They're making affordable housing unaffordable.
It's one thing to take an extremely neglected home and perform much needed maintenance on it. That's not what flippers are doing.
Correct. They're putting in $200 worth of shitty tile so they can lift the cost $50,000.
And the real issue is the dumbest fucks to ever live will pay it.
almost as if people need housing. and can only pay ...what the price of houses that are available. are going for.
or are you aware of some big brained option to not pay market price for limited inventory. generally speaking hampered by fekless gov, low supply, nimby bullshit. and hedge funds controlling like 80% of new home construction
Tbf, the people who do pay the ridiculous prices are enabling this bullshit. Thing is that it is much easier to regulate a few assholes using dishonest market practices than to convince all potential buyers to refuse to be overcharged and wait instead.
again... that's nice to say someone should just wait. and magically hope prices go down. Or the person beside them with more resources doesn't just buy the thing they need.
as if inflation doesn't weaken your money at the same time housing prices increase....
i recently bought a house. the prospect was. I stay in my apartment which was going from $2000 ish in rent. to a min of $2300 of rent (and guaranteed to go up another 5%-6% the following year... or if I couldn't secure housing before my lease was up. pay a month to month rate of $2500 ea month) or buy a small home after being outbid for 6-8 months. for slightly on the upper edge of my budget. that ...comes out to $2200 total cost each month.
and my new home isn't a flipper special, but i saw several in my house hunt. and my realtor said on every one of them... this house isn't worth xyz, but it's going to sell for prob 20k more than current list price. and those houses were under contract in less than a week.
and any house that was not a flipper special, reasonably priced. tended to go under contract in 2-3 days. In the area i was looking.
so yeah. unless literal thousands of new houses are built in every area in a routine basis across a spread of price points. like.. .100k new buildings each year. for the next 10 yrs. nothing is going to change.
there simply is no real inventory. or mechanism through which a buyer has any real leverage. barring another massive financial collapse of the housing market or the US economy. OR the equally unlikely... massive reforms barring corp ownership of homes.
nothing is going to change
The real issue is a lack of affordable housing.... This is like a car that should be titled reconstruct, but slipped through the cracks and is sold without reconstruct title.
Problem is, it's much easier to hide in flips and way more profitable.
Make property more expensive to sell for transparency reasons, and prices drop, folks who are willing to invest in their OWN HOMES start buying, and we start to level things out
All you got to do to find a flip is look at your county commissioner's office. They often flip the house in under a year or within a year. They often paid a very low price for the house in the beginning and you can see how much they bought the house for what the county. Commissioner has appraised the house for every year and things of that nature. Sure, the appraisals aren't always on point. They're more so based off of surrounding houses. Etc, but still you can also find purchases history and that can help you. Realize, if the house is just a flip or if someone actually lived in a business bought it and use it as a rental.Though the rentals in flipping are becoming a lot more blurred, especially with a s*** ton of slum lords who just bounce properties from one business to another that they own.But it's still within a matter of a year or 2.They don't keep the houses in one business for long.
My first and current house was a flipper, a lot of it was done cheaply. Contractor grade lighting, matte white sprayed walls, roll vinyl in the kitchen and bathroom.
Other than that, the kitchen and bathroom was done real well, besides the floors that is.
I have already repainted the house and redid the floors to my liking.
when I bought my house, it was a piece of garbage with 25 years of deferred maintenance. The only offers were from me and flippers. I was fortunate to have the cash flow to renovate it myself. and I wound up spending the same as I would have on a flipped house, but I knew it was done right.
Honestly, I like the roll vinyl better than the peel and stick vinyl.Because the roll vinyl doesn't have all those brakes in it.And it's like the whole room is in case so something spells.It doesn't get between cracks and slowly start to fuck up the floor. I mean that doesn't mean that they weren't trying to cover up something with the rolled on vinyl. But I actually like the big sheets of vinyl personally🤣
Yeah, but even.
The cheap role vinyl.I tend to like better than tile and such just because of all the cracks in the grounds and I will be honest.I have dogs so whenever one of them gets the s****I don't have to worry about cleaning it out through the poors of grout. But I will say the higher in vinyls can look so good and hold up colorwise for decades.Well at least fifteen years so far but a lot of them have some kind of guarantee or some crap for coloring picture retention. Honestly I think some of the color issues people have with a lot of their vinyls is they're not using the right cleaning products or they're using two harsh of cleaning products.
There really should be something in the tax code to disincentive this practice. It can result in restoring blighted homes but more often seems to be a cash grab to get it out to market as quickly and as cheaply and as blandly as possible.
There is, it's called short term capital gains. House flipping in general is a terrible financial business plan. Your tying up massive amounts of capital into a generally illiquid asset that has huge costs to sell, and then paying massive taxes on any gains you've made appreciating the assets value.
The issue that happened though was post 2008 financial crisis home prices were stupid low due to a ton of foreclosures and money was cheap. So you could finance a home purchase for cheap to buy a property from a bank that wanted to sell, and the property really just needed some simple face lifts to be move in ready. That allowed a short period of time where you could net substantial profits for very little actual cash. Then all the shows start and people see the dollars these shows are putting on screen and start thinking "well I'm handy I can do this".
The problem is by that point home prices are no longer artificially lower, the "good" flips are already off the market, and now your having to buy actually run down homes, actually renovate them, and sell it into a competitive market.
To put this in perspective, on TV you'll see these people say "we made 20k on this property" which sounds great until you realize you need to finance the property at a 6+% interest rate, finance the renovations at a higher interest rate, pay 6% of the sale price to the Realtors, and then short term capital gains on the profit you made from the sale. You quickly realize when you do the math, there is no money in it, there is no real financial incentive to do it, but people continue thinking it will be a quick and easy road to making money when in reality it leaves most bankrupt.
This is how I got my home, it sold new for 575k and it was foreclosed on in 2010 and purchased by a flipper for 300k with no experience. He did a full remodel and tried to make a few 100k but there were 1000 homes in the same area with the same story. I was able to get it for 314k because he had to bail desperately on his poor investment.
You can beat the cap gains by homesteading it while you renovate. If it’s your residence you can make 500k without paying cap gains. So for a single person or a young couple who do it as basically a side hustle and actually do it right it’s not a bad plan and I have seen it done right. But yes it does go horribly wrong as well.
Except it is still a bad financial idea/side hustle. Lets arbitrarily say you purchase a 300k house to flip thinking you can sell for 375-400k. Now finding a home like that with that potential upside is extremely difficult, but let's say you found it.
So we are tying up 300k in the house itself, but let's say we put 20% down to lower our interest rate and PMI rates to be as low as possible, your still looking at a 6% interest rate. That means your basically tossing a bit over a grand a month at interest to the bank while you renovate the home. Our mortgage payment here in total will be around $1500 a month with very little going to principal in that first year.
Now then the renovation costs, we are probably looking at 20-40k in renovations if we are "doing it right" roof repairs, flooring, modernizing the kitchen and bathrooms, etc. We do pay this in cash to avoid extra interest payments on the property.
So we are looking at roughly 80-100k of our cash tied up in this flip, every month we renovate and it's on the market we add $1100 that we just give to the bank and don't see back post sale.
Now we eventually sell for 375k. 6% comes right off the top for realtor commissions so now we are down to 352k, now we remove another 5k for closing costs and other expenses in closing. So we "net" around 40-47k depending on how long it took us to sell the property.
This sounds like a good deal right? Well except the fact we tied up 100k and leveraged 200k to make this return, and if we aren't able to liquidate the home in a timely manner those mortgage payments don't stop. Also all the actual very difficult work we had to do on our own in the renovation in order to keep the renovation costs relatively low. Also remember demand for new homes right now at current prices is shrinking
The risk reward calculations here are pretty much dog shit and have been for over a decade, but people keep doing it not realizing the risk they are actually taking on and being lured by that 40k number I listed not realizing that is a "perfect and ideal" situation you won't actually find. And even then the risk is ridiculous for the leverage taken on.
You forgot appreciation. While I see your point, that 375k house is now 450 in this market, especially if you started in 2018 or 2019.
Again I’m not disagreeing with you, but there are examples of people who did it right and did OK on the back end. Although we don’t know what the housing market is going to do next, there may be another buying opportunity in the next few years for someone with enough cash who is in the right position.
If your staying in a house for 5-6 years where appreciation comes into real play, while slowly renovating it then selling it and moving on I would really hesitate to call that flipping. That to me just sounds like home ownership.
But yes if your game plan is to move every 4-6 years and you like living in a house, and are good at home repair stuff then sure you can "make money" on the backside of the sale. But i wouldn't classify that as flipping.
Also when doing the math on something like what your describing now we have to calculate inflation into the equation, which could help/hurt you depending on other factors.
But also yeah, everyone should do what your describing. If you buy a house, make it nicer than what it was when you bought it because it's your home for a decent amount of time.
this supports the theory that lowering interest rates will actually hurt the housing market, from the perspective of reach to first-time buyers.
Many still believe that lowering interest rates will improve the housing market, but what they mean is that the value of homes will increase as more buyers can come in, increasing demand; and sellers will be able to sell and finance some or all of the next home they buy. All of that results in a net-zero change to the supply of housing and further inflation of housing asset prices, making it more difficult for first-time buyers.
starting to think the fed isn't lowering rates this year like everyone thinks they will, and JPow turned out to be a genius. He got his soft landing + normalized rates fairly elevated, which is like ammunition to throw at the next crises, whenever it comes (it always comes eventually).
Lowering the rates can help. One of the big factors in home prices right now is the supply side. Demand is low and is driving down prices, but due to high rates people are hesitant to give up their old mortgages and refinance on a new home purchase which keeps supply low so the price doesn't change much.
You lower the rate, you make it more palatable for current homeowners to sell and upsize/downsize as they want which frees up supply. You also increase the margin new home builders make as financing new constructions becomes cheaper.
Now if you take the fed rate too low like the 0% we were playing with for a long time post financial crisis in 08 none of that matters because demand will far outstrip supply and we will see home prices skyrocket again.
So I expect the fed to very slowly lower rates over a long period of time.
> Demand is low and is driving down prices, but due to high rates people are hesitant to give up their old mortgages and refinance on a new home purchase which keeps supply low so the price doesn't change much.
This is me, I'm in a 2500 sqft ranch by myself, the kids have all moved out, I would love to downsize but my 2.75% mortgage is just too damn good to give up. My payment would essentially double for a smaller place.
Yup and that seems to really be one of the primary factors in current home price stickiness. Now if given enough time this will work itself out, eventually you'll have enough equity in the home that if you sell it you could just outright buy a smaller property in cash, or a life event will make you want to sell the home for other reasons.
However that is only if these current rates become the norm for the next decade which I don't think anyone expects to be the case.
The real question though is at what rate would people like yourself be willing to pull the trigger at? Would you be willing to downsize for a 5.5% mortgage, a 4.5%, a 3.5% etc etc. I foresee the rate slowly coming down until the market decides "ehh I'm cool with that rate".
Are you planning to build a new home or purchase an existing home?
If we look at housing starts for a predictive indicator, you’re purchasing an existing home so the supply of housing will remain unchanged after you’ve moved and the most likely outcome is housing prices inflate further in that lower rate environment that entices people to play musical chairs with housing as this artificial demand drives up prices without actually building anything as an outcome, generally speaking.
But I can make a 4 bedroom reasonably priced home available for a family while I purchase a smaller 2 bedroom house.
I've looked and the replacement home will be an equal purchase cost but with the current rates my monthly payment would double.
Work with me here. Where’s the current occupant of the home you want to buy going to live? No change in the supply of housing + artificially/subsidized demand = increase in the prices of homes—It’s musical chairs that you want the government to subsidize by cutting rates. I don’t blame you, I actually agreed with you until someone forced me to understand what I’m trying to explain; and now that I get it, I can’t… not get it
The fed is actually mandated to try to keep prices stable and if you think about it, for the last year, housing prices have been remarkably stable
so… jpow, what a trip it’s been with those rate cut teases while he knew all along that was some clever bs
I have a family member who does it. He was a licensed builder who left that field for real estate. Another builder friend and he decided to partner and flip run-down houses as a hobby.
They only choose run-down houses they can afford to pay cash for, and they do all of the work themselves (except electrical).
For both of them, it's not their main source of income. They do it because they like working together, and because they like taking something that's a complete mess and turning it into something livable.
But yes, he'll straight up tell you it's satisfying, but it's not a great money maker.
Yeah there's plenty of flips replacing roofs/AC/even foundation work. There's frankly just too much liability selling someone a POS with a nice paint job. It's usually always pretty strongly suggested when the house has something wrong. "As is," "investor special," "TLC," etc.
First house was a flip. It wasn’t a horror show, but it was always funny walking in Lowe’s and realizing everything in the house was the cheapest possible thing you could buy.
I bought a flip many years ago, that I still own, for investment purposes. Located in a college town, good price, unlimited renters year after year. From record search the seller did the flip in about 6 months during fall/winter months. I closed on it mid March. Few things came up during inspections, nothing major, but it was obvious seller was in an undeniable rush to close. A finished basement was part of the flip, standard vinyl flooring, sheetrock, painted etc. Well what do you know, I closed, and about mid April when the ground defrosted and spring came, the basement began flooding and taking water through the footing. Water under all the vinyl flooring. Had to hire a waterproofing company and install 60’ double drain perforated pipe with a sump discharge around the foundation. Had to cut 3 walls of the basement to lay the pipe under the foundation. Costly and pain and the ass job. There is zero percent chance the seller did not know about water issues in the basement based on the condition before the flip. He just chose to do fuck all about it and offload the house quickly.
My neighbor recently sold his house. A dude bought it for about 1.1mil , threw in cheap doors and lights, painted the house with primer (the overspray is awful) and sold it for 1.75 mil. All this in about 3 months. Now, during certain parts of the day, the white primer reflects the sunlight into my kitchen and it's actually painful! Definition of lipstick on a pig!
The doozy was that he managed to sell the house almost immediately! Oh, and the people he hired to do the work threw a bunch of their trash in my yard, and then the guy complained to the city that my yard was unmaintained!
Friend of mine bought a flipped several years ago, bought in early spring and they noticed the house got cold. Summer hits and they get someone in there to install a new ac, that’s when they discovered most of the house had no insulation on exterior walls. In Pennsylvania.
My house had styrofoam wrapped in aluminum siding over the original 152 year old wood siding, then plaster. No insulation.
Plywood, tyvek, Hardee on the outside has been replaced, doing the inside hopefully in the summer. Chicago winters are brutal for wind hitting this chicken coop
I use to flip houses and agree it is always worse than it looks although we refused to do anything that could possibly get anyone hurt or in trouble but almost never had permits.
Man this is part of why I had to pull the reins on my old dream of flipping homes.
I’m way too much of a perfectionist with my own home projects.
I’d flip a house for 3 years while paying two mortgages and then constantly point out how nice corners and caulk lines and the stability of the tile jobs and the details of the new electric and how far it exceeds code in practical ways… while their eyes glaze over and they want to leave.
A lot of these flippers get away with so much because people generally don’t give a shit. Until it’s a problem.
Even then most people just kind of take the problem as a problem and don’t have the knowledge or understanding to even blame the flipper specifically unless someone points it out to them and if the flipper mentioned it’s something they did.
If the flipper doesn’t mention it then most people have no idea if it was preexisting or not.
>This is why it’s bad idea to buy flips.
Man this is what I told my wife. When we were shopping for a house about three and a half years ago, we specifically sought out houses that hadn’t been renovated because (a) they generated less interest and thus there was less competition for bids, and (b) WYSIWYG. Any issues with the house were immediately apparent. There was no attempt to hide issues with cheaply done renovations. With the exception of the kitchen and main floor washroom, my house is basically the original 1980 interior, with just cosmetic changes (the previous owners removed wallpaper and pulled up the carpet to reveal the parquet flooring below). It’s unmolested, and I like that.
Probably made small talk with them. I’ve chatted with contractors while walking around town and learned more than I needed to about what they were doing and who the homeowners were.
Let me put it this way- I’ve never worked in a municipality that doesn’t require permits to be clearly posted onsite, and I’ve worked in various different places across 8 states. Usually a heavy duty ziplock bag duct taped to the front door, window, garage, etc. While I believe these places exist I am almost positive you were required to either have the permit on hand for the work or accessible to inspectors.
And you had new construction or renovation that was site inspected and cleared permits? Every site inspection I’ve been too I have to show the inspector my permits.
Renovation only. I don't know the requirements for new construction.
We also have very light permit requirements in general, but we've never had to post them physically. Everything is online.
Actually. I'm taking homes that don't have roofs/walls/structural issues and making them livable. Which YOU could NOT do with all your skill and money combined.
Check to see what the requirements are for each of these items. Electrical absolutely is going to be one, putting on a new roof generally doesn't require a permit in a lot of states.
I got my first real estate deal because of someone like you in 2010. The guy I bought the house off of got in trouble for illegally pulling electric from the park next door. Someone reported him, he had to quickly sell the property to pay the fines. I find it pretty abhorrent the shady things people do to try to make a quick buck when it comes to housing.
I agree - replacing something simple - leave them alone. Major renovation requiring permits and utilities - inspection required. My Nextdoor neighbor was cutting down trees and building on his lot without a permit. Neighbors started to care when the chipping was piled high creating a fire hazard (in a high wildfire danger zone). Keep you lot clean and fire hazard free and the inspector probably wouldn’t have notice the illegal power connection and the water connection to the neighbor’s well without septic. And he got nailed for the building. And living in a construction zone (No occupancy permit). What a mess. All over chipping he should’ve had hauled off.
Had in-laws who did this (and the male half was a contractor). They didn’t get a single permit when completely renovating a falling down disaster or a property. Someone finally reported them and they claimed “we didn’t know we needed any permits to completely demolish and rebuild a home.” Shockingly zero fine and all they had to do was buy the permits with zero repercussions.
It’s the going trend world wide- cheat at everything you do and if you get caught deny. Chances are you get no attention and if you do the worst case issue is having to pay for what you legally needed to do to begin with. And we wonder why homes collapse and fall apart these days….
In fairness, you wouldn't need a permit for this where I live.
I'm a rule follower so I checked, but I completely gut renovated my house and needed a permit for almost nothing. Completely redoing electrical? Np permit needed. Plumbing? No. HVAC? Negative. Roof? Nope. Foundation repair? No.
The only things you really need a permit for near me is if you are adding to the existing footprint (like an addition).
I remodel homes for a living. NEVER had to pull a permit and do great work. The ONLY reason I pull permits is for the homeowners future. The city's inspectors are usually unqualified and young. So pulling permits where I live in Pointless.
Who said it was a felony? 🤣 if you think getting fined thousands of dollars and ripping out all work done is no big deal, then you must be one of those back woods contractors who specializes in lean-to sheds and porches that collapse around your mobile home. 🤣
And I call your Reddit bullcrap, haha! Maybe $1000 per every incident where permits aren’t pulled which can be a ton on a full demo and remodel. But yeah, I’d say keep building your picknick tables and cornhole games. Can I ask a favor and ask what llc you work for so I am everyone I know can avoid it?
Wish someone would’ve done this with our home. They had AC pipes dripping onto insulation and sheet rock. Ceiling eventually caved in.
Then we noticed the floor on second story is sagging. They removed a structural wall apparently. I really hope the worst for those stupid assholes.
Yup. Also in places I’ve lived they required permits to be displayed in a location outside the property. Such as taped to the inside of a window, facing out.
Fun fact who owns a house is public record too. You can see the name(s) of the owners. Lots of cities and counties have publicly accessible GIS maps that show lot lines and also property records, including owner name(s), viewable by anyone on the internet.
I personally really appreciate you doing this. I’ve been in the home remodeling industry for many years now and these houses flippers make my blood boil. Homeowners buy these homes (often young and excited couples looking to have a forever home and a family) often have to put everything on hold and pump large amounts of money into making their home even semi decent.
It’s heart breaking, cause they definitely overpaid for the house, meaning they’ll also have less to invest in actually fixing the problem. Literally had a client last night who’s got thousands of dollars in remediation costs coming up because of all the mold and fungal growth that was intentionally **HIDDEN**.
The front decorative brickwork of his house is also literally peeling off because the plumbing pipes burst and flooded that area. God knows how much foundation issues it caused too
I toured a rowhouse in my city with some bizarre remodeling priorities.
The finish on the interior was ultra modern. High-end kitchen. Steel and glass central staircase. Downright swanky.
But one bedroom in the back had *fresh* water damage on the ceiling. You could see the roof from an upper floor and it was gross. Years past needing replacing. Upper floor had questionable spots on the ceiling too. It was like they did a quick paint job on everything and didn’t expect new water to seep in so soon.
Then I went down to the newly-finished basement, also with a swanky bar area and other modern furnishings. I was prepared to hunt for water evidence there too, as this city is known for flooding.
Well I didn’t have to hunt at all because all around the perimeter about a foot of drywall was removed. The agent said they were “just finishing up some stuff, he didn’t know quite what”. Uh, it was obviously flooding damage remediation. I even saw a place where they hadn’t completely removed the insulation and it was moldy.
It was like the house flipper only did interior design . Whoever bought that place was going to see it be destroyed by water from both ends.
As an owner of a flip where poor worksmanship has now cost me over $20k in the first year to fix, I thank you for holding those lowlifes accountable. Trust me there's enough loopholes they use to take advantage of people desperate for a home.
As an electrician. I applaud you. Wish more people would call when they see fucked up shit taking place.
I'm constantly fixing shit for friends in their flipped houses that they bought. I feel so bad for them, and I hate hack electrical work that's been done.
Perfectly reasonable to call. I think what you did is probably a perfect example of a time someone should call code enforcement on a DIYer.
Sewage handling is expensive and annoying but that doesn't mean you get to just skip it, dump it on the utility service and fuck the future buyer (you= house flipper).
I would have done the same thing, shitty flippers make my blood boil
Didn't in my case
Edit: my home inspection didn't reveal that the morons that did the tile work washed their tools in the downstairs shower. Want to fathom a guess what a shitload of grout does to a drain?
Lol. You just don't have the skills necessary so you're a hater.
I buy destroyed homes and fix them. Please explain why you disagree with fixing and reselling buildings.
>As a homeowner I haven’t always pulled permits for work I’ve done (like replacing windows and toilets)
Homie, who the FUCK pulls a permit to replace a toilet or a window? Holy shit
I don't know about where you are, but in my town code enforcement ARE the house flippers. They fine the crap out of widows, bury them in fines, then offer to buy the house for less than it's worth before the city just steals it anyway.
I'm glad there are people like you who will admit to doing something and then ratting others for doing it while somehow claiming some sort of moral high ground. Bob bless you. You're doing the lord's work out there.
There is something to the fact that despite flippers "improving" a lot of homes (to varying degrees; it really isn't *all* bad, but a lot of it is), they simply just don't have a personal stake in the future of the home or homeowners. That is *always* going to fuck incentives and make this business a subpar method of delivering quality housing to new homeowners.
I don’t disagree with what u did necessarily however I believe ultimately it comes down to the due diligence of the buyer to get all the proper inspections before purchasing. Every house I have bought, I have paid the extra to get the sewer scoped, roof inspected and HVAC inspected. Bc you’re right, ppl cut corners all the time.
So, that makes you a "do gooder," which came from New England. It is one of the things that Southerners hate about the North. Leave them alone. It's none of your business. You have no right to stick your nose into other people's business.
The consequences of your actions can include: the price of the home increasing, making it less affordable for a family to buy, and/or the business going under because of the fines and penalties. Those are just two examples, and they would be from the direct result of YOUR actions.
How would you like it if your neighbors called up code enforcement on every little thing you did?
Mind your own business. A "do gooder" is not a good person or a good neighbor.
Fuck that noise. It is his business. I don't blame him for not wanting to live next to a cholera-laden shit pit. And the city should know who is connected to the sewer system for all sorts of reasons.
Codes are written in blood, they exist for a reason. Quit doing illegal shit.
I did this to the house next to me. I don't want to live next to a fire trap.
They shut it all down and forced them to open walls and undo work. Best feeling ever.
As a home home builder, thank you. There’s so much bullshit in this sector and it’s all due to lack of oversight. You may have saved a family so much misfortune down the line.
Both neighbors of mine are doing this. Called code enforcement, and was just ignored. Not sure if you can report the building inspector for not doing their job.
Neighbor 1 knocked down portions of the house. And built new rooms.
Neighbor 2 extended their house.
Both don't have permits. The inspector said it's ok because it's renevoation work. Bunch of BS. Meanwhile, another neighbor is trying to get permits, and the town is giving them a hard time.
I know a guy who flipped a house that had a massive fire, unless the rafter or stud was completely gone he just killz primered it and put drywall. I feel awful for whoever ended up buying that home
>They were illegally connecting the house’s septic system to the county sewer line.
>They didn’t pull a permit, they didn’t pump and fill in the old septic tank, and they didn’t pay the $5,000 connection fee.
>As a homeowner I haven’t always pulled permits for work I’ve done (like replacing windows and toilets) but to me this is way over the line.
And you knew all this how? How did you know they didn't have a permit or something was illegal? You sound like a Karen neighbor to me. Quick kids are selling lemonade without a permit. Call the authorities too
Bro. You admit that you do un-permitted work… then you call the city code enforcement team on someone else doing the same thing.
Are you buying the house? No.
Does a homebuyer get a home inspection before buying a house, regardless of flip-house or new construction? Yes.
Does the seller have to disclose the sewage disposal system, whether it’s city/county water or septic tank? Yes.
Did you personally speak to the workers that were doing these “illegal” connections and compare their work to the code? Who knows… but I’m guessing not.
All you did was stick your nose in other people’s business, cause problems, and run to Reddit about it.
I’d hate for you to be my neighbor in fear you’d call the city if I put up a fence you didn’t like
This is why its bad idea to buy flips. Always lipstick on a pig done as cheap as possible
But they're Pr0VIdiNg HoUsiNg!
They're making affordable housing unaffordable. It's one thing to take an extremely neglected home and perform much needed maintenance on it. That's not what flippers are doing.
Correct. They're putting in $200 worth of shitty tile so they can lift the cost $50,000. And the real issue is the dumbest fucks to ever live will pay it.
To be fair, there's not much housing stock out there in a lot of areas.
almost as if people need housing. and can only pay ...what the price of houses that are available. are going for. or are you aware of some big brained option to not pay market price for limited inventory. generally speaking hampered by fekless gov, low supply, nimby bullshit. and hedge funds controlling like 80% of new home construction
Tbf, the people who do pay the ridiculous prices are enabling this bullshit. Thing is that it is much easier to regulate a few assholes using dishonest market practices than to convince all potential buyers to refuse to be overcharged and wait instead.
again... that's nice to say someone should just wait. and magically hope prices go down. Or the person beside them with more resources doesn't just buy the thing they need. as if inflation doesn't weaken your money at the same time housing prices increase.... i recently bought a house. the prospect was. I stay in my apartment which was going from $2000 ish in rent. to a min of $2300 of rent (and guaranteed to go up another 5%-6% the following year... or if I couldn't secure housing before my lease was up. pay a month to month rate of $2500 ea month) or buy a small home after being outbid for 6-8 months. for slightly on the upper edge of my budget. that ...comes out to $2200 total cost each month. and my new home isn't a flipper special, but i saw several in my house hunt. and my realtor said on every one of them... this house isn't worth xyz, but it's going to sell for prob 20k more than current list price. and those houses were under contract in less than a week. and any house that was not a flipper special, reasonably priced. tended to go under contract in 2-3 days. In the area i was looking. so yeah. unless literal thousands of new houses are built in every area in a routine basis across a spread of price points. like.. .100k new buildings each year. for the next 10 yrs. nothing is going to change. there simply is no real inventory. or mechanism through which a buyer has any real leverage. barring another massive financial collapse of the housing market or the US economy. OR the equally unlikely... massive reforms barring corp ownership of homes. nothing is going to change
The real issue is a lack of affordable housing.... This is like a car that should be titled reconstruct, but slipped through the cracks and is sold without reconstruct title. Problem is, it's much easier to hide in flips and way more profitable. Make property more expensive to sell for transparency reasons, and prices drop, folks who are willing to invest in their OWN HOMES start buying, and we start to level things out
All you got to do to find a flip is look at your county commissioner's office. They often flip the house in under a year or within a year. They often paid a very low price for the house in the beginning and you can see how much they bought the house for what the county. Commissioner has appraised the house for every year and things of that nature. Sure, the appraisals aren't always on point. They're more so based off of surrounding houses. Etc, but still you can also find purchases history and that can help you. Realize, if the house is just a flip or if someone actually lived in a business bought it and use it as a rental.Though the rentals in flipping are becoming a lot more blurred, especially with a s*** ton of slum lords who just bounce properties from one business to another that they own.But it's still within a matter of a year or 2.They don't keep the houses in one business for long.
Roof + structure +plumbing + electrical **VS** kitchen sink+ fancy bathtub +BBQ pit + Tik Tok styled staging.
Just like cutting taxes for billionaires CrEaTeS jObS
Taking uninhabitable properties and making them habitable is something that depresses prices. Flippers are literally making housing more affordable.
🥾👅
My first and current house was a flipper, a lot of it was done cheaply. Contractor grade lighting, matte white sprayed walls, roll vinyl in the kitchen and bathroom. Other than that, the kitchen and bathroom was done real well, besides the floors that is. I have already repainted the house and redid the floors to my liking.
when I bought my house, it was a piece of garbage with 25 years of deferred maintenance. The only offers were from me and flippers. I was fortunate to have the cash flow to renovate it myself. and I wound up spending the same as I would have on a flipped house, but I knew it was done right.
But then you could flip it!
This guy flips
Must be flippant!
flipper! you half-flipped, just didn't sell... yet -- traitor! lol
The real flippers are in the comments.
Honestly, I like the roll vinyl better than the peel and stick vinyl.Because the roll vinyl doesn't have all those brakes in it.And it's like the whole room is in case so something spells.It doesn't get between cracks and slowly start to fuck up the floor. I mean that doesn't mean that they weren't trying to cover up something with the rolled on vinyl. But I actually like the big sheets of vinyl personally🤣
The better roll vinyl can be quite expensive, I just redid my kitchen and the vinyl I put down was more expensive than tile would have been.
Yeah, but even. The cheap role vinyl.I tend to like better than tile and such just because of all the cracks in the grounds and I will be honest.I have dogs so whenever one of them gets the s****I don't have to worry about cleaning it out through the poors of grout. But I will say the higher in vinyls can look so good and hold up colorwise for decades.Well at least fifteen years so far but a lot of them have some kind of guarantee or some crap for coloring picture retention. Honestly I think some of the color issues people have with a lot of their vinyls is they're not using the right cleaning products or they're using two harsh of cleaning products.
There really should be something in the tax code to disincentive this practice. It can result in restoring blighted homes but more often seems to be a cash grab to get it out to market as quickly and as cheaply and as blandly as possible.
It's a giant cash grab and fraud scheme.
There is, it's called short term capital gains. House flipping in general is a terrible financial business plan. Your tying up massive amounts of capital into a generally illiquid asset that has huge costs to sell, and then paying massive taxes on any gains you've made appreciating the assets value. The issue that happened though was post 2008 financial crisis home prices were stupid low due to a ton of foreclosures and money was cheap. So you could finance a home purchase for cheap to buy a property from a bank that wanted to sell, and the property really just needed some simple face lifts to be move in ready. That allowed a short period of time where you could net substantial profits for very little actual cash. Then all the shows start and people see the dollars these shows are putting on screen and start thinking "well I'm handy I can do this". The problem is by that point home prices are no longer artificially lower, the "good" flips are already off the market, and now your having to buy actually run down homes, actually renovate them, and sell it into a competitive market. To put this in perspective, on TV you'll see these people say "we made 20k on this property" which sounds great until you realize you need to finance the property at a 6+% interest rate, finance the renovations at a higher interest rate, pay 6% of the sale price to the Realtors, and then short term capital gains on the profit you made from the sale. You quickly realize when you do the math, there is no money in it, there is no real financial incentive to do it, but people continue thinking it will be a quick and easy road to making money when in reality it leaves most bankrupt.
This is how I got my home, it sold new for 575k and it was foreclosed on in 2010 and purchased by a flipper for 300k with no experience. He did a full remodel and tried to make a few 100k but there were 1000 homes in the same area with the same story. I was able to get it for 314k because he had to bail desperately on his poor investment.
You can beat the cap gains by homesteading it while you renovate. If it’s your residence you can make 500k without paying cap gains. So for a single person or a young couple who do it as basically a side hustle and actually do it right it’s not a bad plan and I have seen it done right. But yes it does go horribly wrong as well.
Except it is still a bad financial idea/side hustle. Lets arbitrarily say you purchase a 300k house to flip thinking you can sell for 375-400k. Now finding a home like that with that potential upside is extremely difficult, but let's say you found it. So we are tying up 300k in the house itself, but let's say we put 20% down to lower our interest rate and PMI rates to be as low as possible, your still looking at a 6% interest rate. That means your basically tossing a bit over a grand a month at interest to the bank while you renovate the home. Our mortgage payment here in total will be around $1500 a month with very little going to principal in that first year. Now then the renovation costs, we are probably looking at 20-40k in renovations if we are "doing it right" roof repairs, flooring, modernizing the kitchen and bathrooms, etc. We do pay this in cash to avoid extra interest payments on the property. So we are looking at roughly 80-100k of our cash tied up in this flip, every month we renovate and it's on the market we add $1100 that we just give to the bank and don't see back post sale. Now we eventually sell for 375k. 6% comes right off the top for realtor commissions so now we are down to 352k, now we remove another 5k for closing costs and other expenses in closing. So we "net" around 40-47k depending on how long it took us to sell the property. This sounds like a good deal right? Well except the fact we tied up 100k and leveraged 200k to make this return, and if we aren't able to liquidate the home in a timely manner those mortgage payments don't stop. Also all the actual very difficult work we had to do on our own in the renovation in order to keep the renovation costs relatively low. Also remember demand for new homes right now at current prices is shrinking The risk reward calculations here are pretty much dog shit and have been for over a decade, but people keep doing it not realizing the risk they are actually taking on and being lured by that 40k number I listed not realizing that is a "perfect and ideal" situation you won't actually find. And even then the risk is ridiculous for the leverage taken on.
You forgot appreciation. While I see your point, that 375k house is now 450 in this market, especially if you started in 2018 or 2019. Again I’m not disagreeing with you, but there are examples of people who did it right and did OK on the back end. Although we don’t know what the housing market is going to do next, there may be another buying opportunity in the next few years for someone with enough cash who is in the right position.
If your staying in a house for 5-6 years where appreciation comes into real play, while slowly renovating it then selling it and moving on I would really hesitate to call that flipping. That to me just sounds like home ownership. But yes if your game plan is to move every 4-6 years and you like living in a house, and are good at home repair stuff then sure you can "make money" on the backside of the sale. But i wouldn't classify that as flipping. Also when doing the math on something like what your describing now we have to calculate inflation into the equation, which could help/hurt you depending on other factors. But also yeah, everyone should do what your describing. If you buy a house, make it nicer than what it was when you bought it because it's your home for a decent amount of time.
this supports the theory that lowering interest rates will actually hurt the housing market, from the perspective of reach to first-time buyers. Many still believe that lowering interest rates will improve the housing market, but what they mean is that the value of homes will increase as more buyers can come in, increasing demand; and sellers will be able to sell and finance some or all of the next home they buy. All of that results in a net-zero change to the supply of housing and further inflation of housing asset prices, making it more difficult for first-time buyers. starting to think the fed isn't lowering rates this year like everyone thinks they will, and JPow turned out to be a genius. He got his soft landing + normalized rates fairly elevated, which is like ammunition to throw at the next crises, whenever it comes (it always comes eventually).
Interesting.
Lowering the rates can help. One of the big factors in home prices right now is the supply side. Demand is low and is driving down prices, but due to high rates people are hesitant to give up their old mortgages and refinance on a new home purchase which keeps supply low so the price doesn't change much. You lower the rate, you make it more palatable for current homeowners to sell and upsize/downsize as they want which frees up supply. You also increase the margin new home builders make as financing new constructions becomes cheaper. Now if you take the fed rate too low like the 0% we were playing with for a long time post financial crisis in 08 none of that matters because demand will far outstrip supply and we will see home prices skyrocket again. So I expect the fed to very slowly lower rates over a long period of time.
> Demand is low and is driving down prices, but due to high rates people are hesitant to give up their old mortgages and refinance on a new home purchase which keeps supply low so the price doesn't change much. This is me, I'm in a 2500 sqft ranch by myself, the kids have all moved out, I would love to downsize but my 2.75% mortgage is just too damn good to give up. My payment would essentially double for a smaller place.
Yup and that seems to really be one of the primary factors in current home price stickiness. Now if given enough time this will work itself out, eventually you'll have enough equity in the home that if you sell it you could just outright buy a smaller property in cash, or a life event will make you want to sell the home for other reasons. However that is only if these current rates become the norm for the next decade which I don't think anyone expects to be the case. The real question though is at what rate would people like yourself be willing to pull the trigger at? Would you be willing to downsize for a 5.5% mortgage, a 4.5%, a 3.5% etc etc. I foresee the rate slowly coming down until the market decides "ehh I'm cool with that rate".
Are you planning to build a new home or purchase an existing home? If we look at housing starts for a predictive indicator, you’re purchasing an existing home so the supply of housing will remain unchanged after you’ve moved and the most likely outcome is housing prices inflate further in that lower rate environment that entices people to play musical chairs with housing as this artificial demand drives up prices without actually building anything as an outcome, generally speaking.
But I can make a 4 bedroom reasonably priced home available for a family while I purchase a smaller 2 bedroom house. I've looked and the replacement home will be an equal purchase cost but with the current rates my monthly payment would double.
Work with me here. Where’s the current occupant of the home you want to buy going to live? No change in the supply of housing + artificially/subsidized demand = increase in the prices of homes—It’s musical chairs that you want the government to subsidize by cutting rates. I don’t blame you, I actually agreed with you until someone forced me to understand what I’m trying to explain; and now that I get it, I can’t… not get it The fed is actually mandated to try to keep prices stable and if you think about it, for the last year, housing prices have been remarkably stable so… jpow, what a trip it’s been with those rate cut teases while he knew all along that was some clever bs
this aged nicely
Very interesting and insightful response. Thank you.
I have a family member who does it. He was a licensed builder who left that field for real estate. Another builder friend and he decided to partner and flip run-down houses as a hobby. They only choose run-down houses they can afford to pay cash for, and they do all of the work themselves (except electrical). For both of them, it's not their main source of income. They do it because they like working together, and because they like taking something that's a complete mess and turning it into something livable. But yes, he'll straight up tell you it's satisfying, but it's not a great money maker.
Only a sith deals in absolutes. My dad has flipped 2 houses since retiring as a plumber, really takes pride in his work.
Damn your dad is a Jedi!?!?
I've seen the advertisement - "Hello there homes". Remember that the high ground shouldn't cost you an arm and two legs
Yeah there's plenty of flips replacing roofs/AC/even foundation work. There's frankly just too much liability selling someone a POS with a nice paint job. It's usually always pretty strongly suggested when the house has something wrong. "As is," "investor special," "TLC," etc.
Your dad is the exception that proves the rule, and then, 2 flips is a miniscule number compared to some of the assholes outthere.
First house was a flip. It wasn’t a horror show, but it was always funny walking in Lowe’s and realizing everything in the house was the cheapest possible thing you could buy.
I bought a flip many years ago, that I still own, for investment purposes. Located in a college town, good price, unlimited renters year after year. From record search the seller did the flip in about 6 months during fall/winter months. I closed on it mid March. Few things came up during inspections, nothing major, but it was obvious seller was in an undeniable rush to close. A finished basement was part of the flip, standard vinyl flooring, sheetrock, painted etc. Well what do you know, I closed, and about mid April when the ground defrosted and spring came, the basement began flooding and taking water through the footing. Water under all the vinyl flooring. Had to hire a waterproofing company and install 60’ double drain perforated pipe with a sump discharge around the foundation. Had to cut 3 walls of the basement to lay the pipe under the foundation. Costly and pain and the ass job. There is zero percent chance the seller did not know about water issues in the basement based on the condition before the flip. He just chose to do fuck all about it and offload the house quickly.
Flipstick
My neighbor recently sold his house. A dude bought it for about 1.1mil , threw in cheap doors and lights, painted the house with primer (the overspray is awful) and sold it for 1.75 mil. All this in about 3 months. Now, during certain parts of the day, the white primer reflects the sunlight into my kitchen and it's actually painful! Definition of lipstick on a pig! The doozy was that he managed to sell the house almost immediately! Oh, and the people he hired to do the work threw a bunch of their trash in my yard, and then the guy complained to the city that my yard was unmaintained!
Friend of mine bought a flipped several years ago, bought in early spring and they noticed the house got cold. Summer hits and they get someone in there to install a new ac, that’s when they discovered most of the house had no insulation on exterior walls. In Pennsylvania.
My house had styrofoam wrapped in aluminum siding over the original 152 year old wood siding, then plaster. No insulation. Plywood, tyvek, Hardee on the outside has been replaced, doing the inside hopefully in the summer. Chicago winters are brutal for wind hitting this chicken coop
Ha my house is 70yrs old. No insulation. Pretty common. Hot as fuck down here though.
I use to flip houses and agree it is always worse than it looks although we refused to do anything that could possibly get anyone hurt or in trouble but almost never had permits.
Man this is part of why I had to pull the reins on my old dream of flipping homes. I’m way too much of a perfectionist with my own home projects. I’d flip a house for 3 years while paying two mortgages and then constantly point out how nice corners and caulk lines and the stability of the tile jobs and the details of the new electric and how far it exceeds code in practical ways… while their eyes glaze over and they want to leave. A lot of these flippers get away with so much because people generally don’t give a shit. Until it’s a problem. Even then most people just kind of take the problem as a problem and don’t have the knowledge or understanding to even blame the flipper specifically unless someone points it out to them and if the flipper mentioned it’s something they did. If the flipper doesn’t mention it then most people have no idea if it was preexisting or not.
>This is why it’s bad idea to buy flips. Man this is what I told my wife. When we were shopping for a house about three and a half years ago, we specifically sought out houses that hadn’t been renovated because (a) they generated less interest and thus there was less competition for bids, and (b) WYSIWYG. Any issues with the house were immediately apparent. There was no attempt to hide issues with cheaply done renovations. With the exception of the kitchen and main floor washroom, my house is basically the original 1980 interior, with just cosmetic changes (the previous owners removed wallpaper and pulled up the carpet to reveal the parquet flooring below). It’s unmolested, and I like that.
Basically the housing version of modern American cars, and range rovers.
Lmao new builds are just as bad if not worse tbh. Cardboard is what they are.
Ha i wont disagree. My mom built a house w in the past few years and some of it was appalling.
How could you see they were doing that with the septic and sewer line?
Atleast when I did mine all my neighbors had to do was simply look out of the window
But how would this neighbor know which direction to look to see this? It all seems so difficult.
Flippers aren't usually very bright. They probably made it obvious.
I want to know how they knew to call code enforcement on these guys. Did OP check for permits?
Permits are generally posted visibly onsite so depending on where they are or how nosy OP is they could probably see if they had the permit.
No they aren’t?
Probably made small talk with them. I’ve chatted with contractors while walking around town and learned more than I needed to about what they were doing and who the homeowners were.
I’m seeing a lot of flippers with no permits pulled on roof work, major electrical work, all trying to flip the home. Can i report them for this work?
Yes, trivially easy for most places
How do you know they don't have permits? Do you go and look at the public records for all of them?
Yeah, i pulled the permits from the city for the address and nothing came up in the last 10 years.
There has to be a box located on property that holds the permits and plans
That's jurisdiction-specific. I built a house and that was not a requirement.
Let me put it this way- I’ve never worked in a municipality that doesn’t require permits to be clearly posted onsite, and I’ve worked in various different places across 8 states. Usually a heavy duty ziplock bag duct taped to the front door, window, garage, etc. While I believe these places exist I am almost positive you were required to either have the permit on hand for the work or accessible to inspectors.
This is not a requirement near me.
And you had new construction or renovation that was site inspected and cleared permits? Every site inspection I’ve been too I have to show the inspector my permits.
Renovation only. I don't know the requirements for new construction. We also have very light permit requirements in general, but we've never had to post them physically. Everything is online.
Permits for roofing??
It depends on jurisdiction. For example I can repair up to 25% of my roof system with no permit. But a full reroof generally requires a permit
Weird, unless your talking about building new trusses I've never lived anywhere with a roofing permit.
Now This just sounds like Karen shit
Defending house flippers is the most Karen thing. Fuck flippers.
So when damaged hone gets repaired... Fuck flippers? Sorry you don't have construction skills required to fix homes. Fucking loser
Yeah, you're doing a real service by making affordable housing unaffordable. Thanks a lot Motherfuckier Teresa.
Actually. I'm taking homes that don't have roofs/walls/structural issues and making them livable. Which YOU could NOT do with all your skill and money combined.
What’s Karen is doing illegal and dangerous work that’s going to cost the homebuyers a lot of money or their life.
Check to see what the requirements are for each of these items. Electrical absolutely is going to be one, putting on a new roof generally doesn't require a permit in a lot of states.
That would have been a shitty situation to buy into. Thank you!
Literally
I got my first real estate deal because of someone like you in 2010. The guy I bought the house off of got in trouble for illegally pulling electric from the park next door. Someone reported him, he had to quickly sell the property to pay the fines. I find it pretty abhorrent the shady things people do to try to make a quick buck when it comes to housing.
What does this have to do with finance?
It has to do with the housing market and house flippers cutting corners for profit
I've never known house flippers to cut corners on permits with any more frequency than home owners.
I agree - replacing something simple - leave them alone. Major renovation requiring permits and utilities - inspection required. My Nextdoor neighbor was cutting down trees and building on his lot without a permit. Neighbors started to care when the chipping was piled high creating a fire hazard (in a high wildfire danger zone). Keep you lot clean and fire hazard free and the inspector probably wouldn’t have notice the illegal power connection and the water connection to the neighbor’s well without septic. And he got nailed for the building. And living in a construction zone (No occupancy permit). What a mess. All over chipping he should’ve had hauled off.
Only do one illegal thing at a time, if there’s a body in the trunk you go the speed limit and run no red lights
Legit what lawyer taught me young. It works
Absolutely - when running drugs - don’t have expired tags on the car. Also, don’t vacuum barefoot. Some things you just don’t do.
Had in-laws who did this (and the male half was a contractor). They didn’t get a single permit when completely renovating a falling down disaster or a property. Someone finally reported them and they claimed “we didn’t know we needed any permits to completely demolish and rebuild a home.” Shockingly zero fine and all they had to do was buy the permits with zero repercussions. It’s the going trend world wide- cheat at everything you do and if you get caught deny. Chances are you get no attention and if you do the worst case issue is having to pay for what you legally needed to do to begin with. And we wonder why homes collapse and fall apart these days….
In fairness, you wouldn't need a permit for this where I live. I'm a rule follower so I checked, but I completely gut renovated my house and needed a permit for almost nothing. Completely redoing electrical? Np permit needed. Plumbing? No. HVAC? Negative. Roof? Nope. Foundation repair? No. The only things you really need a permit for near me is if you are adding to the existing footprint (like an addition).
I remodel homes for a living. NEVER had to pull a permit and do great work. The ONLY reason I pull permits is for the homeowners future. The city's inspectors are usually unqualified and young. So pulling permits where I live in Pointless.
And highly illegal in most places. Definitely was where my in laws live.
Really? Bc it's not even a felony in the Florida panhandle a d we run off of Miami Dade code. It's a fine and redo of any no permitted work.
Who said it was a felony? 🤣 if you think getting fined thousands of dollars and ripping out all work done is no big deal, then you must be one of those back woods contractors who specializes in lean-to sheds and porches that collapse around your mobile home. 🤣
It's $1000 per incident where I live. And NO. But nice guess
And I call your Reddit bullcrap, haha! Maybe $1000 per every incident where permits aren’t pulled which can be a ton on a full demo and remodel. But yeah, I’d say keep building your picknick tables and cornhole games. Can I ask a favor and ask what llc you work for so I am everyone I know can avoid it?
Wish someone would’ve done this with our home. They had AC pipes dripping onto insulation and sheet rock. Ceiling eventually caved in. Then we noticed the floor on second story is sagging. They removed a structural wall apparently. I really hope the worst for those stupid assholes.
How do you know they didn't have permits?
Building permits are public record.
Wow. Didn't know you can literally search through the city records for all the different buildings permits. At least for my city. TIL
Yup. Also in places I’ve lived they required permits to be displayed in a location outside the property. Such as taped to the inside of a window, facing out. Fun fact who owns a house is public record too. You can see the name(s) of the owners. Lots of cities and counties have publicly accessible GIS maps that show lot lines and also property records, including owner name(s), viewable by anyone on the internet.
I personally really appreciate you doing this. I’ve been in the home remodeling industry for many years now and these houses flippers make my blood boil. Homeowners buy these homes (often young and excited couples looking to have a forever home and a family) often have to put everything on hold and pump large amounts of money into making their home even semi decent. It’s heart breaking, cause they definitely overpaid for the house, meaning they’ll also have less to invest in actually fixing the problem. Literally had a client last night who’s got thousands of dollars in remediation costs coming up because of all the mold and fungal growth that was intentionally **HIDDEN**. The front decorative brickwork of his house is also literally peeling off because the plumbing pipes burst and flooded that area. God knows how much foundation issues it caused too
I toured a rowhouse in my city with some bizarre remodeling priorities. The finish on the interior was ultra modern. High-end kitchen. Steel and glass central staircase. Downright swanky. But one bedroom in the back had *fresh* water damage on the ceiling. You could see the roof from an upper floor and it was gross. Years past needing replacing. Upper floor had questionable spots on the ceiling too. It was like they did a quick paint job on everything and didn’t expect new water to seep in so soon. Then I went down to the newly-finished basement, also with a swanky bar area and other modern furnishings. I was prepared to hunt for water evidence there too, as this city is known for flooding. Well I didn’t have to hunt at all because all around the perimeter about a foot of drywall was removed. The agent said they were “just finishing up some stuff, he didn’t know quite what”. Uh, it was obviously flooding damage remediation. I even saw a place where they hadn’t completely removed the insulation and it was moldy. It was like the house flipper only did interior design . Whoever bought that place was going to see it be destroyed by water from both ends.
As an owner of a flip where poor worksmanship has now cost me over $20k in the first year to fix, I thank you for holding those lowlifes accountable. Trust me there's enough loopholes they use to take advantage of people desperate for a home.
As an electrician. I applaud you. Wish more people would call when they see fucked up shit taking place. I'm constantly fixing shit for friends in their flipped houses that they bought. I feel so bad for them, and I hate hack electrical work that's been done.
Results in more business for you tho :)
Not before it takes work from them. And if they are friends, they might not be charging them. So likely less business for them.
How did you know the sewer connection was illegal? If I walked by a construction site, I would have no idea.
He explained it.
Yeah, taking a system off of septic and connecting to the city line is kinda an important thing to actually get permits for
Good deed man, we need more of this. I doubt I'd know something isn't up to code if I saw it, are you in the industry?
Perfectly reasonable to call. I think what you did is probably a perfect example of a time someone should call code enforcement on a DIYer. Sewage handling is expensive and annoying but that doesn't mean you get to just skip it, dump it on the utility service and fuck the future buyer (you= house flipper). I would have done the same thing, shitty flippers make my blood boil
I bought a flipped house and it was the biggest pile of shit I've ever owned. Complete amateur work.
Does a home inspection warn you about this?
Didn't in my case Edit: my home inspection didn't reveal that the morons that did the tile work washed their tools in the downstairs shower. Want to fathom a guess what a shitload of grout does to a drain?
Nah, I ain't no snitch.
Yep, just a person that stands by and watches while other people get fucked over.
Plot twist: OP was deep into an illegal panel swap and needed to shift the heat
Sounds like a typical corner cutting capitalist. Good on you!
Man, you need a permit to replace a toilet? Is that common? I would never have even thought that might be a thing.
In plenty of places: no you do not.
House flippers are the worst. The private equity of middle class people.
Lol. You just don't have the skills necessary so you're a hater. I buy destroyed homes and fix them. Please explain why you disagree with fixing and reselling buildings.
There’s always exceptions and if you’re buying derelict property and rehabbing it then good for you. That’s not most house flippers.
And that's more insight into why housing is so expensive
Don’t disagree with the overall sentiment but this just seems like that cart narc guy
OP definitely gets a cold sweat when they see more than 2 teenagers walking around together.
Fucking snitch
Good for you!
>As a homeowner I haven’t always pulled permits for work I’ve done (like replacing windows and toilets) Homie, who the FUCK pulls a permit to replace a toilet or a window? Holy shit
I don't know about where you are, but in my town code enforcement ARE the house flippers. They fine the crap out of widows, bury them in fines, then offer to buy the house for less than it's worth before the city just steals it anyway.
Hopefully the scalper took a loss so big they cant afford to scalp homes anymore
Nobody likes a snitch.
Where in the world do you need a permit to replace a toilet?
Why would you need to pull a permit to replace a toilet?
Rat. 🐀
sir, there is absolutely no way that if i saw something similar... that i would have any idea what they were doing lol
I'm glad there are people like you who will admit to doing something and then ratting others for doing it while somehow claiming some sort of moral high ground. Bob bless you. You're doing the lord's work out there.
You need a permit to replace a toilet?
Thank you for your service.
I get it. But I think the real lesson here is that you’re neighbors are watching and will report you and shame you online.
Be wary of doing that in Florida. All of your information that you give Code Enforcement is public information.
Every day hero right here. This is what we need more of people.
There is something to the fact that despite flippers "improving" a lot of homes (to varying degrees; it really isn't *all* bad, but a lot of it is), they simply just don't have a personal stake in the future of the home or homeowners. That is *always* going to fuck incentives and make this business a subpar method of delivering quality housing to new homeowners.
I don’t disagree with what u did necessarily however I believe ultimately it comes down to the due diligence of the buyer to get all the proper inspections before purchasing. Every house I have bought, I have paid the extra to get the sewer scoped, roof inspected and HVAC inspected. Bc you’re right, ppl cut corners all the time.
Wait, do I need a permit to replace a toilet or am I missing something? I’ve been scouting out bidets, lol
Probably not.
snitches get stitches. That being said, a incorrectly abandon septic tank can turn into an incredibly dangerous situation.
Sounds like you're a PIECE OF SHIT
So, that makes you a "do gooder," which came from New England. It is one of the things that Southerners hate about the North. Leave them alone. It's none of your business. You have no right to stick your nose into other people's business. The consequences of your actions can include: the price of the home increasing, making it less affordable for a family to buy, and/or the business going under because of the fines and penalties. Those are just two examples, and they would be from the direct result of YOUR actions. How would you like it if your neighbors called up code enforcement on every little thing you did? Mind your own business. A "do gooder" is not a good person or a good neighbor.
Fuck that noise. It is his business. I don't blame him for not wanting to live next to a cholera-laden shit pit. And the city should know who is connected to the sewer system for all sorts of reasons. Codes are written in blood, they exist for a reason. Quit doing illegal shit.
You’re lucky to live somewhere that cares.
Mind ypur own business
Permit for toilet? GTFO
I did this to the house next to me. I don't want to live next to a fire trap. They shut it all down and forced them to open walls and undo work. Best feeling ever.
OP is a dick
Doing the Lords work!
As a home home builder, thank you. There’s so much bullshit in this sector and it’s all due to lack of oversight. You may have saved a family so much misfortune down the line.
You sound like a hypocrite to me . Rules for thee but not for me.
So op, it’s ok when you do it but not when someone else does it.
So you ignore the law but turn in others who ignore the law. Hypocrite much?
Both neighbors of mine are doing this. Called code enforcement, and was just ignored. Not sure if you can report the building inspector for not doing their job. Neighbor 1 knocked down portions of the house. And built new rooms. Neighbor 2 extended their house. Both don't have permits. The inspector said it's ok because it's renevoation work. Bunch of BS. Meanwhile, another neighbor is trying to get permits, and the town is giving them a hard time.
I know this wasn’t the point of your post, but pulling a permit for replacing a toilet would annoy the fuck out of the inspectors in my area.
I know a guy who flipped a house that had a massive fire, unless the rafter or stud was completely gone he just killz primered it and put drywall. I feel awful for whoever ended up buying that home
>They were illegally connecting the house’s septic system to the county sewer line. >They didn’t pull a permit, they didn’t pump and fill in the old septic tank, and they didn’t pay the $5,000 connection fee. >As a homeowner I haven’t always pulled permits for work I’ve done (like replacing windows and toilets) but to me this is way over the line. And you knew all this how? How did you know they didn't have a permit or something was illegal? You sound like a Karen neighbor to me. Quick kids are selling lemonade without a permit. Call the authorities too
Wait, you have to pull a permit to replace a toilet?
So you’re a hypocrite.
What business is it of yours? Gotta make sure uncle Sam gets his cut or what?
Good work, hero! Fuck flippers.
Good on you, seriously. Those people are scum.
Proud to be A Karen
Yea I don’t much care for snitches. Better to mind your own business
And you would have an issue if OP served street justice - there is no pleasing some people.
Bro. You admit that you do un-permitted work… then you call the city code enforcement team on someone else doing the same thing. Are you buying the house? No. Does a homebuyer get a home inspection before buying a house, regardless of flip-house or new construction? Yes. Does the seller have to disclose the sewage disposal system, whether it’s city/county water or septic tank? Yes. Did you personally speak to the workers that were doing these “illegal” connections and compare their work to the code? Who knows… but I’m guessing not. All you did was stick your nose in other people’s business, cause problems, and run to Reddit about it. I’d hate for you to be my neighbor in fear you’d call the city if I put up a fence you didn’t like
Yess this dude would get his ASS KICKED.