A Real-Life "Money Pit"

Unfortunately new-home buyers don't get to live in their homes before they buy them. Practically speaking, they don't invest time in doing their homework, seeking professional advice or hiring attorneys who specialize in real estate law. They blindly trust fate and assume that the builders they're working with are ethical and abide by construction best-practices rules.

Patrick Conlee, an independent pharmacist, always prided himself on making shrewd investments. But he admits he made every mistake in the book when he bought his new home in the Albany, N.Y., suburb of North Greenbush in 1995.

Conlee, 43, was convinced that he had stumbled on the deal of the century when he found a wood-frame house built on a block foundation, nicely situated on a half acre of land. The house had five rooms, a large basement, a two-car garage and a concrete deck over the garage.

Conlee's father, a tile mason, warned him that the house needed work, but his son didn't heed the good advice of the veteran artisan. All Conlee saw was the bargain price tag of $79,000. He conveniently forgot the time-tested adage of "You get what you pay for."

"I knew I'd have to put money into the house, but I reasoned that in the long run, it would be worth it because I'd only be increasing the value of the home," he says.

He was right on that count, but he had no idea the extent of work needed and the dollar signs in front of it. He soon found out. More than 13 years later, he's still pouring money into the house.

The first major mistake Conlee made was not hiring an inspector to check the house over. For a very reasonable $200, he would have learned that his house needed thousands of dollars of work.

Conlee's first major job was upgrading the house's electrical circuitry. "The house was inadequately wired," he says. Practically all of the house's 30 outlets, not including the basement, had to be replaced.

The tab: $5,000.

Then there was the roof. Conlee chuckles, "I never bothered to climb up on the roof and check it out. It looked okay from the ground, so I assumed there were no problems."

The builder had masterfully cut corners throughout the construction process. When it came to the roof, he had used cheap shingles and failed to build vents and gutters, essential for moving water and allowing the roof to expand and contract in order to deal with moisture, heat and humidity. When it rained or snowed, water indiscriminately flowed everywhere -- outside down all sides and inside in choice favorite locations such as the bedroom, right over Conlee's double bed, and the dining room, right smack in the center of an antique dining room table given to him by his grandmother.

Cost of a new roof: $10,000.

And there were major problems with the deck as well. Consistent with the builder's track record for slipshod work, the deck wasn't angled so the water or snow would run off into strategically positioned gutters. So Conlee had to contend with huge puddles when it rained or massive snow mounds in the winter, which opened up yet more leaks.

The deck was repaired once, but Conlee says it still needs work, and, well, he doesn't want to talk about it -- especially the price -- because the topic pushes his blood pressure to abnormal levels.

So how did this once calm, easygoing professional deal with the continuing angst and frustration of new-home ownership? "To say that I was angry is an understatement," he says. "But rage wasn't getting me anywhere. And it certainly wasn't good for my health."

What saved Conlee was a sense of humor. "At first, I felt like a bona fide moron who should have known better," he says. "And constantly hearing my father say, 'I warned you,' wasn't doing me any good either. But then I resigned myself to dealing with the situation and took it all in my stride."

Conlee likens the first eight months of living in the house to scenes in the hilarious 1986 film "The Money Pit," starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long. "Talk about identification," laughs Conlee. Remembering scenes from the film, he says, "every time a workman told me a job would take two weeks, I added another three weeks."

Would Conlee do it all over again? "Yes," he says, "but I would do it differently. I'd do my homework, and before I signed on the dotted line, I'd have an inspector go over the house with a fine-tooth comb. Then I'd have a contract that makes the builder responsible and liable for all repairs whenever they crop up. And that's for starters."

While he can joke about his "Money Pit" purchase, this Albany pharmacist admits he "screwed up." "Through it all, I have a house that's worth considerably more than I paid for it."

Yet Conlee admits that he paid a high price to get to that point.

NEXT: Six mistakes all new-home buyers need to avoid >>

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