USE CAUTION WHEN CONSIDERING A FLIPPED HOME BUYER BEWARE

by Tom Stewart, Owner

“Flipped” is defined as a home purchased and sold in less than one year. Over 8% of homes sold nationally in 2022 were flipped. That’s a total of 407,417, the highest percentage this century. TV shows glorify house flipping and have certainly increased its popularity, as has the opportunity to generate income in a short period of time. The only barrier to entry is financial, it has nothing to do with one’s experience or skill set.

Naturally, if more homes are flipped, then more homes are flipped in a less than desirable manner, where quality may be the last consideration. Of course, the same could be said for any home that’s remodeled – scale is linear and results vary drastically.

Why should you care? Because you could purchase one of these homes and find yourself facing an unwanted decision. Do you pay to remodel your new home, which was supposed to be updated, or do you just turn around and sell? We’ve had multiple clients exercise both options.

Buying properties, sight unseen, carries a tremendous risk –we’ve witnessed it firsthand. In one case, our potential client bought the home without seeing it, closed on it, invited us over, and then realized there was far too much work. He sold the property without moving in. After years of observing this trend, here are a few things we recommend you look for when viewing a flipped house, or any remodeled house.

• Cabinets – Installing “cheap” kitchen cabinets can save a flipper/remodeler many thousands of dollars. Open a drawer to evaluate – is it stapled together, with basic drawer guides that don’t fully extend, no soft-close features, and no roll-out trays? If you answered yes

If to these questions, that is a basic builder-grade set of cabinets. Replacing them means you’ll be replacing the countertop too, and then a full-blown remodel is on.

• Flooring – There are lots of options and massive variances in price, performance, and warranties. Flooring bought off-the-shelf can be much less expensive than a higher quality product, looks great when it’s new, but is less likely to stand the test of time, or kids, or pets, or sunlight. If flooring was recently installed throughout the house, try to find out what type of flooring it is; maybe there’s an extra box in the crawl space with product details.

• Plumbing – We don’t work with any plumbers who will warranty plumbing fixtures purchased from a box store because the rate of callback is so much higher. Box store plumbing fixtures are de-engineered and mass-produced with profit margin in mind. Interior components contain plastic parts instead of brass. They are sold for far less than the cost of similar-looking fixtures from a plumbing supply house. It’s not easy to tell the two apart, but be prepared to replace those less expensive fixtures.

Is it possible to see a home two or three times before making an offer? When the market was at its peak, the answer was a resounding no; but things have cooled off a bit so that may be feasible. It’s so difficult to catch some rather obvious things the first time you see a property, especially the functionality of spaces like kitchens.