Hi everyone, I am very new to this forum and very new to the home owning market! My finace and I have found a home we are in love with but one thing is holding us back. I dont know much about basements or 'house stuff' in general because this will be our first home so please bear with me!

This home we found has a newly finished basement. (Finished basements are 'booming' in my area so they say they finished it to quicken the sale of the home or so the realtor says) Anyways we noticed that you can see yellowing spots on the walls especially in one room on one wall of the basement. It isnt a dark yellow but it shows through the white paint on the walls. We checked around the basement and didnt see any signs of obvious water damage and the carpet is brand new so no way to tell there either. Its a block basement, home was built about 1970 and it sits on a small incline. I noticed there is a sump pump and it didnt seem too full but what do I know? No noticeable cracking or anything like that but I am curious as to what the yellowing is? Something to be concerned with?

I also noticed a small inwards bow to one long wall, nothing too bad but when standing beside the wall at eye level you can see it bow inwards a little. Is this a major concern or just normal pressure from time?

I know you all cant give much advice without seeing it but maybe you can offer some helpful advice and opinions on this subject! Anything would be greatly appreciated.

Maybe they finished the basement to quicken the sale of the house because, with the possible foundation problems, it wasn't selling before.

WHERE on the walls do you see the yellow stain? Top? Bottom? Middle?

You DO plan to have a good qualified house inspector examine the house before you make a commitment, don't you? And you DO plan to have him focus his attention on as much of the foundation as he can see, right? Even so, most house inspectors will disclaim responsibility for anything that is not visible.

The bowed wall is a concern. There is no such thing as "normal" bowing. If the stains are at the bottom of the walls, they're probably caused by water. The newly finished walls could easily be hiding mold, cracks, water entry, and who knows what else. Same with the new carpet.

If you REALLY REALLY want this house, after you get the inspection done, ask the owner very pointed questions about the basement, IN WRITING, and get the answers IN WRITING. If the owner balks at that, buy a different house.

First off thank you very much for your reply I do worry very much about the basement and the possibility of a 'cover-up' down there but the rest of the home is everything we have been searching for. So if the basement is a big problem we dont want to make a mistake by purchasing the home and with us being new to the home owner market I dont want to make that mistake!

The yellowing is towards the middle of the wall, so my guess was that maybe that was about ground level on the outer wall and the yellow was possibly water seepage or moisture? And exactly like what you said the fact that its newly finished means new paint and new carpet and it really is a mystery as to what the walls and flooring does in fact look like.

The bowing is right about in the middle of one very long wall, I couldnt tell from just standing there and looking at it but if I put my face against the wall I could see it. Obviously some pressure is being put on it from the outside, but once again Im new to this and dont know how much that should concern me.

After reading many posts on here I know that the problem would need to be fixed from the outside. And our realtor did suggest his opinion of building a 'trench' around the perimeter of the home to eliminate any water leaks into the basement. But since we cant see what the floors and carpet look like he said it wasnt apparent as to how soon or how necessary that would need to be done. And he said it could be quite pricey.

What I would like to know if these things sound like major problems or give off that 'red flag' like hey, theres something wrong here!! If we do decide to get serious about this home we would be hiring an inspector to come check things out. But I would just hate to fall in love with this home and be told something dissapointing then so I would rather know as much as I can now so I can make a decision as to if we should go for it or back off.

Once again thank you very much for any help, its greatly appreciated!

Another thing to point out, I just found out that a company purchased the home last year and 'flipped' it. Home looks absolutely beautiful but another concern...

Basement could be major issue that they didnt address but instead 'perked' up to show well to make profit. My question is how much money am I going to be putting in to fix this possible problem. We had significant rainfall last night so I would like to get back in there and see whats going on down there.