6 Questions to Ask Before You Buy a Recently-Flipped Home

Written by

Jamie Birdwell-BransonSEO Home Strategist at Apartment Therapy

published Aug 17, 2019

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Marissa Miller, a Montreal-based journalist, was about to close the deal on her dream house—a recently renovated, open concept cottage—until she saw the inspection report. Behind all of the beautiful fixtures and new paint was a house that was falling apart: The walls were caving in, there were no gutters, and the roof needed to be replaced.

“Our inspector kept saying that someone had put lipstick on a pig,” Miller says.

She was able to walk away relatively unscathed, only losing $800 for the inspection, but others aren’t always so lucky.

No matter how you feel about them, flipped homes are popping up everywhere, making up 7.2 percent of all home sales for the first quarter of 2019. Although having an Insta-worthy, move-in ready home is the goal for many buyers, freshly-painted walls and new hardwood floors might actually be a bright and fresh disguise for shoddy work and a whole mess of other problems lurking beneath the surface.

Thinking about buying a recently-flipped home? Protect yourself from subpar work by asking the following six questions before you put in an offer:

1. Was the work properly permitted?

If a home has gone through a major renovation, ask for proof that proper permits were pulled. Permits are required for construction projects so the city or county can ensure work was done safely and followed local building codes.

Although you don’t need a permit for cosmetic upgrades like replacing countertops, you should check if they were pulled for plumbing, electrical, roofing, insulation and anything to do with the structure. To determine if permits were acquired, ask your agent or go to your local municipality’s permits website to plug in the address and see for yourself.

2. How much experience does the renovation company have?

Unfortunately, watching a lot of “Fixer Upper” doesn’t qualify you to renovate a whole house. Before you put in an offer on a flipped home, look into the experience and qualifications that the contractors or flipping company had, checking for accreditations and certifications, references, online reviews, and how long they’ve been in business.

“Is the [flipper] invested in the industry, or are they doing this right now because it’s the neatest thing to do?” says Tim Ellis, the remodelers chairman for the National Association of Home Builders.

If the homeowners did a DIY reno, ask them where they sourced their how-to’s.

3. What systems were replaced?

You can easily look at a before/after picture to see that kitchen backsplash was replaced, but you won’t be able to tell if an entire plumbing system was redone. Completely renovating the aesthetic portions of a home but failing to update a 1980s heating system could potentially be a sign that corners were cut, so ask your agent to verify what systems were replaced in the home and when.

4. What kinds of warranties come with the home?

If a lot of work has been done on a home, there should be warranties on everything— from the appliances to the roof—that can be passed onto the buyer in case something goes wrong after the sale. Should the seller/flipper hesitate to provide them or not have them at all, this could signal a red flag for the buyer.

5. How long did the renovation take?

Renovation television shows can make it seem like fast turnaround times are the norm, but a full gut/remodel should take at least half a year, according to Ellis.

“For us, it takes about six to eight months with pulling proper permits, proper inspections and doing everything to regulation,” he says. “If it’s done in four weeks, something is not right.”

6. Are there any details that are “off”?

As you walk through the home with your agent, it’s easy to get wowed by an HGTV-worthy makeover, but take a closer look: Are there small things that show a lack of attention to detail? Hila Peled, an agent for Triplemint in New York City, advises do a quality assurance check and look for things like misaligned cabinets, botched paint jobs, or air bubbles in the flooring.

“I’m not saying you need to blow up a deal if the cabinetry is not aligned perfectly, but sometimes it might be a tell for other bigger things that have gone wrong,” she says.

It’s not just recently-flipped homes that might have watch-outs: newly-built homes, too, often can be hiding shoddy work. Here, four construction short-cuts to watch out for.