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That guy is a whiner that doesn't know what the definition of illegal is.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:42
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Spermy Smurf posted:The realtor advised him to sign the "buying the home as is" disclosure. The only really obvious thing the inspector missed was raccoons living in the attic, as far as I can tell. It would take an exceptional inspector to catch most of those issues, since they were well concealed.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:49
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Elephanthead posted:That guy is a whiner that doesn't know what the definition of illegal is. The important thing is that his network cabling is all up to date.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:51
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The coax ports with the 3 inches of coax cable running back to nothing is my favorite part.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:58
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Chin Strap posted:Just going to leave this here: http://www.hoodwinkedhouse.com/ ... I thought my house was bad. I'll now shut up because this poor bastard takes the cake.
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Jul 10, 2014 17:19
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In his initial "this is illegal" posts the only thing I think an inspector would notice are the racoons and the vent under the sink (at least I think that was under the sink). But otherwise shouldn't a building inspector have caught this during the remodel?
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Jul 10, 2014 18:15
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FISHMANPET posted:In his initial "this is illegal" posts the only thing I think an inspector would notice are the racoons and the vent under the sink (at least I think that was under the sink). They most likely didn't bother to pull permits for the remodel. That's insanely common and unless you have nosy neighbors or live on a busy street, it's really unlikely that the local building department will find out about it.
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Jul 10, 2014 18:25
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In all seriousness I feel bad for the guy but I think a little bit of research online would have prevented it. That still would not have prevented some other poor scmuck from buying the place. Still isn't a big part of business to take aadvantage of the ignorant?
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Jul 10, 2014 18:32
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That seems like thing number 1 to check out when you hire a home inspector, make sure the permits get pulled. I just read all the way through. I'm not sure who is responsible, but somebody is, though he's not completely without blame (why did he sign the waiver?). And then he just has bad luck. Dropping the can of foam, the flooding which may or may not be a result of bad work done by his contractor. Do never buy I guess.
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Jul 10, 2014 18:36
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I don't think I'd ever buy a house that has just been completely renovated for sale, it's too easy for terrible work like that to be done and hold up just long enough. Sure you might end up with a 20 year old kitchen and bathrooms, however if they've been ok for that long you'll probably get as long as you need out of them.
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Jul 10, 2014 18:38
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The moral of the story is
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Jul 10, 2014 19:01
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FISHMANPET posted:That seems like thing number 1 to check out when you hire a home inspector, make sure the permits get pulled. The flooding is just "basements flood unless you're incredibly lucky and/or put a lot of work into grading/drainage" Cracks in the walls are one thing, but if water is seeping up through the floor like that, there's not much you can do because there's just too much pressure to stop it directly. Stuff like pipes leaking inside the walls, on the other hand, is purely on whoever did it.
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Jul 10, 2014 19:11
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Zhentar posted:The only really obvious thing the inspector missed was raccoons living in the attic, as far as I can tell. It would take an exceptional inspector to catch most of those issues, since they were well concealed. Since the inspector probably wouldn't have caught the issues, would he have had any legal recourse at a later date if he hadn't signed the whole "as-is" thing?
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Jul 10, 2014 20:20
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sanchez posted:I don't think I'd ever buy a house that has just been completely renovated for sale, it's too easy for terrible work like that to be done and hold up just long enough. Sure you might end up with a 20 year old kitchen and bathrooms, however if they've been ok for that long you'll probably get as long as you need out of them. canyoneer posted:The moral of the story is
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Jul 10, 2014 20:27
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Lyesh posted:They most likely didn't bother to pull permits for the remodel. It says that no permits were pulled. FISHMANPET posted:That seems like thing number 1 to check out when you hire a home inspector, make sure the permits get pulled. I don't think it's at all normal for a home inspector to check permits (though perhaps it should be - or the realtor should do it). I'd pick the buyer's agent as the one responsible (aside of course from the flipper); they shouldn't have advised their client to sign the waiver, they should have informed the buyer that the house had previously been sold just six months earlier (and from that, discovered the extent of the remodeling). fknlo posted:Since the inspector probably wouldn't have caught the issues, would he have had any legal recourse at a later date if he hadn't signed the whole "as-is" thing? The alternative to the "as-is" clause is a disclosure statement in which the seller states any known "material defects" (anything substantial enough that it could reasonably affect buying decisions). If you can demonstrate that the seller was aware of such a defect and failed to disclose it, then you can pursue the seller for compensation. Some disclosures are legally required and can't be waived (depending on the state), even with the "as-is" agreement. Also, IANAL, but I'm pretty sure the intent here gives him legal recourse regardless of the "as-is" agreement. This all still, of course, requires finding the people responsible, substantiating the claims in a court of law, and then collecting on the judgement received. The second and third steps are rarely quick, easy, or cheap, and apparently in this case neither is the first.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:05
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Lyesh posted:The flooding is just "basements flood unless you're incredibly lucky and/or put a lot of work into grading/drainage" Cracks in the walls are one thing, but if water is seeping up through the floor like that, there's not much you can do because there's just too much pressure to stop it directly. If you look at the "before" picture of the basement posted, you can see the bottom two feet or so of drywall has been removed from the interior walls, likely because of the flooding issues. The flipper was likely well aware of the issue - and probably even picked the home specifically because of it. Covering up the indications of it would further inflate the apparent value of the home.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:12
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I really doubt that all the work on that house was done by the flipper. Some of what he's fixing is flat out easier to do the right way (using four different plumbing materials within a foot???), and others are "difficult" to begin with (the spaghetti plumbing under the slab... I suspect that might be original, unless a previous owner dug up a large chunk of the slab to try and fix drainage issues and created that mess). Various eras of differing wiring issues too (or someone had multiple personality disorder?). More likely, the house was already butchered by previous owners and the flipper put some lipstick on it. Selling history of the house should've tipped everyone off to the shadiness going on. Also the two inspectors I used when I bought nine months ago tested all coax connections. Maybe that's not typical? Same with the HVAC issues.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:26
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rekamso posted:
Ditto. Also checked electrical for any arcing using ir. And water problems with ir.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:28
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The pipe tied into a cleanout should also have been caught by the inspector. Everywhere the guy says "illegal" what he means is "not to code." But (IANAL) I think building codes are statutory law, which would make building code violations illegal. Certainly it's illegal to knowingly violate code, and then deliberately conceal those code violations, and then sell the home without disclosing them, with the intent to profit by doing so. That's fraud, at the very least. The guy obviously has a case, and he has a lawyer working his case, but it could be years before he gets a resolution, and even if he gets a judgement in his favor, it could wind up impossible to collect that judgement. I think he's done some fairly dumb stuff too, but I chalk that up to his need to save as much money as possible doing the repairs and therefore doing a lot of work himself. Trying to pump hundreds of gallons of water out of his basement using a shop vac instead of a sump pump for example. But if his website comes off as slightly hyperbolic, consider that he's actively campaigning in his state to get the laws changed to make it harder for people to do what was done to him. He needs to convince a lot of probably pretty apathetic people that this is a big problem that they should care about. If he just said "here is some more wiring that does not meet modern code" that would probably imply to a lot of people that it was not a big deal, so he'd have to go on to explain how the law requires wiring that isn't to code to be brought up to code whenever there's work done on it, etc. etc. It's easier to just state (correctly) that the splices and joins and poo poo that were done was not up to code, and that the efforts to conceal the work suggest the people who did it knew it wasn't up to code and did it (or failed to fix it) anyway. Lately my wife and I have been watching a lot of those home buying, property renovating, etc. shows and it's obvious to me that there's a huge range in quality and cost of renovations done. A lot of contractors seem to make a lot of small (or sometimes large) mistakes, or fail to mention that a particular thing might be likely to come up and will cost a lot of money if it does. poo poo like "hey OK we can consider putting a window here, but be aware that if we tear into this wall and find old wiring, you'll be obliged to pay to replace it" ought to come up in the beginning but apparently often doesn't. I would buy a flipped home if there were extensive photographic evidence provided of all the work done; not just before and after, but "during" photos that showed things like how the wiring was done, that the load bearing members are correctly situated, that sub-flooring/concrete/piping was done correctly before it was covered up, etc. And as I do some small and large projects around my own home, I'm going to be meticulous about documenting everything I do so I can present it in a nice big binder if/when we eventually sell. I bet it'll give me a big leg up on the competition if I can set a buyer's mind at ease that the newer remodeling and upgrading done was done to a high level of quality and meets or exceeds code.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:47
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Leperflesh posted:I would buy a flipped home if there were extensive photographic evidence provided of all the work done; not just before and after, but "during" photos that showed things like how the wiring was done, that the load bearing members are correctly situated, that sub-flooring/concrete/piping was done correctly before it was covered up, etc. And as I do some small and large projects around my own home, I'm going to be meticulous about documenting everything I do so I can present it in a nice big binder if/when we eventually sell. I bet it'll give me a big leg up on the competition if I can set a buyer's mind at ease that the newer remodeling and upgrading done was done to a high level of quality and meets or exceeds code. Or you could just present the build permit. That's a whole lotta work.
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Jul 11, 2014 01:54
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The buyer seems to have issues on his end. You don't notice a cabinet door isn't attached until 8 days later? I opened every cabinet during the walkthrough.
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Jul 11, 2014 01:59
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Zhentar posted:If you look at the "before" picture of the basement posted, you can see the bottom two feet or so of drywall has been removed from the interior walls, likely because of the flooding issues. The flipper was likely well aware of the issue - and probably even picked the home specifically because of it. Covering up the indications of it would further inflate the apparent value of the home. Oh, almost definitely. I'm talking about the new contractor who put in the self-leveling concrete. There's pretty much no concrete that I'm aware of that's going to stop multiple inches worth of water from coming in.
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Jul 11, 2014 03:30
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That's correct. Normal concrete isn't waterproof. There's probably someone these days who sells some exotic, expensive variation of concrete that's waterproof, but that's not standard residential construction.
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Jul 11, 2014 05:01
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I don't get why that guy sunk money into basement finishing without even having gutters on his house. I feel bad for him for getting hosed over like he did, but if it were me, the first project I would tackle is getting water away from the house.
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Jul 11, 2014 05:44
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Instead of lobbying for the creation of a new law that will eventually be rendered toothless when politicians pick at it, he should be campaigning for much harsher penalties for contractors that perform work that is not up to code, intentionally shoddy or not done at all.
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Jul 11, 2014 07:33
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That would not have helped him if he cannot even identify the contractors. And, as has been discussed previously, contractors routinely fold their businesses and start new ones in order to use the corporate liability limitation to avoid responsibility for their fuckups. The only way you can really hold contractors responsible is to pierce the corporate veil. That will require new laws.
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Jul 11, 2014 07:42
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Inspectors aren't very thorough and I get the impression the real estate industry doesn't really want them to be.quote:I would buy a flipped home if there were extensive photographic evidence provided of all the work done This. Also I don't know much about homes but I know about business and because of that I did a lot of investigative work before I purchased my new house. I knew my realtor absolutely hated me for it but I'm not going to get screwed over. I have the impression with a little research the guy could have avoided all this. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Jul 11, 2014 |
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Jul 11, 2014 13:53
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Leperflesh posted:That would not have helped him if he cannot even identify the contractors. And, as has been discussed previously, contractors routinely fold their businesses and start new ones in order to use the corporate liability limitation to avoid responsibility for their fuckups. Negligence and fraud will generally pierce the corporate veil since in a contractor's LLC it's most likely the owner doing/overseeing the work. The liability insurance may not pay out in this case, and the dude probably doesn't have much in the way of assets. Which is the reason the home owner probably won't get dick.
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Jul 14, 2014 12:27
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I have a lot of equity in my condo right now that would allow us to finally upgrade to a single family home. The problem is, any offer we make would end up being conditional on the sale of the condo, and an offer like that simply isn't competitive enough in the market the way it is right now. Ideally, we want to sell and close first on my condo, then find a temporary living situation while we look and buy a home. I imagine there are lots of other people in the same situation. What do people do about the temporary living situation in between selling and buying these days? We don't really have relatives nearby with a big enough space to accommodate us and our pet. Possible options I've thought of are making a condition of selling our place that we rent it back for a month or two while we look, finding an extremely short term rental which seems difficult, or even one of those extended stay hotels, but that seems expensive. Are there any other options I'm not realizing here?
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Jul 14, 2014 16:49
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The last thing you need when shopping for real estate is to be in a hurry. And you're right about the post-settlement occupancy being an uncompetitive offer. I would never ever enter into a contract with pre-settlement or post-settlement occupancy agreements. That is sooooo much added risk for everyone. I was sweating when the tenants were moving out only 3 days before closing  I've had good experiences with Craigslist sublet/temporary section taking over the last few months of someone's existing lease. Might be tricky with your pet, but so would an extended stay hotel. Even renting a room in a house and having a storage unit for all your things can be a pretty decent arrangement. Having an overlap of a month is actually kind of nice if you are going to be doing any sort of renovation/refurbishment before you move in. Painting and flooring are so much faster and easier when you don't have any stuff in the house to work around.
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Jul 14, 2014 18:06
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We finally closed last Wednesday and moved most of our stuff in on Friday. Things are pretty great so far! While there's no major work that needed doing, we've been doing a ton of minor stuff. I've replaced all the dimmer switches and done a bunch of other similar stuff. Next up I need to figure out how to do some circuit work, but it should be pretty straightforward and I should be able to do it myself I think. Then its time to wire the house with cat6 and run speaker wire and hdmi through some walls and ceilings. All pain in the butt stuff but nothing serious. All in all we're utterly thrilled so far. Do always buy.
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Jul 14, 2014 18:34
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jerkstore77 posted:I imagine there are lots of other people in the same situation. What do people do about the temporary living situation in between selling and buying these days? There's a lot of options. You can buy with a sale contingency, as you mentioned, but that is uncompetetive with unencumbered financed options and especially against cash offers. You can ask your buyer to let you rent for a month, and presumably in a seller's market you could find a buyer willing to accept that, but you'll probably have to take a lower offer. Maybe much lower. You can move all your stuff into storage, and then either find a month-to-month rental, or rent at an extended-stay or weekly hotel/motel. This is obviously a huge hassle, having to move all your stuff twice, and the extended stay/weekly is probably more expensive than just a normal month's rent, but it gives you all the flexibility to buy the right house at the right price, instead of being forced to make the best bid on a house you don't love just because you're now out of time and must close because you've got an offer on your current place you need to accept. The final option is to just buy the new house before the old house is sold. That means qualifying for your mortgage without selling first, which might be impossible, and then carrying two mortgage payments for an unknown length of time. You probably can't do this unless you're quite wealthy.
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Jul 14, 2014 19:00
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shortspecialbus posted:We finally closed last Wednesday and moved most of our stuff in on Friday. Things are pretty great so far! While there's no major work that needed doing, we've been doing a ton of minor stuff. I've replaced all the dimmer switches and done a bunch of other similar stuff. Next up I need to figure out how to do some circuit work, but it should be pretty straightforward and I should be able to do it myself I think. Then its time to wire the house with cat6 and run speaker wire and hdmi through some walls and ceilings. All pain in the butt stuff but nothing serious. We're in the same boat here. Closed last Thursday, but we don't have to be out of our current rented house until the end of this month so we're taking the overlap time to do a bunch of small things before we move any of our stuff. The house was completely re-painted before it went up for sale, but for some unknown reason (laziness probably), they painted all of the interior trim with flat paint, so we spent the weekend re-painting that with semi-gloss. My massive box of networking equipment, cable, jacks, etc. just arrived this morning, so wiring the house for ethernet and installing a few new outlets is my next project. We also have a small half bathroom on the back of the house (for using the pool without having to enter the house) that has an interior door on it, so that needs to be replaced with a proper exterior door. We're pretty sure that's something we can handle doing ourselves, but I'm a little nervous about loving it up. Youtube videos make it look simple, but they're all done by people who clearly know what they're doing and are making it look much easier than it probably is. Otherwise, we're pretty happy with how everything went down with the buying process and can't wait to finally be moved into a house that's twice as big as our current place and in far better condition.
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Jul 14, 2014 19:01
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The most annoying thing so far has been trying to figure out how to convert a 1 1/2" deadbolt hole to a 2 1/8" one that can't quite be in the same spot so I can't just put the 1 1/2" hole saw inside the 2 1/8" one as a guide. I'm gonna have to either fashion a plug or clamp wood over/under. Need to do that on two doors 
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Jul 14, 2014 19:12
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Every house my folks have sold, and most they've bought, have rental provisions. Eg rent back for 30-60 days after close. I wouldn't want to move out prior to close because things can still fall through, from what I've seen with buyers...shortspecialbus posted:The most annoying thing so far has been trying to figure out how to convert a 1 1/2" deadbolt hole to a 2 1/8" one that can't quite be in the same spot so I can't just put the 1 1/2" hole saw inside the 2 1/8" one as a guide. I'm gonna have to either fashion a plug or clamp wood over/under. Need to do that on two doors SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 19:23
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jerkstore77 posted:I have a lot of equity in my condo right now that would allow us to finally upgrade to a single family home. The problem is, any offer we make would end up being conditional on the sale of the condo, and an offer like that simply isn't competitive enough in the market the way it is right now. Ideally, we want to sell and close first on my condo, then find a temporary living situation while we look and buy a home. We were in a similar situation. We ended up finding an apartment that had a 1 year lease but offered a buyout to end it early. So we rented until we found our house and then terminated the lease with the buyout. Probably not the absolute cheapest way to do it but we didn't want to be rushed when making our purchase decision. The only thing I'd do differently is not choosing an apartment on the 2nd floor (  stairs).shortspecialbus posted:The most annoying thing so far has been trying to figure out how to convert a 1 1/2" deadbolt hole to a 2 1/8" one that can't quite be in the same spot so I can't just put the 1 1/2" hole saw inside the 2 1/8" one as a guide. I'm gonna have to either fashion a plug or clamp wood over/under. Need to do that on two doors Stack your hole saws so the smaller one guides the larger one like this: 
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Jul 14, 2014 21:07
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Closing tomorrow at 9:30 AM. Deep breaths.
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Jul 14, 2014 21:18
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I'm not really sure what I'm getting myself into here so I'll just sort of throw it all out here. A few months ago, I wanted to paint the bathroom in the apartment I'm renting (it's a hideous loving yellow color). I started looking at paint colors before remembering that I don't own my apartment. A few days later I was driving through a neighborhood I really like and saw a place for sale and looked up the price, one thing led to another, and I found out that houses in Pittsburgh are stupid loving cheap. So I'm not at a stage of my life where BUYING A HOME IS AN IMPORTANT NEXT STEP but rather I'm at a point where I could get a place for $50,000, pay on my mortgage what I pay in rent (+ taxes and insurance) and have it paid off in 4 or 5 years and then sell it for a chunk of what I paid (this is a bad thought process, I know. I'm not throwing away money by renting etc etc). It seems to make a lot of sense but I'm welcome to hearing why I'm loving stupid (that horror story about that shittily renovated house is giving me a lot of pause right now) So, as an example, here's some house I found on Zillow that I think is neat: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/639-Woodward-Ave-Mc-Kees-Rocks-PA-15136/11599315_zpid/ Hits all of the major points I'd want in a house, the neighborhood isn't too bad if I'm not planning on starting a family there, it's closer to work than my current apartment, and it's stupid loving cheap. So, 1. Am I a big loving idiot very quickly getting in way over my head? 2. If I found a place I liked and wanted to pursue that place rather than getting a real estate agent to show me "some places," what would my next steps be? Getting pre-approved for a mortgage is obviously like, step 1, but after that?
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Jul 14, 2014 21:57
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How handy are you? That house likely needs a complete renovation, top to bottom. Built in 1910, it could have all kinds of fun electrical and plumbing issues. Chances are very high that it has some major faults somewhere since that as has the magic words "Property sold in 'as-is' condition." In my area at least, properties are sold with seller disclosures, where the seller lists everything they know that is wrong with the house. If they fail to disclose a problem and it can be proven that they knowingly did not disclose, the seller can be sued. But when its an "as-is" transaction, there is no disclosure. Usually, that means that there are huge problems (structural, foundation, etc.) and they know it. So sure, get preapproved. Talk to your bank about types of mortgages and their requirements for houses they will lend on. For instance, will they lend on as-is properties? You can also talk to a realtor at this point but it is going to be a crapshoot as to whether or not you get a good one. See if someone you know can recommend a realtor who will be honest with you about the houses you see and their condition. Do you know anyone who is a contractor, engineer or experienced DIYer who could tour a few houses with you?
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Jul 14, 2014 22:28
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I'm fairly handy, having helped my dad restore a few properties growing up, so I can handle rewiring and putting up new drywall and doing plumbing work etc but anything past that I'd probably get someone else to do it for me. That house was just a random pick since it was the page I had up at the moment. Realistically I'd be pursuing something more like these: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/218-Cheston-St-Pittsburgh-PA-15227/11645660_zpid/ http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1725-Kleber-St-Pittsburgh-PA-15212/11268807_zpid/ Where it's slightly less sketchy.
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Jul 14, 2014 22:35
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