Marcie Geffner: Should you buy a home with termite damage?

By Marcie Geffner - Bankrate.com

Many for-sale homes have some damage caused by termites or other wood-destroying insects. But "some" isn't the same as "a lot." That raises a question for homebuyers: How much damage is too much?

Mike Merchant says he wasn't too concerned about the presence of active termites when he bought his home in Dallas. Merchant is an entomologist, a scientist who studies insects, for the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, a public education arm of Texas A&M University. He runs a blog about urban entomology called Insects in the City.

"As far as I knew," Merchant says, "our house didn't have structural damage. We've done some remodeling since then, and there was some damage to showers, but nothing that would have caused the house to fall down around us."

Still, Merchant knows a lot about wood-destroying insects, and he says he can envision a house with so much damage that he'd think twice about buying it.