I Toured Lots of Bad Flips — Here Are the 5 Green Flags Our New Home Was Well-Constructed

My fiancé and I toured a handful of flips and mediocre new builds this spring when we were looking to buy a home together in Denver. I remember the first sloppy new build we looked at: Our real estate agent climbed the fence to let us in because the latch was haphazardly installed, and, once inside, he immediately started pointing out shortcuts the builder took that were sticking out to him — drawers that were catching when they closed, a faulty sump pump, chunks of drywall missing, peeling paint, and more. 

“I wouldn’t buy this house if I were you,” he told us in the first few minutes of touring it. 

The next several homes we looked at didn’t have as many glaring red flags as the first house, but they did start to blur together. That’s because in Denver, the city once had lots of large lots, and developers have been knocking down single-family homes and putting up duplexes that all seem to follow the same builder-grade formula and cookie-cutter layouts.

So, we began to shift our focus and look for design-builds, or homes where designers and builders worked together to create a more unique house. We expanded our search radius a few blocks outside of Denver city limits where our budget would have a little more give, and we instantly fell in love with a gorgeous property that felt like a breath of fresh air because of all of the thoughtful touches. Our house is a new build, but the original 1934 house that’s on our property was flipped into a cute guesthouse. The original garage was converted into an at-home bar.

During the property inspection, our home inspector concluded: “I can tell this was their first build … (dramatic pause) … they didn’t cut any corners.” We were thrilled — finally, a home that was new, but quality. 

When you’re looking at homes, there are a few areas to really zero in on to decide whether the builders or flippers cared about the details, according to experts I consulted in our home search.

“Builders might put a tree in the yard, maybe some bushes, but a lot of times you can tell if they cared to hire a good landscaping company that will come out and plant trees, flowers, and just really make it look nice,” says Jason Lyday, a home inspector and owner with WIN Home Inspection in Florida. 

You can check the quality of the kitchen by the installation of cabinet doors and drawers; they should open smoothly and not have any visible paint marks, Lyday says. 

Builders aren’t skimping when they furnish homes with high-quality, modern light fixtures versus the builder-grade boob lights. 

Danny Johnson, a real estate professional in San Antonio, Texas, with 20 years of experience and who has flipped hundreds of homes, recommends buyers look at the craftsmanship of a home — things like trim work, tile symmetry, even coverage of paint with no spray lines, and the quality of fixtures. 

His pro tip: Go into the smallest closet and give it a good look-over to see if any corners were cut. “This will show you walls most people do not look at,” Johnson says. “This is also where less than ideal contractors tend to get lazy. If the trim is done poorly here, or the baseboards are not caulked, or there is no paint, you might want to consider that other things you cannot see were not done properly.

Hanging wallpaper in a flip or new build may be seen as a bold choice, but I think it’s a worthwhile one because it adds personality to small spaces. We had toured so many homes that we started referencing the ones with “cool wallpaper” or “interesting paint colors.”

Two of the bathrooms in our new home have wallpaper — a taupe abstract floral wallpaper in a powder room to complement gold hardware, and a fun black-and-white palm wallpaper in another bathroom that goes well with matte black fixtures.

In my starter home, I gradually swapped out the flush mount lights and the plain frameless mirrors, which I found were an easy enough DIY. So, when we were touring new homes, I was able to look past the builder-grade or outdated lights because I knew a few hundred bucks could go far with upgrades.

But our home had some lighting I hadn’t seen in any other homes we toured, and that caught my eye — a capiz shell chandelier above the bathtub (it’s from Pottery Barn Teen!) and a linen lamp above the kitchen sink. The lights also have dimmers and can be changed between warm and cool light. The statement lighting probably tacked on a few hundred extra dollars to the builder’s cost, but it went a far way in making the home stand apart.

I’ve always been in a constant battle to hide electronics cords. A feature we started to see in some of the nicer flips and new builds were recessed outlets with connecting cords for TVs so that the cords can automatically be hidden in the wall outlet instead of running it down to an outlet in the floor. It’s another one of those things that’s an easy add when you’re building or flipping a home, but much more of a pain to add afterwards if you have to cut out drywall and add an outlet.

One of my tricks when we were touring homes was to look up the cost of the major appliances. Like major fashion brands, appliance companies also have secondary lines that they make for less. You can also look for serial numbers on appliances to determine how old the units are, and, in some of the homes we toured, I could tell by the date of the appliances that they were likely bought at an outlet because they were older than the home. 

The builder of our home put in a Thor five-piece appliance package that retails for about $14,000, which I calculated is more than double what other builders had spent on major kitchen appliances in the other homes that we looked at in the same price range. 

Our home also has thoughtful amenities throughout, like a sauna in the basement, a pot filling station above the stove, custom blinds, cute little planters box with succulents, outdoor speakers, and more. In the end, we could tell that the designer and builder had poured lots of love into the home, and all of the attention to details won us over.