Pro-tip: If you're buying a house with an inground pool, do your best to make sure it wasn't a DIY job

Basically, title. We bought a house last year, pool and equipment looked good other than wrinkles in the vinyl liner. Everything works fine, inspected fine, etc.

This past month we started working on getting the liner replaced. It's a big pool with an odd shape so two quotes came in at 11k. Steep but okay. Then they go to measure for the new liner and can't, because one side has sunk 4 inches lower than the other side. We drain it and pull the liner out so they can bust out and repour the vermiculite. Another 4-6k there. As they're busting it out, they find that someone poured concrete (sloppily) under the vermiculite in what we can only assume was a DIY pool install many years ago. So, we're probably up to 25k or more just to get a new liner and fix an existing pool to what it should have been to start (in other words, no upgrade or increase in home value whatsoever).

I'm not that mad about it, it's just a learning experience for us at this point. But I wanted to throw this out there for anyone else who might be in the process of buying a house with an inground pool, just make sure it was professionally installed and get that in writing so you don't end up with these unpleasant surprises when you need to work on it. (I know it doesn't prevent ALL problems, but it would have prevented this.) A DIY job doesn't have to be a dealbreaker, but it is important info to have when making your offer because of the additional risk.

And if you're going to chime in with "well I'd never buy a house with a pool", then you're not the target market for this post. For some people, like me, it's a perk. I'll be happy when it's fixed!

submitted by /u/Mayfly_01
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/1vb0uf1/protip_if_youre_buying_a_house_with_an_inground/