Hidden Problems in a 125-Year-Old Wisconsin Home

In This Episode

Hosts:
Bob Frady & John Siegman

Properties:
35500 Washington Ave., Burlington, WI 53105


Episode Summary

This week on Property of the Week, Bob Frady and John Siegman take a trip to Burlington, Wisconsin to review a charming (and very old) property at 35500 Washington Avenue. A 125-year-old home that’s part mystery, part money pit, and all questions for any potential buyer.

Key Takeaways

In this episode:


• Why “historic charm” can mean expensive surprises


• How missing permits and size discrepancies signal deeper issues


• What to ask before buying an older home with private wells and no clear history

Whether you’re into old homes, investment opportunities, or just love uncovering what’s hiding beneath a pretty listing, this episode shows how curiosity (and PropertyLens) can save you from costly regrets.

key findings & Insights:

• Built in 1899 and likely contains lead paint, asbestos, and knob-and-tube wiring


• Four owners in 15 years, possibly including a foreclosure and trust transfer


• No recorded permits


• Estimated $38K in 2-year repairs, or nearly 10% of list price


• Private well with potential PFAS and mold risk; radon testing highly recommended

• Tornado, lightning, and ice dam exposure typical of northern Midwest homes

• Low crime and low flood risk but volunteer fire and limited emergency access


Resources

Old homes tell great stories but some come with expensive plot twists. Run a PropertyLens report at PropertyLens.com before making your next offer.

Realtor.com
Try it: Propertylens.com
Questions Contact us: support@propertylens.com


Transcript

[00:00:00] Bob Frady: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and Girls, ships and Sea. It is time. We're another episode of Property of the Week with PropertyLens. For those of you who don't know, if it's your first time here, I'm Bob Frady, 

[00:00:20] CEO, and co-founder of PropertyLens, and with me as always, 

[00:00:24] John Siegman: John Siegman, president and co-founder of PropertyLens.

[00:00:27] Bob Frady: So John, I've picked a property for us, and it's interesting in a few different ways, and I picked it because I just wanted to pick a place from Wisconsin, just drove through Wisconsin. It was lovely, and I thought, well, let's just look at Wisconsin. We never look at Wisconsin. You okay with that? Why wouldn't I be okay with Wisconsin Home of beer, Broughton cheese?

[00:00:47] Absolutely no idea. Here's the property at 35500 Washington Avenue in Burlington, Wisconsin. 

[00:00:53] John Siegman: Do you think there are 35500 residences in there? 

[00:00:57] Bob Frady: Maybe Washington Avenue just goes for hundreds of miles. There is a one Washington Avenue somewhere at the very tip of the top of Wisconsin. Maybe it's a latitude, longitude code in there.

[00:01:09] Who knows? So what's the first thing that sticks out about this property? 

[00:01:13] John Siegman: Well, it's a duplex. 

[00:01:15] Bob Frady: That is interesting because when we look at the listing itself on a realtor, in this case, it doesn't say anything about it being a duplex. Now, I will say something about this listing, and no disrespect to the real estate agent who put it on there.

[00:01:30] There's nothing in this listing that gives you any idea what it's gonna be like to manage this house, what it's gonna cost you, all it is, is a sales gig with no indication as to what's been repaired. No indication as to anything other than you're gonna love this place. This is where real estate agents do buyers wrong.

[00:01:52] This is why we exist, because this sort of stuff is what you're supposed to live with. Then it says at the bottom, photos virtually enhanced. I'm like, come on. What's hiding in this house? I wanna know. 

[00:02:06] John Siegman: So are you saying to me and our audience, which we love all of you by the way, this. Listing site is for sellers and not buyers.

[00:02:18] Bob Frady: That is exactly what I'm saying. Buyers pay all the freight yet are classically ignored. It's if you have a house for sale and nobody buys it, it's worth nothing. That means it's priced too high or it's not worth anything. Without a buyer, there's no transaction. You need a seller and a buyer. Yet every real estate site is so tilted towards the sellers that it ticks me off because the buyer is the one who has to live there after the fact.

[00:02:41] Real estate agents don't do anything to help that buyer understand what they're getting themselves into, which is why we exist. So I suppose we should be thankful 

[00:02:49] John Siegman: if we're trying to fill a market need. There's certainly a market need. 

[00:02:52] Bob Frady: There's the need. Every real estate transaction is buyer beware, yet nobody wants to say that, but that's the truth.

[00:02:57] 'Cause even in disclosures, there's the, to the best of my knowledge, and here's why that's important. When you look at the summary. Four owners in the last 15 years. Yeah. If something happened 10 years ago, the car owner might not know what happened to that house. 

[00:03:10] John Siegman: Well, it's also telling you that hey, four owners in the last 15 years, you're not staying long here.

[00:03:16] Why not? 

[00:03:17] Bob Frady: We'll get to that section and we'll take a look and see. Maybe it's just some deed changes, but maybe it's some sales. We'll see. What's the snapshot telling us, John? 

[00:03:24] John Siegman: It's not in the flood zone. Yay. It's also not a flip property. That's also pretty good that, that all flips are bad. Just there's some.

[00:03:33] Thing you need to be careful with when you're dealing with a flip repair costs. I hope you set aside a little bit of cashish because it doesn't look like this is gonna be a cheap house to move into. Insurance increase is actually below national average tax increase has been flat. I mean, minus 15.

[00:03:52] The in great shape doesn't require major renovations, so it's not falling down. No public building permits have been recorded, and this is an old. Old house. This is 125 years old, so you definitely wanna make sure that lots of things are taken care of because you could have knob and tube for wiring, you could have asbestos, you could have lead paint.

[00:04:19] There's all sorts of stuff that's happened over the last 125 years that could kill you today. 

[00:04:25] Bob Frady: So if I was walking into this place, I would automatically have a lot of questions. A, because I'm somewhat suspicious of a buyer, and B, this right here, the property lists for $429,000, yet we estimate the two year repair cost to be $38,000, almost 10% of the list price.

[00:04:42] What? Why? And again, we're not telling you that you should or shouldn't buy something. What we're telling you is there's questions that you should have answered before you make the decision to buy. So what do we got here in the pros and cons? 

[00:04:55] John Siegman: Historic charm. I love that. That is a realtor's way of saying it's old.

[00:05:03] Bob Frady: If you're tall, you might bang your head. 

[00:05:06] John Siegman: Historic charm, low crime rates, that's always good. No flood risk, always good. The city itself, the area very attuned to responding to natural disasters and spacious lot. It is on an acre. That's a lot of dirt. If it's a lot of grass, that's a lot of grass to mow. That could be a highlight, could be a low light.

[00:05:27] Depends upon whether or not you are one with your mower. 

[00:05:31] Bob Frady: Yeah. If we look at some of the concerns, what's our number one concern, size, discrepancy? 

[00:05:37] John Siegman: it's so standard happens all the time. 

[00:05:39] Bob Frady: It happens all the time. But it's also one of the major causes of post settlement lawsuits is you say that this is.

[00:05:48] This size, we think it's this size, and maybe there's some work that's been permitted that would cause us to have to remediate this before we sell a house or buy a house. High utility costs some wind damage in the past, relatively poor fire protection. That's probably not a lot of fire stations round.

[00:06:07] You're not in your public transit, it's nice. But I got a lot of questions primarily around this. Here's the key questions. 

[00:06:13] John Siegman: Oh, then let's get some answers. 

[00:06:15] Bob Frady: What's the condition of the roof after the recent hail damage? Are there any unpermitted additions to the property? How about the age of the house?

[00:06:22] How's it affecting your maintenance needs? What's the condition of the heating and cooling systems? All sorts of questions to ask about this property. So here's where we look at the two year cost. We don't have any signals in here as to what. It's gonna cost you in repairs on this house. So we have to estimate it based upon the age of the underlying systems.

[00:06:50] So we don't know if HVAC been updated. We don't know if electrical or water heater or pipes or plumbing fixtures or any of these things have been updated. So we put an estimate out there in terms of what you're probably gonna spend in the next two years. And there's a lot out there. There's a lot.

[00:07:04] It's like, where's the real estate agent helping you out with this stuff? 

[00:07:07] John Siegman: And you know that if any of this stuff had been done. It had been mentioned in the writeup. 

[00:07:14] Bob Frady: Yep. So we're gonna assume that since it wasn't mentioned in the writeup, it hasn't been done. All of these things, you'll need to really be sure that your inspector checks them out and that you know that one of these systems probably gonna have some issues in the next couple of years.

[00:07:34] Well, the roof looks good, which is nice. What do we got for risks there? Key findings. 

[00:07:38] John Siegman: Mold, it's the Midwest, it's humid. There's probably lakes nearby. That's the joy. Also high exposure to polyflor accolades. Stop that nonsense. If you're on a well and not on city sewer, you could be drinking that stuff.

[00:07:57] Bob Frady: Check that water. 'Cause you're on a private well, 

[00:07:59] John Siegman: Let's see, we got lightning, wind, and tornado stuff comes from the sky. It's all sorts of just. Stuff that is inherent in the northern Midwest. 

[00:08:11] Bob Frady: Here's one of my favorites right here. If you're in a high lightning area, then you should have a surge protector on your electrical panel, because when lightning hits the ground.

[00:08:22] It can travel out, so it might not hit your house. It might hit your neighbor's house, come shoot through the ground, conduit in your wire, blows up your electrical panel, and then you're without electricity and maybe fries your electronics in the house as well. Who knows what kinda wiring is this house, because it's so old.

[00:08:36] You gotta check this when you walk into this place, is there something on that electrical panel? Has the electrical panel had any damage? How can you talk to your utility and get something on this electrical panel to help guard against surge from lightning? 

[00:08:51] John Siegman: Yeah. But you know, if it's got a charming view by a creek, you may buy it anyway.

[00:09:01] Bob Frady: Ah, very funny. So it was built before 1978. We don't see any, there's no red flags on here. the roof seems in good condition. Insurance standpoint, relatively modest to insure. It costs more to replace it than it does to buy it, because of the age of the property, this is gonna cost you $430,000 to replace and you're only paying $429,000 for the house.

[00:09:30] So you just wanna make sure that your schedule A is up around that four 30 range. You should be okay with the purchase price, but talk to your insurance agent about it.

[00:09:41] Okay, here's what we see. This is really amazing. The midpoint of the market value is exactly the lowest price for the house. 

[00:09:48] John Siegman: I wonder how they figured that out. 

[00:09:50] Bob Frady: I wonder how they figured that out, but good for them. So, it's not overpriced, it's not underpriced, but it's not overpriced. differing markets differ, but it's, one structure on a one acre lot.

[00:10:06] Two stories with a basement. It's got a garage and then here's the listing. So it was last sold in 2020. So yeah, there were lots of deed changes here. 2007, then it went to a government deed, then it went to an individual deed. 

[00:10:26] John Siegman: That was an interesting one. The government deed. Then they did a foreclosure. 

[00:10:30] Bob Frady: Might have been then a husband and wife went into a trust listed in 2020 and sold. Now listed again for five years later for 140 more thousand dollars. Yep. One third more property taxes look like they went down on this location. That's interesting.

[00:10:50] John Siegman: A little bit. 

[00:10:51] Bob Frady: Yeah. Don't see that happen very often.

[00:10:55] John Siegman: Well, maybe they paid off some municipal bond or something like that. We don't know. 

[00:11:00] Bob Frady: There you go. Here's 

[00:11:01] the property. It's got 

[00:11:01] its attached garage in the back. Looks super cute. Super cute. If you like that kind of thing, then this is your house. You're gonna that kind of thing. 

[00:11:14] John Siegman: You wanna pick anything?

[00:11:15] Bob Frady: It's got a charming little view. Little outbuilding in the back. Nice.

[00:11:23] Here we go. Hail two inch hail. 2025. We wanna ask how'd the roof go? Because there's sometimes a gap between when we get the picture of the roof and when we get the hail information. So you wanna check and make sure that the roof is in good condition. We think it's in good condition, but just check looks like it's in pretty good condition.

[00:11:44] Yep. From the eyes and the skies, it looks like the roofers replaced three years ago, 30 year roof. If you have to replace it, it's by $18,000.

[00:11:57] Pretty good from risk exposure, what do we see in the potential threats and structural integrity? John. 

[00:12:05] John Siegman: Not a whole lot. Water hardness. You might wanna consider getting a water softener. Keep away those indoor water leaks. I've been told it gets cold in Wisconsin, but when you look at this, it's yeah, you got some frosty potential because.

[00:12:22] It's gonna get frosty. So other than that, really, from a structural standpoint, the soil is fine. It's Wisconsin. You can grow pretty much, whatever type of thing you throw seeds at, you'll be fine. it's decent soil. you're gonna be good there. It's two stories with a basement.

[00:12:45] One of the things you'll definitely wanna check for is, 'cause you have a basement, is radon. Not screaming here in the report, but still something you wanna check on. Building permits are generally required for most construction projects, and yet we show no permits. So that would be a question that I would have.

[00:13:12] And also if any professional has done any work, do you have the receipts? Do you have contacts because. You may or may not want to use that same individual going forward. 

[00:13:28] Bob Frady: Like it says here, owners often make un permitted changes, which lead to unexpected repairs and costs. Be sure to confirm all modifications with the seller before the purchase.

[00:13:38] You have every right to ask this question, but the absence of information means most people won't ask the question, and that's a shame. If we look at flood, not much in the way of flood risk here, which is lovely.

[00:13:53] Don't recommend flood insurance. Climate risk. 

[00:13:59] John Siegman: Now we've seen it all before. Lightning, tornado wind. You know it gets cold in Wisconsin. It gets hot in Wisconsin. They have winter weather in Wisconsin. Did you know that 

[00:14:09] Bob Frady: they have winter weather? Not too bad on the hail though. 

[00:14:12] John Siegman: Not so bad on the hail. That's not too bad.

[00:14:14] I mean, you get it. Storms. Every now and then you get just life. not gonna have a wildfire. it's flat, so you're not gonna have an avalanche, you're not gonna have an earthquake. if you have a volcano or a tsunami, lots of really, really, really bad things have happened. 

[00:14:32] Bob Frady: Yeah. If there's a volcano in, in Wisconsin, we're all in for a bad day.

[00:14:37] So from a crime standpoint, pretty low crime area, which is nice. A little, little bit of average rock. I mean the US is a pretty safe place, but you know, I still might get a camera, because why not? They're cheap. No sex offenders nearby, which is lovely. It is lovely. How about the quality of life in the neighborhood?

[00:15:01] John Siegman: It's probably wonderful for those people who like to be alone. if you're not walking anywhere, you're not taking the bus, there's, you're not hopping on the rail to go to the game type of thing. I don't wanna say you're out in the middle of nowhere 'cause you're not, you're only like 20 miles to Lake Michigan, but you're out there and, you better make friends with your neighbors 'cause they're gonna be the first ones that respond.

[00:15:31] Bob Frady: You are gonna have a little bit of noise here, some road noise. It's low. You'll notice it, and there's probably a train that swings past there, because there's a little bit of elevated, train noise as well. No airports nearby. See, you're right on the, you're right on the road. Now, what's interesting is the points of interest within five miles, none of them are near this location.

[00:15:59] John Siegman: So falls we didn't five miles, but they're not on top of that location. 

[00:16:04] Bob Frady: Yes, yes. They're they're, they're over here to the east. Yes. They say, yeah, you're, it's country living on Highway D, green Acres.

[00:16:18] John Siegman: Okay. Toxic exposure. John, talk to me about this. Well, as we already pointed out, mold and pfas, but also ding, ding, ding, radon. Nailed it. It's a c so it's average, it is a naturally occurring gas. It happens to do with the fact that the earth itself is just getting older and decomposing.

[00:16:42] Slightly and you can wait the 10 million years for the rest of the earth to off gas, or you can make sure that, it doesn't apply to you or if it does that there is a mitigation system in the basement. 

[00:16:58] Bob Frady: Correct. It's a cheap test. You should always run it in an area with a C or a D for radon.

[00:17:05] Yep. Contaminated sites. while the town's over there, the air is contaminated site. Is not too far from you. So Swanson has an underground storage tank. It's a third of a mile away, which is, 1500 feet 

[00:17:19] John Siegman: more than enough. If it's a thousand feet, you're fine. 

[00:17:23] Bob Frady: Yep. Health and safety, everything's poor.

[00:17:30] John Siegman: You're on the edge. There's 

[00:17:32] Bob Frady: yeah. Hydrants which is nice. 

[00:17:33] John Siegman: It is nice. 

[00:17:35] Bob Frady: But you've got a volunteer fire station is the closest one, and then you're look relying on the town after that. So that may impact your insurance rates slightly. Same with medical response, because the two of those are generally intertwined and here's where the fire stations are.

[00:17:52] Volunteer is, four miles away and insurability outlook looks pretty good. So if you want to get a quote, lots of people wanna quote you, and then there's the timeline for the property. So John, let's say that you were going to buy 35500 Washington Avenue in Burlington, Wisconsin. What would be the top three things you would look for at this property?

[00:18:24] John Siegman: The top three things that I would be looking for, You gotta look at the systems. I mean, it's just, it's what is, its renovation history. It's 125 years old. So you know there are gonna be photos going back that far. But what's the story? How much of the story can you get and how much of it is gonna be true?

[00:18:52] So the first thing I'm doing is I am getting. The most particular inspector I know or can find. I wanna see somebody who, this guy was so picky. That's our girl. in the, in their writeups, in their reviews. I'm going to have somebody who is gonna go through there, understands Wisconsin Building, has seen these things before.

[00:19:26] 'Cause I'm coming from out of town way outta town and while I do know Wisconsin a little bit, I don't know if that's right or that's wrong or if that's good or that's bad. I don't have a basement, so what do I know about 'em? So that would be the first and absolute first thing that I would be looking for is an inspector who could definitely.

[00:19:52] Get the money's worth, that inspector would not be recommended by either of the realtors involved in the transaction. I want somebody way outside and is only gonna get paid for doing this gig. So that's number one. Number two on my list is gotta go look at the roof. Yeah, it's three years old, but two inch hail.

[00:20:19] That's pretty significant. now maybe they put on fortified roof shingles the last time they did it and you've got some additional protection and it's like he two inch hail, gimme 20 feet of snow. I don't care. I'm good or not. third, it's an old house. I'm sure it's been updated. I'm sure it's been redone.

[00:20:46] I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. But, and this is a split because I'm gonna wanna go up in the attic and see that there's insulation because a lot of times these older homes, I know this is gonna sound weird, have no insulation in the attic. and then I'm gonna go down to the basement and look for the mitigation system because radon is a silent killer.

[00:21:18] So those would be my three and a half, things that I would be looking for if I were going to buy this house. And then I would be looking to, put a profile up on one of the dating sites because I will be there alone.

[00:21:40] Bob Frady: Okay, if I were buying 35500 Washington Avenue in Burlington, Wisconsin, here are the top three things I would look for. And let me tell you something, I'm not gonna be able to hold myself to three because the listing agent did no favors to anyone with this house, neither the seller nor the buyer, because all it does is raise more questions than it asks.

[00:22:01] So number one, what is the repair history? Just because we don't have permits doesn't mean they don't exist. Sometimes, especially with smaller towns, they don't publish their permit data easily, so you can't get it to ingest, and that might be the case here. So there may be permits, there may be work that's done, but as far as we can tell.

[00:22:22] Nothing's been done recently to that house. So that's a huge wild card in the expenditure of that house. So number one is repair history. Number two is, this is listed as a duplex, but shows us a single family house. Why that discrepancy? Did it used to be a duplex that's been recombined? how did those systems, get integrated?

[00:22:43] So that's number two. Number three is I would test my water because you've got some iffy groundwater. You're on a well. So I would get the water tested, which is not part of the standard inspection 'cause I don't wanna be drinking bad water. And then number four would be radon. I would want to get a radon test done if there is not a mitigation system there already.

[00:23:07] If there is a system, then great, we check that box off. The last thing I would check is the sewer line. You know the house is 120 years old. What's the condition of the sewer line and what's the condition of the septic line because. It's in the country. Root intrusion is a real thing. When is the last time that it was inspected?

[00:23:26] So I think, I think I'm up to five things now. So those, yes, five things. 

[00:23:31] John Siegman: Let, let's do the Bob Frady count. 1, 2, 3. 

[00:23:36] Bob Frady: Yeah, I think those are the four that I would do for this location. It looks super cute. It's priced reasonably. it's right on market value, so I'm not too worried about that stuff, but I am.

[00:23:49] Really concerned with how much more this is gonna cost me. 'cause here's what happens with a lot of times in prices in this house range, is it's somebody who's stretching, and maybe it's their first house, maybe it's small upgrade, but they're stretching to get to this house. And you don't necessarily want 8% of the listing price of the house in two year costs.

[00:24:11] You don't wanna be paying out that money. So like you said. If you make an offer on this house without asking these questions, A, get a PropertyLens report, and B, make sure you, you hire the inspector. Don't rely on your agent, especially, don't rely on the selling agent to give you a listing. And when you talk to your buyer'ss agent, say, I want, I want the picky inspector, I want the person who is the difficult inspector, and make sure that you.

[00:24:41] Find somebody who's gonna go over this place with the fine tooth comb because it looks super nice. But there are a ton of questions that you should have before making an offer on this house because listen, if you buy this place or make an offer on this place and then run into all these questions after you fallen in love with it, A, you're gonna make a decision that you come to regret potentially, or B, it's gonna fall out.

[00:25:06] Like one in six real estate deals fell out last month, and this is one of the reasons why, because stuff's hiding and you're not aware of it. So I'm not saying that this is bad, but there's a ton of questions that I would ask about this property versus some other properties that we've seen in the past.

[00:25:23] John Siegman: There are probably other houses if you're gonna be in that area that you should also look at. That would be my parting thought. 

[00:25:29] Bob Frady: All right, so for this week's episode of Property of the Week with PropertyLens, I'm Bob Frady. 

[00:25:36] John Siegman: I'm John Siegman. 

[00:25:37] Bob Frady: Don't forget to hit the subscribe button. It makes us feel better about ourselves.

[00:25:41] Until next time.