Who uses the phrase, and why
Estates use it because the executor never lived in the house and cannot honestly answer questions about it. Banks use it on a power of sale for the same reason. A private seller who has lived somewhere thirty years may use it simply because they do not want to be dragged back after closing over a tap.
So the phrase tells you almost nothing about the building and a great deal about who is selling it. What it does tell you is that every cost you find after closing is yours.
What it changes at the showing
In an ordinary sale you can leave a question unanswered and deal with it in the conditions. Here there is nobody to go back to, and often nobody who knows the answer in the first place.
The three things worth more than everything else combined are the ones a photograph cannot show and that cost five figures to put right: the panel, the supply plumbing and the roof.
That is not a counsel of despair. It is a shortlist. Photograph the panel label, the pipe where it enters the house, and the roof from the street, and you have covered most of your exposure in about four minutes.
What it can actually cost
The figures below are the ones that turn an as is purchase from a bargain into a problem.
- A knob and tube rewire runs $10,000 to $25,000+.
- A polybutylene repipe runs $6,000 to $18,000.
- A re-roof runs $8,000 to $18,000.
- Replacing a Federal Pacific or Zinsco panel runs $1,500 to $4,000.
None of those is a reason to walk away on its own. All of them are reasons to know before you remove conditions, because as is means you are not getting any of it back.
The one thing that is not negotiable
As is does not remove the seller's duty to disclose a known latent defect, meaning something dangerous or making the home uninhabitable that a buyer could not reasonably discover. What it does remove is any argument about the ordinary wear you could have looked at and did not.
The practical version: as is transfers the cost of everything visible. Go and look at the visible things.