The neighbors wanted to have the house condemned.

But Jackie Braitman knew the home in Takoma Park, Md., had potential. When it came on the market, listed for sale "as-is," she pounced, picking it up for about $550,000. Three years — and a complete renovation — later she is selling the house for more than twice that.

Is that "as-is" home listing you spotted hiding a bargain or a disaster?

To figure out what you're looking at, you have to figure out what "as-is" means. "If you ask 10 different people —including a judge — you'll get 10 different answers," said Irene Lindner, a real estate lawyer in the District of Columbia.

But generally when a property is sold as-is, that means the seller makes no warranties or representations about its condition and will not pay for repairs of even obvious defects, such as a wet basement or termite-gnawed floor joists. In Braitman's house, one whole side looked as if it were about to fall off, the kitchen was a wreck and plaster was crumbling everywhere.

Instead of fixing things, as would happen in a typical sale, the owner of an as-is property theoretically discounts the price to reflect the needed repairs, or perhaps the value of the land if the house is likely to be torn down. The as-is label does not absolve the seller of the obligation to disclose known problems.

An entire property can be sold as-is, or a seller may decline to guarantee that individual items, such as heating and air-conditioning systems, are in working condition. If the property is sold as-is, a special addendum must be attached to the contract.

Different jurisdictions have different requirements for these sales. Virginia, for example, gives sellers the option to sign a disclaimer that waives their requirement to disclose defects in certain situations; their silence effectively says that buyers are on their own. In any jurisdiction it is important that a would-be buyer carefully read everything.

As-is sales are appropriate when the seller does not know the condition of the house, such as in an estate sale or when the house has been a rental, said Meg Finn, a real estate agent with Long & Foster. She recently sold another Takoma Park house as-is to Braitman as part of an estate sale. The heirs didn't want to take on fix-up work.

Such listings can be suitable in cases when a seller has been living abroad, if co-owners are getting a divorce, or if the owners don't have the time or money to do repairs. They are also used for houses in which the buyers are expected to remodel so extensively as to make the current condition irrelevant.

If you're buying a shell in LeDroit Park, a neighborhood in the district with a lot of rundown older homes, for example, "what you see is what you get," said Jim Simpson, an agent with the Capitol Hill South office of Coldwell Banker. "And that may not even be a roof."

As-is deals work for buyers looking for fixer-uppers. "I specifically look for houses that are in cosmetic disrepair but structurally sound," Braitman said. For her purposes, the usual promise to fix things up doesn't make sense.

But as the real estate market slows, as-is sales have become even less common as buyers have gained the upper hand. When a house is listed as-is, "buyers perceive it as a red flag," Finn said. And they should, as some unscrupulous sellers try to use as-is sales to get rid of a problem property.

Because of that risk, a professional home inspection — and a home inspection contingency in the contract — becomes more important, Simpson said.

The buyer shouldn't expect the seller to perform any major repairs in response to what the inspector finds. But even that rule isn't set in stone, Simpson said. If the inspection finds problems that the sellers hadn't been aware of, "concessions are still possible." And if they're not, the buyer can walk away.