quote:

Originally posted by Ackks:
Wasn't one of those on the news a few months ago and the company offered to buy it back?

All those homes are literally built on sand. If you think that's bad wait until the big earthquake hits. The fact people drive past Point of the Mountain and don't realize that's what they are building on astonishes me.

Apparently the big sand pit mine doesn't make it obvious...

Looks like a case of soil liquification and extremely bad site development work. Look to the right of where the collapsed house was and you will see what appears to be several rows of gabion walls or some other structure that definitely shows this site was extensively graded/filled. The river of mud where the home sits was always there as a natural feature between the two hills coming together. The developer/engineer hold a lot of responsibility for what happened not to mention the municipality/county that approved it. Plenty of blame to go around.

There's video. You can see it here.

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
Looks like a case of soil liquification and extremely bad site development work. Look to the right of where the collapsed house was and you will see what appears to be several rows of gabion walls or some other structure that definitely shows this site was extensively graded/filled. The river of mud where the home sits was always there as a natural feature between the two hills coming together. The developer/engineer hold a lot of responsibility for what happened not to mention the municipality/county that approved it. Plenty of blame to go around.

A lot of greed, naturally, is involved of course. These developers, particularly in my area, take these lands and squeeze as many homes as possible on them--cram them together--and then stick a nearly million dollar price tag on each of them. The sickening part are all these people who accept the price and buy it. Though I suppose I'm just bitter about the nature of the housing market right now.

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zAjEjxX-DhA" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

Yep, Pretty much common sense.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Yeah, pretty awful. I think I read that one of those family had only just purchased the home and was only in the house for less than a year.

Those homes by the way, packed on top of each other with barely any acreage per lot, were sold for around $900,000. Ridiculous.

You should see what kind of garbage land they are building these giant particleboard McMansions on around here nowadays. The "backyard" of 99.99% of them is this ridiculously steep hill that literally drops off almost as soon as you step out your back door, it's like they have zero land and they're packed in closely side by side. Or they're right on top of a giant swale that you know is going to flood like crazy when we get some severe summer PA thunderstorms.

My yard looks like the Taj Mahal's grounds compared to these abominations all priced in "the low 800's or low 900's". I really don't even understand how people can afford the payment on a house that costs that much money.