[brunker2]

How? It was accessible through a door. Nobody - not the seller, agent, himself or any other prospective buyers, or the building inspector he presumably engaged to check the place over before signing contracts - thought to look behind the door?

How can you buy a house without checking out the foundations/basement yourself or by a pro?

[paranoidrobot]

All the home inspectors I looked at (Victoria, where this house is, plus Tasmania) were all quite clear that they would only access areas they could find a way in. Closed up areas, wouldn't be inspected by default.

[bluGill]

In fact things like attic hatches are supposed to be sealed ane so even though seen the inspector is not allowed in the attic. (Unless there is other evedence of a problem, though they need to repair the seal in that case.

[viraptor]

It's that something regional for specific access type? My Victorian houses always had the roof hatch accessible - it's just another storage area and needs to be available if you want to rewire something.

[bluGill]

It is fairly new, strarted inithe late 1990s. It doesn't apply to old houses.

[viraptor]

No, a completely new house. No access is sealed/blocked in any way. If you know the specific regulation, please post it.

[bluGill]

Codes are very regional, and I'm no longer in construction where I have the code handy.applies in Minnesota anyway

[jfengel]

Why is that? That seems odd.

[bluGill]

Air seal. If the hetch can open it leaks unconditioned air and the house is less energy efficient.

[NL807]

Nonsense. Every house built in Victoria has an accessible hatch to the roof space. The hatches are not sealed either, it's just a lid resting over the opening, which can be pushed upward. Some have hinges, etc.

[aussieguy1234]

My house is in Victoria and I can confirm there is no roof hatch. Its a 3 story house. No access or crawl space between the floors either.

[nandomrumber]

Skillion roof? Probably doesn’t have a roof space.

[brunker2]

Incidentally, I'm in Victoria myself. When I bought my house, the inspector did the works. Multiple roof spaces, got under the house and had a look, full report with photos, phone call consultation to explain everything he saw to me. He even notified the sellers of an urgent issue and they had it fixed that afternoon.

I guess it depends who you hire (and whether or not you want to know about any issues, which is the most compelling reason I've seen in the replies so far for why this was "missed").

[danielheath]

The Melbourne real-estate market is _mad_. Prices (relative to wages) are exceptionally high and continue to rise, spending half your take-home income on housing isn't super uncommon.

Widespread sentiment that if you don't buy something ASAP, you'll never be able to - meaning lots of buyers skimping on due diligence to close a sale.

[cjbillington]

Melbourne property prices actually haven't recovered from their 2022 peak, and that's before adjusting for inflation. I believe rents are down in real terms as well.

Things have been crazy for a long time, but I am actually optimistic for Melbourne specifically - the construction rate is up and the state government has been decreasing the power local governments have to block or delay development. If this continues, housing affordability should improve. My main concern is that a change of government may put an end to it, but I hope not.

Some details about what VIC is doing differently in this AFR article if you're interested (archive link because original is paywalled):

https://archive.md/yeDxF

[averageRoyalty]

Population growth rate in Victoria has been 1.9% YOY average for 20 years, with no sign of slowing down. Even if they hit their targets, demand will exceed supply.

The Victorian government has also failed significantly on public housing. The wait time is about 20 months (10 months is VicGov's target, it was 14 months 3 years ago) and they're currently looking to demolish many existing options without many short term optionsnfor residents.

It seems very unlikely to me that Victoria's house prices will drop in any sigificant way this decade.

[cjbillington]

I don't think there'll be any significant drop on a sub-decade timescale unless there's some kind of financial crisis, but the ideal kind of trend is prices stagnating or growing slower than wages, which is the case right now - and the question is whether it will continue.

I think there is a good chance it will, as long as a change of government doesn't deliberately dismantle the current approach. Yes there's population growth and yet prices have been stagnant or declining the past few years and construction has picked up. That's a good trend!

I'm not familiar with the situation with public housing but am happy to accept if the government has failed there. But this seems like a separate failure rather than an indictment of their approach to increasing supply generally which I think is working.

[brenainn]

Not uncommon for Australia. The housing market is very competitive so being a nuisance as a buyer, such as hiring someone for a thorough inspection, could hurt your chances.

What inspectors actually do also depends on who is engaging them and how much they get paid. For example, in the ACT it's mandatory for sellers to have an inspection done. This will generally go to the lowest bidder and they will put in minimum effort, e.g. the report will have things like "Roof inspected as far as can see from ladder placed against the house" and "furniture present, unable to inspect area". If you were the buyer and engaging an inspector, and the seller cooperated, you could have them inspect as much as you were willing to pay them for.

[sandworm101]

Many "inspectors" don't even go inside anymore. In some areas, where it is know that the buyers has every intention of replacing/rebuilding most houses, I've even heard of "inspections" done without a visit. They check on google that the house plan matches city records, that services are provided to the lot, and that there are no buried oil tanks and such, but don't bother going to view the house in person.

[mcdeltat]

It's really a shame too. If the realtor found that prime basement living space beforehand they could've tripled the sale price!!

(A joke but also not really because housing prices here in Australia are absolutely insane)

[bombcar]

What is insane? I’ve been staring at valuations so long that $1,000 a square foot in SoCal doesn’t seem “that unreasonable”.

[averageRoyalty]

Heads up, the rest of the world don't know what a "square foot" or a "SoCal" is.

[xboxnolifes]

Heads up, the rest (most) of the world has access to Google to figure it out easily. Same way Americans convert a square foot to a square meter, or tatami, or whatever.

[bombcar]

To be fair we can also google Australian house prices ;)

Maybe we need an international standard for house overpricedness - median hourly per square meter or something.

[sunnybeetroot]

Whatever the inspector finds, whether it be $50k or $100k or $200k worth of repairs that you request as a price deduction, there’ll be someone else who won’t care about the inspection issues. It’s in your best interest to make the sellers life easier and execute the fastest sale.

[bigstrat2003]

Only to the extent that your best interest includes buying the house. But if the house needs tens of thousands (or more!) in repairs, then very likely buying the house is not in your best interest. That's kinda the point of an inspection.

[sokoloff]

I don't think there's a 10+ year old house in existence that doesn't need 1-2% or more of the building value in repairs. For the two properties I bought, I had an inspection report for over 10% and around 3% of the purchase price. Neither was a reason to not proceed.

[bombcar]

The inspection is less to find and fix things (though sometimes you do) and more to just know what you’re getting into.

Anything that is so bad as to call off the sale was probably visible during a basic walkthrough or from the street, anyway.

[Gigachad]

Most old houses in Aus are just assumed to be complete shit so why waste money on an inspection to tell you what you already know. All the value is in the land.

If the house collapses that's a good thing because then the heritage protections are gone and you can build something better. The property value probably goes up if the old workers hut falls over.

[goopypoop]

I guess the seller didn't want complications and the agent just lists what they're told about, wouldn't check for anything unexpected. Surveyors are commonly disappointingly trusting of handwaving and the buyer didn't have the experience to think to check.

A whimsical tale of dishonesty, laziness and incompetence. Merry fucking Christmas

[tzs]

The article says much of the house is raised, sitting above a carport. It sounds like this may be the space between the house and carport, so someone checking out the foundations would be looking for the foundation under the carport.