If you’re looking at a flipped house, take these protective steps.
So you’ve found a house to buy, and it turns out this house has been flipped. You’ll want to look out for red flags and get some insight into the quality of the flip. Here are some tips on how to protect yourself when making an offer on a flipped house:
1. Do a full, professional home inspection. A home inspector will look at everything from the attic to the basement and give you a report on the things they see that might be wrong with the house.
2. Always get a sewer inspection. This is especially important if a house hasn’t been lived in for a while or if it was particularly dilapidated before they flipped it. It’s a cheap inspection and a great way to protect yourself from a very expensive repair.
“If something in plain sight is shoddy, what you can’t see might even be worse.”
3. Check to see if building permits have been pulled. If somebody’s flipping a house and doing a lot of work on it, they should be pulling building permits and signing them. Those give you some insurance that whatever’s behind the walls has been done to code.
4. Check on the overall craftsmanship. How much did they actually care about the flip they were doing? Key items to examine include the cabinetry in the kitchen and the bathrooms. They will give you an idea of the overall craftsmanship that’s been put into the house. If something in plain sight is shoddy, what you can’t see might even be worse.
5. Check all the windows and doors. Do all the doors open easily, latch shut, and not drag on the floor? Have the windows been painted or caulked shut? Attention to detail will show you that somebody actually cared about the quality of their work.
If you have any questions, reach out to me by phone, text, or email. I look forward to hearing from you.
