I live in East Van in a cheap old ex rental, the chances it wasn't a former grow op is slim to none, never had any issues though.
Old houses that are less sealed are much less prone to problems in this way
I was just going ti say your bank will have an issue with it. You can get private secondary market financing if it's a great deal but likely not worth it.
Yah, not worth it. From what I've heard, grow ops really wreck the house. It probably has a ton of mold issues that you won't see. I'd never buy a grow op house no matter how good the deal unless you were looking to tear it down and rebuild it.
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Yah, not worth it. From what I've heard, grow ops really wreck the house. It probably has a ton of mold issues that you won't see. I'd never buy a grow op house no matter how good the deal unless you were looking to tear it down and rebuild it.
This. And mold is extremely expensive to deal with. Once mold has been found, in order for a an inspect or to clear the issue, the home will have to be torn apart, whether there is actual mold in there or not. Beyond mold, moisture will often rot the wood. Staircases are especially vulnerable to this.
Growing Marijuana takes a lot of humidity. I've never heard of anyone running a grow op properly sealing a room for moisture.
Another issue is that the people who run the grow ops often mess around with the electrical and plumbing systems. You can also have contamination issues. The operators will often throw old herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, and fuel into the backyard, and under the law, a new owner can be held responsible for the cleanup cost, regardless of contribution.
Even at land value alone, buying a former grow op is risky.
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The financing shouldn't be much of an issue as there are plenty of work arounds, especially given the fact it is remediated and has a clean title.
That said, I would do everything possible to talk a client out of such a purchase if they were asking for my opinion. The whole grow op thing has all sorts of gray area with legal marijuana and home growing but at the end of the day, once a busted grow op, always seen and public knowledge it was a grow op, regardless of how clean that home becomes.
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Years ago a buddy bought a former grow op without doing a proper inspections because it was such a good deal. Two months after moving in his wife fell through the bathroom floor because it was so rotted. They basically spent the next two years gutting the place top to bottom.
I cannot see that they would be worth it even with a great deal.
My house is 115 years old, needless to say no insulation or Tyvek or vapour barrier on the walls, moisture in the house wasn't a problem it just dried out through the walls, stripped down the drywall, put in some insulation and new drywall, good as new.
Modern houses are all so sealed up they rot like crazy if water is inside though. I'd probably happily take a pre 60's or 70's ex grow op though just from a renovation point of view
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no expert here, but to me it would be way more expensive. let's say you bought a former grow-op in an neighborhood that was filled with $400,000 homes for $200,000. Say $30,000 for teardown/haulaway and you rebuild the house to a similar condition on it's old foundation - what would that cost $150,000?? (I have no idea) - you would ahve saved $20,000 - when you could ahve bought a house in the same hood where you did not have to deal with all this extra stuff.
I doubt that grow-ops are being sold for $0.50/$1.00 though - but what do i know.
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Lots of people do buy grow ops though. I think part of the strategy is to basically get a remediated house for 100k less than a non grow op and then count your savings in mortgage interest. So it ends up costing you 300-400 a month less to live than it normally would.
Buying a busted grow op house is better than buying a grow op house that was not busted because once busted, the owner has to remediate I believe. The most important thing is to get a property inspection to rule out possiblility if a former grow op. Experienced inspectors would know what to look for.
My brother used to rent out his old place and it ended up being hired actors or something from the Hells Angels and then turned into a grow op.
So anyway, that got real expensive for him. Like yeah I believe they had to pretty much rebuild the thing.
If it’s an old grow op house and has been fixed up I bet you’re fine though. I believe it has to be fairly well checked out and cleared and I don’t think that is a small hurdle from the government to get the green light.
A few years ago I had some extra days to kill in Calgary because the Icelandic volcano meant I couldn’t get a flight back to the UK.
I decided to spend a couple of days checking out some of my old childhood haunts. I had a fantastic time until the end of the second day when I visited the last house we lived at in Calgary.
As I walked hopefully down the street, my heart sank as I saw from a distance that it was sealed off. I naively initially thought it was a murder scene.
Turns out it was all the environmental hazard controls resulting from it being used as a grow up.
It made me much sadder than I should have been and it still for some reason bothers me today. I just wanted to go back and revisit some memories and that was completely spoiled.
Buying a Grow-op house
