« Mosquito Disco Death | Main | National Night Out »
July 15, 2006
Flip, Flop
Flipping is so common in our neighborhood that people regularly pester our contractor and subs about when our house will go on the market. Our 6yo says we should put a Not For Sale sign in the yard.
The house across the street from our rental is a flip. In the past 6 months they bought it, added 400 sqft, and put it back on the market asking double what they paid.
The house was pretty junky to start with and now it looks great from the curb. But when you are flipping a house, it's all about the square footage. Anything else is just a free gift to strangers.
One thing that stands out to me is the roof. They didn't cut the asphalt shingles in the valleys of the roof, they just lapped the pieces over as they fell. It makes me wonder, how many other jobs have they left for the next owners to finish? These flippers I don't know, but the next owners, they're my neighbors.
When I tried to drop by the open house last week, they had already locked the doors and gone home. I assumed it had sold. Not so, I guess.
Posted by David at July 15, 2006 10:38 PM
Comments
I left the TV on while I went off to work on finishing up the bathroom plumbing today. TLC was having a 'Property Ladder' marathon or something and I caught pieces of a few episodes. ((((...shudder...))))
Posted by: kim at July 16, 2006 12:35 AM
I have seen shingles that have been 'laced' in the valleys. I'm not sure if this is what you are talking about, I suspect not. Roofers have many styles when it comes to valleys. Some cut a good few inches to reveal the aluminum flashing underneath, some simply make a cut leaving almost no room between the adjacent planes.
My realtor says that not very often homes sell at open houses and that sellers generally have more luck at individual showings. I don't know if this is true. Maybe she's just lazy and doesn't want to have showings for my house!!!!
Posted by: patsywiley at July 16, 2006 11:18 AM
I dont understand your comment on how the roofers finished out the valley. Can you explain better how it was done?
Posted by: norton at July 17, 2006 08:21 AM
I just sold my house, and the open house we had was useless. Hardly anyone showed up. But we had plenty of individual showings and it sold within two weeks of putting a sign in the yard.
Now that I'm looking for a new house, I can't stand it when someone has done a really cheap remodel just to sell the property. We looked at a house with gorgeous granite counter tops, but the cheapest, most poory built cabinets ever. And apparently it's not easy to pull out the granite, get new cabinets, then put the granite back down. That's mainly why we didn't buy the house.
Posted by: ladylivewire at July 17, 2006 09:45 AM
Norton, it's hard to describe, a picture would be much better. These are asphault shingles and you can see the top edge of many of them. I'm sure that's a no-no.
LLW, I forgot to say it's all about the square footage AND the granite counter tops. That was the only other factor on the appraisal of our remodel. So the bank may have been a facor in putting pricy countertops on cheap cabinets.
Posted by: David E. at July 17, 2006 01:31 PM
Our neighborhood is "flip central" too and I have to say that when we were looking (5 years ago) a lot of them were so shoddily done that I can't imagine buying them. You'd have to do them all over again. Are people really that gullible (throw down a piece of linoleum and it's a "new house"?). Maybe it's a good sideline job for housebloggers to educate them.
Posted by: Mary-Frances Main at July 18, 2006 08:29 AM
My good friend the realtor says open houses are all about 1. nosy neighbors and other types who aren't looking to buy that house and 2. realtors looking to meet other potential customers. Anyone who's serious about buying is coming through with their agent.
Posted by: Gayle at July 20, 2006 11:06 AM