Sig,

I've seen some of those houses under construction, and yes they are cheap. Cheap. Cheap. I wouldn't ever buy one of those houses. They build a bunch of them, cutting every corner possible, without a buyer there to see the work done. Then they finish the house off making it look nice. Buyers think because it looks nice, it must be a quality home, but it isn't.

5 years later, the builder has gone bankrupt, and started up under another business name.

I would never buy a flipped house. My friend had real problems with one and I would bet that alot of the people that do the work to flip houses are not licensed contractors. Hm

Do you have a problem buying a used car from someone who's not a mechanic? "Most of the time" a flipped house is nothing but maintence. New shingles... a paint job... granite countertops. They were able to buy the house cheap and fix it up for sale. Most people won't understand, or be terrified of working on plumbing or electricity. They'll get people that know how to wrk on it generaly. 9 times out of 10, a flipped home is just cosmetics. Putting lipstick on a pig.

Caveat emptor. (something like that) But it's a legitamate way to make a buck as long as it's not dishonost.

KRW

There are people that take advantage of home buyers. If the deal looks too good to be true, it probably is. When you're spending that much money, check everything out beforehand. That just makes good sense.

Refitting houses is something I do with my brother. We're both licensed as contractors. I just got my license, in fact. :biggrin1: We sub out plumbing and electrical with licensed tradesmen. We do a house every winter.

Exactly. I'd imagine most of your flips deal with cosmetics and maybe a few structural issues (on structure I expect you know a bit since you're liscened). You also farm out the work you're not capable of handling.

In the end, I bet you have a good product for sale.

KRW

tim, Sounds like a pretty big headache.

The house I rent at Fort Bragg is one of those cookie cutter houses that was built very cheaply. The kitchen floor is that vinyl (I think) roll of "tiles". You know the kind you just roll out as one big sheet. Yeah well its starting to come up at the corner by the sliding glass door leading to the back deck.

There are "soft spots' in the hardwood floors, they used the wrong type of screws when putting the vanity mirror on the master bathroom wall, the penisula in the kitchen is at a crooked angle, the "frosted" master bathroom window is the same as every other house on the block and its just a frost sheet over the glass. We've had to have the landlord have the master toliet replaced and both others have had to be repaired because they leaked. Oh and the idiot that replaced the master toliet...after he was done he used my bath towel to wipe up the mess, then hung it back up, and didn't say anything! I found out the hard way after taking a shower and trying to dry off...yeah...had to go get a new towel and shower again!

The landlord had a back deck built. It was built with the wrong type of nails and it wasn't stain finished. I actually stained and finished it myself! The landlord did reimburse me though.

The whole house is a headache. If I had had the opportunity to see it in person before we moved I would have walked away, but since the Army changed my orders last minute I didn't have much choice.

And the house is only like 5 years old and has all those problems! Oh yeah...the roof leaked also while I was in Huntsville so my wife had to deal with the landlord to get that fixed as well.

I could deal with all that as just a headache of having to rent because we move alot due to being in the Army, but the worst part are the goddamn neighbors. Between barking dogs that are caged up 24/7 outside, the hillbillies behind us (the husband is the one that went up for murder) and the damn hip hop/rap music that I can hear IN MY HOUSE from two houses down. My patience has run thin and I cannot wait to get home from this deployment and get the hell out of that place!

Ok, rant over.

Good rant! Your house reminds me of the movie "Armageddon" when they're getting ready to take off and one of them makes the comment about flying into space in a jalopy because the government always hires the lowest bidder.

Sig,

I've seen some of those houses under construction, and yes they are cheap. Cheap. Cheap. I wouldn't ever buy one of those houses. They build a bunch of them, cutting every corner possible, without a buyer there to see the work done. Then they finish the house off making it look nice. Buyers think because it looks nice, it must be a quality home, but it isn't.

5 years later, the builder has gone bankrupt, and started up under another business name.

Thats what they did in our section of our development, the last section to go up. So, in brief, no Tyvek wrapping outside, no insulation under the siding, no flashing around any windows or doors, deck beams parallel to the house with no flashing, sliding door not attached to house frame (well, to be fair, it had one baseball sized wad of caulk in one corner), and a lawn that sloped toward the foundation. Soooo, a few years after moving in, we had to get a new roof. The windows were growing mushrooms, so we saved to replace them and found most of the plywood outside was rotted from no flashing. And we found the other issues. The sliding door above the deck had boards rotted 3 deep under it from the improperly built deck. What a nightmare to fix when you thought you only needed windows! After we recovered from that we had the lawn graded, so now the sump pump rarely runs, and took the opportunity to rip out the deck and put in a patio.

like I said, lesson learned. And I know what to look for now in many areas. I'm almost afraid of what we will find redoing the kitchen, but those cabinets are sad looking now and the floor is a mess.

I'd almost buy a mobile home over a McMansion nowdays. They're built the same way and much cheaper.

Do you have a problem buying a used car from someone who's not a mechanic? "Most of the time" a flipped house is nothing but maintence. New shingles... a paint job... granite countertops. They were able to buy the house cheap and fix it up for sale. Most people won't understand, or be terrified of working on plumbing or electricity. They'll get people that know how to wrk on it generaly. 9 times out of 10, a flipped home is just cosmetics. Putting lipstick on a pig.

Caveat emptor. (something like that) But it's a legitamate way to make a buck as long as it's not dishonost.

KRW

Ken, why do you assume that I hav or would buy a used car?

So is this another subject where we aaren't allowed to rant or talk about because once again Brian is involved in this business?

Just because you are a tradesmen and Brian is a wannabe traeesmen doess't mean tat evyerone in your businesses are honest. Obviously from what myself and others here have said about our experiences this are plenty of dishonest house flippers/builders/contractors out there.

I brought up the subject becaus my friend that got screwed by one of these flippers is learning the hard way hat It is fraud but very difficult to prosecute.

Forgive the typos. im typing on my tablet and its a pain to go back and correct.

and Ken, welcome back

Good rant! Your house reminds me of the movie "Armageddon" when they're getting ready to take off and one of them makes the comment about flying into space in a jalopy because the government always hires the lowest bidder.

Not sure if you are making a shot at me or not but it doesnt really work here becaus I live off post and do no live in a house built by a government contractor.

Ken, why do you assume that I hav or would buy a used car?

So is this another subject where we aaren't allowed to rant or talk about because once again Brian is involved in this business?

Just because you are a tradesmen and Brian is a wannabe traeesmen doess't mean tat evyerone in your businesses are honest. Obviously from what myself and others here have said about our experiences this are plenty of dishonest house flippers/builders/contractors out there.

I brought up the subject becaus my friend that got screwed by one of these flippers is learning the hard way hat It is fraud but very difficult to prosecute.

We should talk about this. I have quite a few stories on crappy construction. There are many houses out there that have problems that people intentionaly hide to make a sale. I don't agree with that practice at all.