BEWARE Post and Pier Foundations!

[Spyke]

Since I am building the 20' 2 story and need cash, I just sold and closed on my little house that I built back in 01. The real estate market is real bad right now so I had that going against me, but I was shocked because LOTS of people were scared off by the post and pier foundation. If my house had been built on a full basement it would have sold for alot more (40K at least).

Plus my insurance company dropped me because of the pier foundation and the ones that would insure me wanted a huge amount of money.

Just wanted to pass this along to anyone planning to build on a post and pier foundation. If you plan on selling your place at some point it may be worth it to look at slabs and crawls in addition to basements.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Spyke, what reason did the insurance give you for dropping you?  I have an uncle who built his own house with a pier foundation, and to my knowledge, he's never had a lick of trouble with it or the insurance.  In Illinois, it makes sense to build with a basement because you've gotta have some where to send the kids and dogs to play during the long cold winter, BUT why were people afraid of it, or why would it devalue the house?  I can see a basement adding value, but don't understand people being leery of it unless it wasn't square or something.  (I'd take that over a slab anyway.)  

[Spyke]

They dropped me because the house was not built on a "regular" type of foundation. No other reason given. It was American Family and when my policy was up for renewal they just did not renew me.

My realtor said that almost everyone who looked at the house was freaked out by the piers. They thought something was wrong because they had never seen anything like it. The foundation itself was and is very solid.

The buyer is planning on jacking the house and putting in a walkout then reselling it.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

That's too bad.  They aren't common in this part of the country, but back home, especially in the eastern half of OK, they're pretty common.  When we were house hunting in Wisconsin, I was really concerned because one of the houses that we looked at had a crawl space that no human being could've crawled in... my thought was, "What if we had to work on the pipes?"  Needless to say, we didn't buy that one.  I don't like slabs because I don't like standing on concrete and because everyone I know who has built their house on one, or bought one with a slab, has had some sort of foundation trouble.  Must've just been the wrong folks looking at your house!