WNY Handyman

I have often wondered why Ebay hasn’t become the place to be to list real estate. It seems natural to me that their huge audience would be drawn to a real estate section the way that they are with the Ebay Motors product. I never think to look to Ebay when it comes to real estate because the listings are just not there. Sure, there are some, but for the most part, listings are scarce.

Here is a sad example. In New York state, there should be thousands of real estate listings.  In fact, a quick search of a rival “classified” type site named Oodle.com turns up 2,262 listings in Buffalo, NY alone. Not the whole state of NY as I pulled on Ebay, just Buffalo New York.  On Ebay, the entire state of NY returned 14 listings!  That’s right, 14 listings.  Who would even bother to go there.  Visitors will move toward the listings when searching for real estate.

Ebay Listings in New York:

Ebay real estate

Oodle.com Listings in Buffalo NY:

Buffalo Real Estate on Oodle

Why isn’t Ebay able to generate real estate listings at their site?  There are a number of reasons, but here are the two primary ones:

1. Price
   To list a property on Ebay, it is expensive (Fee table below).  Expensive is relative, but based upon the options out there for someone looking to sell a property, the cost outweigh the potential reach. I can only assume that the reach is poor based solely on the listing results.
2. Audience
   If they are heading to Ebay as one of the top few listing sites, I don’t care to be there at their price.  When you search for real estate, you probably find yourself hitting a few sites and quickly realize that you are seeing the same listings across multiple sites.  Because listings are scarce in Ebay Real Estate, they don’t have an opportunity to capture audience during the short window when someone is searching.

Ebay Real Estate Listing Fees:

Ebay Real Estate Listing Fees

I hope Ebay’s leadership takes a long look at their real estate category. As with EbayMotors.com, they could be a dominant force in this space.

Just picked up a rotary laser level to help with a couple of ceiling jobs on our latest fixer house.  One of the rooms was formerly a porch and the ceiling has a drop off of about 2″ from one end to the next.  The other ceiling has about a 1″ variation due issues with the way it was framed.  100 years ago,  when lathe and plaster was the method, a good plaster job could cover a sin that large. Not today.

I picked up this Johnson level at Home Depot last night. It was $69 at home depot, so I paid a bit more than I needed to, but having it on hand for was more important. I’ll follow up with a review of the Johnson rotary laser level after completing a couple of projects. You can’t beat the price compared to some of the pro tools. This could save a handyman hours if doing a drop ceiling, chair rails, etc.

If you have a crumbling rubble foundation, you are probably wondering what your repair options are and what the cost might be.  For starters, this is not a DIY job.  Typical do it yourselfers don’t have the ability to lay the blocks required to make this repair.

Rubble Foundation Wall Repair

My experience with a rubble foundation repair.  I happened to be fortunate that the water infiltration into this basement was minimal. Because of that, I did not have wash out issued in the foundation.  These old rubble foundation walls eventually give way if water infiltration is an issue.  Over the years, the force of the water will break down the cement and the wall can start to crumble.  On top of that, most people will apply a band-aid fix that will essentially skin the wall with cement.  This will hold for a bit, but eventually the skin will start to flake off in large bits.

Rubble foundation repair

In our case, we had a foundation wall that was 14″ to 16″ thick.  There was only one area where I had concern about the amount of rubble that had crumbled from the wall.  When enough of the rubble foundation material crumbles away, it will compromise the integrity of the upper foundation (usually large stones or cement) and cause cracks, settling, or worse partial collapse.  We hired a competent contractor who has done hundreds of jobs similar to this.  The contractor is from the East Aurora, NY area where an old stone foundation is common.

Our fix could have been accomplished using a variety of techniques.  The 2 best solutions were a poured interior wall, or a block interior wall.  Due to cost and accessibility, we selected a block interior wall.  The new block wall is tied to existing structure with Rebar and the wall itself is built to last.  This interior wall is placed against the existing rubble foundation wall and will eliminate future crumbling of the foundation.  Not only that, but it provides a crisp interior wall with a nice clean look.

The cost for a repair of this nature will depend on the linear feet you need to cover and the height of the new wall.  Assuming you catch the repair prior to any structure being compromised, you will not have a need to do any lifting of the existing structure.  This new interior wall essentially acts to “retain” the current footer.

Don’t let your rubble foundation get to the point where your house needs to be lifted and the foundation dug out and rebuilt.

Since we have a smaller basement area (there is some crawl space that isn’t affected), our cost was below $5,000. Some might not consider this a cheap fix, but it would certainly beat the $20,000 bill you will face should a major repair/reconstruction be required.  Get multiple estimates and be sure to go with a contractor who has done this repair before.