by Mary Ellen Podmolik

From Chicago Tribune:

Home inspection 101: Check for split-face block construction

John Sullivan, a 27-year-old renter in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood, hopes the third time is the charm.

Twice in the past three months Sullivan has put in offers on condos in his neighborhood, but after receiving the results of a property inspection broke the contracts. The culprit both times? Potential water damage problems tied to split-face block construction.

Problems with improperly treated or maintained split-face concrete blocks aren't anything new. Some home inspectors have been railing against the use of the construction material in Chicago's small condo buildings for a decade.

But keeping the concrete sealed and water repellent might be a project that falls by the wayside at a time when the number of bank-owned foreclosures is on the rise, other units are occupied by renters rather than by owners, and many condo associations have dwindling reserves.

"Now, five, six, seven, eight years after it's been built, we're starting to see the effects of bad construction," said Dan Pape, a principal at Hudson Parker Realty & Finance Group in Chicago. "Usually it's a 50-50 chance (of a problem). Unfortunately, it's that high."

Sullivan didn't know much about concrete block, but the home inspector on the first property gave him a few articles to read. He did some research, including talking to a colleague who had trouble selling his condo because of its split-face block construction. Five days before closing, Sullivan got a second inspection, and the results sealed his decision to not proceed with the closing.

At the second condo where he had a contract, the home inspector didn't even have to look inside to be able to tell there were potential problems.

Kurt Mitenbuler, who operates an eponymously named home inspection firm in Evanston, is among those inspectors who have been warning about split-face block for years.

"Some of them seem to work OK for reasons that we're still trying to figure out," he said. "I'm not saying don't buy it, but we need to look deeper."

The more education a buyer has about a property, the better, said Mary Ellen Considine, an agent at Keller Williams Realty in Chicago.

"Buyers are driven by their emotion, not their logic," she said. "This is the biggest investment you're going to make."

Buyers also should also check into the reserves of a condo building's homeowners association to determine the level of financial reserves for building repairs.