Cautionary Tale For Future Homebuyers
Toyota transplant Ryan Hines bought his first house in Dallas. Then it started sinking. Hines wants his experience to be a cautionary tale for future D-FW transplants purchasing a home.
When Ryan Hines accepted Toyota’s offer to follow the automaker on its cross-country relocation to Texas, it gave him the job stability he needed to consider buying a home for the first time in his life. That stability was quickly upended when the 30-year-old began to realize that the entire house he’d just bought was sinking. The 1950s Northwest Dallas home’s foundation was in sorry shape, and Hines’ nightmare only grew from there to include electrical problems, city code violations and more that he contends should’ve been disclosed to him.
Now a year later and with more than $40,000 invested in what he says were necessary repairs, Hines wants his experience to be a cautionary tale for future Dallas-Fort Worth transplants unfamiliar with the region’s used home market. “If it saves someone else from going through it, too, that would be a good thing,” Hines said.
Hines began working with Toyota in 2017 as a contractor supporting the company’s efforts to sponsor AIDS/LifeCycle — an annual seven-day charity bike ride down the California coast that raises money for HIV/AIDS awareness and services. He knew about the company’s plans to move but wasn’t sure he wanted to follow. “Flat,” “wasteland,” “conservative” and “cowboys” were the words that came to his mind when Toyota approached him about moving to North Texas for a full-time position. As one the 2,800 employees who relocated to North Texas when Toyota decided to set up its headquarters in Plano, Hines wouldn’t be the only Californian who needed time to reconcile Lone Star State stereotypes with reality. Toyota even organized visits throughout the process so that employees could familiarize themselves with the region. “I didn't know anything about Texas,” Hines admitted. What he did know was that he really liked working in social innovation at Toyota. The company’s offer was just what he needed to give Texas a chance. He moved to Uptown Dallas, living in an apartment for a year while working on projects at Toyota before finally placing an offer on the perfect home.
‘The house is sinking’
Hines moved into a single story home in Northwest Dallas in August 2018, something he never would’ve imagined doing in California’s housing market. He found the 60-year-old home on Zillow and worked with a real estate agent to make an offer and close the deal. The housewarming party had come and gone when Hines said he started seeing signs that things were off around the house. Several months after he move in, Hines had noticed that the AC unit beside the house was starting to dip. Soil around the home’s exterior was separating from the house — not an unusual occurrence in Texas, where clay soil is prone to expansion and contraction with changes in weather. Over the course of several months, Hines discovered that not only was his foundation shifting, it was sinking into the ground in places. The home’s plumbing was so corroded and full of holes that his house was essentially sitting in a “soup bowl” of septic discharge, according to Hines.
“The house is sinking,” Hines said, recalling the realization...
