With movement on the wall we ad beams that tie into the floor and the main house to hold the wall up.

with cracks in the floor with movement, sometimes you have to put a pier under the foundation.

When ever there is visible movement of the wall or floor we get an engineer to tell us what to do and give that to the foundation company to use in their bid.  We do not have the foundation company tell us what needs done, that is sort of like letting the fox watch the hen house.  Get a report from a disinterested 3rd party engineer who has nothing to gain by telling you what to do.

Drewy Osazuwa · Answer

I Like crack foundation it tends to scare people off, I've done several projects with crack foundation,

1) Anything is fixable in a property as long as it's accounted for during your purchase

2) I typically get my structural engineer to inspect and make a recommendation on what needs to be done to fix the foundation

Clayton Woodward · Answer

@Drewy Osazuwa I'm with you man,  thanks for the input!

Clayton Woodward · Answer

@Kim Tucker great advice, I didn't think about that, using an engineer makes perfect sense. Thank you for sharing!