All Forum Posts by: Mike F.

5 Pre-qualified potential tenants means 10x more than 5 unqualified potential tenants. If you don't take pets and the first 3 that walk in have them and you spend your time with them only to eventually find this out I'd rather those 3 never showed up. You know what I mean there vern? Qualified prospects are what you hopefully are setting appointments with otherwise it's just a bunch of shuffling about for no results or more commonly referred to as - 'practice'.

Sorry, I forgot to include the whole point of why I wrote that long winded reply.  LOL

The point was to show that in the case of houses most of what is wrong is buried and can't be seen and is waiting to become a problem 6 months, 1 year, 5 years later. In what I posted the only visible problem was the crack on the tub. Everything else was all under the tile and only detectable and showed itself during the demo. This is the lipstick on a pig routine that I refer to.  It's the mentality of someone restoring a car by painting over the rust and putting a engine quieter liquid into the crank case and trying to sell it to the highest bidder. Their only goal is to fix something enough for it to look good on the surface and sound good enough to make it through the sale, then over time the rust starts to show through, the paint peals off and the engine starts to knock.

Don't let em get you down Elena. Flippers can't buy houses low enough here so their profits depend on how cheaply they rehab. 

A few months ago around Christmas time we were doing a bathroom remodel for a new homeowner on a house that was flipped, the master bathroom was a disaster, there isn't enough space to go into all the things wrong, so I'll just tell you about the bathtub - jetted tub they bought from Home Depot, so it was a de-engineered Jacuzzi model, low horsepower pump, less jets than the non Home Depot version, but it looked new and shiney. 1) Tub wasn't sitting on the sub-floor, was suspended by it's rim, even it they had built the tub deck correctly to size based on everything else I sure they wouldn't have poured a mortar base for it to sit in. Tub was cracked due to not being supported. 2) No access panel required by code for the pump, the pump was in the rear of the tub buried under the tub deck. 3) No thermostatic anti-scaled mixing valve required by code for the roman tub filler 4) No dedicated circuit for the pump required by the manufacturer, the electrical for the tub was piggy backed on the vanity lights 5) no GFCI protection on the tub as required by code  6) no grounding of the tub motor as required by code 7) ABS drain glued to PVC drain pipe with ABS glue 8) the tub valve connections  uried with no access were IPS threaded stainless steel flexible water lines instead of hard sweated copper connections, (lost count on all the shark bites they used, they must buy them in bulk) 9) all the tile was tiled directly on the plywood of the tub deck, no underlayment to prevent the tile from being popped and the grout cracking from moisture getting to the plywood...the list goes on and on.. oh and the tub filler valve was located on the back side of the tub, not a code violation but certainly not user friendly for somebody to have to climb basically into the tub or over it to turn the water on, but that's minor in the scope of all the code violations and poor workmanship, that's just poor design. 

But I'm sure the flipper got a good deal on all the work from the guy he found on craigslist and that's unfortunately really all they care about and all they can do if they want to make any money. If they had hired a real contractor, a licensed electrician and a master plumber I'm sure the cost would been at least 5 to 10 times higher to do the work, it would have been done right, but they wouldn't have made any money on their flip.

One thing you might want to look into is a failure to disclose un-permited, un-inspected work, you could query the building dept, get a list of permits that were pulled and closed and compare that to work the seller admits has been done. You'd have leverage at that point if you can find work he did without passing inspections and hold that over him for whatever it's worth. Did he sign any documents swearing that no work was done on the house without permits? Something to look into.

I'm kind of confused, you bought this as a real estate investment? Wasn't the investment and profit to be made, made by the flipper?

I'm in the construction business and I have to say, flippers make us soooooo much money in Denver, every homeowner we work for that has bought a flipped house has the same attitude that they bought a lipstick covered pig. As someone who's business is based on high prices charged for quality work, we see the reality of flipping in Denver without trying to paint with a broad brush, but the facts are that too many flippers make their profits off the backs of their help, they do so much under the table, with the cheapest, unlicensed labor they can find to do something good enough for it to last long enough to get sold. Sometimes we see stuff that just makes you think all flippers should be tossed in jail. Very sad and we have homeowners crying about this stuff all the time.

Eventually you'll throw enough money at this house to reach some level of equilibrium with the problems, there of course will likely remain major underlying issues that you will never resolve, so the question just becomes are you willing to keep throwing money at it and how much enough is going to be enough? Keep in mind some things won't show themselves for awhile, a house usually gives up most of it's ghosts in a 1 year cycle, this allows it to go through the seasonal changes of moisture, expansion and contraction and tear itself apart where it needs to, tile floors will show cracked grout within a year, letting you know they weren't installed with proper underlayments, drywall will crack at doors and windows showing the house movement do to soil getting wet and drying out where it shouldn't, the basement will get wet showing you where the freeze thaw is effecting it, paint in bathrooms will show mold in a year showing you that the flipper didn't vent exhaust fans properly and the list will go on and on... 

So you have to figure out just how much is remaining to show itself and how much and how willing are you to spend now what the flipper should have spent during his renovation? 

What if the market cools over the next year? How will that effect your ability to get out of the house compared to now? So many questions and problems, wish I could be of more help, but this is what goes on out here all the time, no real easy answers without some idea of really how much for will you be facing? Is it worth it long term?

Noise disturbances are passed on to those who are responsible to deal with them - the police. Either the noise is disturbing enough to call the police or it's not disturbing.

Hmmmm, am I weird, never thought of stocking anything. Always been of the mindset a real emergency is handled by the police or the fire department, everything after that isn't an emergency and can be handled with a phone call to a service company and beyond that it can wait.

75% occupancy?

Some interesting opinions http://www.scubaboard.com/community/threads/buying-property-in-tulum-advice-needed.522361/

Hire enough losers, throw enough money away until the memory of the excruciating painfulness of the results of saying yes to someone you should have said no to is deep enough. Some of us learn the lesson quicker than others.

I'd have to know what the rest of the story is in order to know how to respond. If they are saying this to you as they are handing you the rent check with the late fees included the response would be "that's nice, looks like you are all caught up now, goodbye." If they were telling me this without paying me to get caught up to date it would be "That's nice, when are you catching up the rent?"

As you can see them saying they are on the Ramsey program is a nice conversation, but what does it have to do with the current situation of them being behind? Unless Ramsey is going to be cutting me a check, the only current discussion is about getting caught up, their intentions are a nice conversation, but pretty much irrelevant to the situation at hand. Are they asking you to waive the late fees this one time because it's never going to happen again? What's the rest of the conversation?