Question
We are looking at putting an offer on a house that has stamped cement in the back yard with some grass yard too that was built in 1999 and it looks like the house has water discoloration around the perimeter of the house and they tried to paint it. The house has no rain gutters and it appears to have no drainage. How much would it cost to fix something like this or should we avoid this house altogether?

There is also 2 other houses we are considering:

House 2:
Has a 12 person rock scaped spa and the patio area has cracks, the house was built in 1999...we are not sure if the house has raingutters and/or what type of drainage. Should we be concerned about these cracks?

House 3:
has all brick/cement hardscape with drainage-we would be interested in making some of the hardscape to a yard-is this feasible and is this expensive?

thanks in advance for any advice...

Answer
joan, for some reason I'm having a problem sending you an answer. Just let me know if you get this and I'll try again.Basicly the homes need gutters,the patio sounds scary,and the hardscape might be expensive. Let me know what part of the country you are in. Is the patio concrete slab?