How to Spot Shoddy Renovations When House Hunting
Learn to spot the signs
House hunting is always very exciting, but getting the most house for the money can be nerve-wracking. Many sellers will understandably go to great lengths to make their homes appealing to buyers. This can include doing anything from a simple repainting job or amping up curb appeal to hiring contractors to complete necessary repairs and updates. However, this can very much end up being a double-edged sword. If sellers don’t hire reputable contractors or do the work themselves and don’t bother pulling permits, the quality of these renovations can end up hurting the home more than helping. This is why it’s so important to do your best to spot shoddy renovations while you’re house hunting.
Doing this can come with a lot of challenges. Your untrained eyes can easily get distracted and not notice some things. And then there are also the challenges that come from buying a home in another state if you don’t currently live in California. The next time you’re at a showing and the agent or seller is talking a lot about recent upgrades, remember to check them out yourself.
1. If you want to spot shoddy renovations, try to be objective
House hunting will usually be a very emotional process. As a buyer, you’ll probably imagine whether the home will suit your family and improve your quality of life. It’s easy to get lost in these thoughts and find yourself ready to call movers to get in there as fast as possible. If you are making an interstate move within California, you should consider hiring movers. But before you start looking for the right team to help out, you should try to pull yourself out of the fantasy and look at the home objectively.
Your first time seeing a house, you should try to look at it through the eyes of a home inspector. This means looking beyond the pretty new paint and carpeting. You should try to find anything that could indicate that the current sellers cut corners when they made repairs.
2. Check for cosmetic work around the foundation
The soil around a home’s foundation can swell when it gets wet. This creates lateral pressure and makes foundation walls crack or even shift. Sadly, it’s common for sellers to just put on a fresh coat of paint to cover up any on the foundation walls and call it a day. There are other ways that sellers will try to hide foundation flaws. They might pile fresh soil next to it or plant flowers there.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the foundation wasn’t properly cared for. To you, this should be a red flag so that later on, you can ask your home inspector to check it out properly.
3. Look for wavy shingles if they renewed the roof
A new roof is almost sure to make a house more attractive to buyers. And if the replacement was done well, it really is a great plus. However, if the seller tried to cut corners with cheap shingles that won’t seal down or by just sticking a new layer of better-looking shingles over a layer of bad ones, it can be an awful surprise later on.
Layered shingles can be used to hide a host of roof problems, and we don’t have to explain why a single layer of cheap shingles is bad. Also, layering shingles can void the warranty on the new ones, so a repair can end up costing you even more money. Luckily, when you’re trying to spot shoddy renovations, this is an easy one to start with. Just look at how the shingles are sticking to the roof and check if they are holding their shape well.
4. Open and close all doors and windows
Generally speaking, the heavier the door, the better the quality. While you’re house hunting, if the sellers are bragging about all the doors being new, it’s a good idea to open and close each of them to see whether they function properly. Each interior door should close smoothly and should not have any gaps between the door and the frame.
New replacement windows can also be a strong selling point. When you hear about that, your first move should be to try unlocking, opening, and closing all the new windows. A double-hung window that doesn’t slide easily or a casement window that’s difficult to open or close could be a sign that the windows are cheap or that they were poorly installed. This, along with a few other things, can be a very bad surprise expense that you probably didn’t account for since replacing them later is very expensive.
5. Look for visible seams on walls and floors
If you want to spot shoddy renovations, you should know that good ones rarely have visible seams. If you can spot seams where the new drywall panes or wall-to-wall carpeting pieces meet, you can be sure that the job was done cheaply. Since this is easily noticeable, it can be a way to gauge whether or not the home requires further inspection.
6. Check for streaks and marks in the paint
Another way to see whether the sellers are prone to cutting corners is to look closely at the paint job. Cheap paints are usually very thin and don’t have as good coverage as higher-quality paints. Good-quality paints are typically made thick and blend well not to leave any streaks. If you’re at a house showing and notice roller marks in the finish, you’re probably looking at cheap paint.
7. Watch out for flipped houses
Of course, you obviously shouldn’t instantly write off houses that were flipped by investors. However, you should keep in mind that homeowners who live in their houses are generally more motivated to invest in quality materials and renovations. A flipped house you’re visiting may be perfect for you. But if the investor used substandard materials, you’ll probably be doing repairs sooner than you’d like. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go for a flipped home, especially since most flippers are professionals who will renovate a home to perfection. This just means that you should have a keener eye when trying to spot shoddy renovations at this type of home.
Experts from mod-movers.com also advise you to check in advance what in a flipped home is a part of the staging. Sometimes things that look like great money savers and good renovations can end up not being part of the home.
Final tip: Be calm and become an investigator
Understandably, the prospect of not being able to spot shoddy renovations in time can cause a bit of home-buying anxiety. However, if you follow these tips and work on managing the anxiety properly, a sale can go over smoothly. And make sure not to be embarrassed to do these things. Sure, it can look a little weird to be opening and closing every door in the home. However, a few weird looks from sellers can save you a lot of money in this situation.
