It almost always gets worse and more expensive. Settlement and bowing are progressive, driven by water and soil that keep working every season. Small problems caught early are far cheaper to fix than the same failure after years of movement, and ignored issues complicate any future sale.
More detail
Foundation problems do not stabilize themselves, because the forces that cause them, settling soil, expansive clay, hillside creep, hydrostatic pressure, freeze-thaw, keep acting season after season unless something changes. That makes virtually every foundation failure progressive. A bowing wall that has cracked horizontally keeps bowing a little more each wet spring; a settling corner keeps dropping; a stair-step crack widens. The practical consequence is cost. A wall caught at a modest bow can often be stabilized with carbon-fiber straps for a few hundred dollars per strap; the same wall left for years until it has bowed several inches or begun to shear may need steel beams, anchors, partial rebuilding, or in the worst cases full replacement, at many times the cost and disruption. A few piers under an early settlement problem is far cheaper than underpinning a whole wall that has dropped severely and damaged the framing, finishes, and plumbing above it. Beyond the direct repair cost, ignored foundation problems create knock-on damage: cracked walls let water in, which accelerates deterioration and can invite mold; movement breaks plumbing and racks door and window frames; and the same cracks become soil-gas entry points that drive up radon levels. There is also the sale problem: foundation issues must be disclosed in Ohio, and an unaddressed, undocumented problem discovered during a buyer's inspection routinely kills deals or forces steep price concessions, often costing far more than a proactive engineered repair would have. None of this means every hairline crack is an emergency; cosmetic cracks can be monitored. But genuine structural movement is the kind of problem where early action is dramatically cheaper than delay, which is the whole reason we offer free inspections to catch it early.