Hiring an expert renovator will pay off.
Remember when buying, fixing and flipping a house was all the rage?
A couple of years ago, I was looking for an investment property in Cobourg and found what appeared to be a winner: a renovated house with a great price. On the Internet, the photos looked great. “It’s been renovated from top to bottom,” the agent old me when I called for details. I couldn’t wait to get in for a tour.
At first glance, it looked as good in person as it did online. On closer inspection, however, I knew this flip had flopped.
The paint job was awful. Brush marks. Drip marks. Wall paint on the ceiling and the baseboards. It’s the kind of paint job that would result if I decided to pick up a brush and a roller (which I wouldn’t, because I couldn’t draw a straight line if my life depended on it) and call myself a painter.
The bad paint job also accentuated the fact that the baseboards were crooked. And the nail holes had not been filled in before painting.
In the kitchen, the backsplash tile work was sloppy — shaky, smeared grout lines took away from what could have been a great feature. No doubt the same DIY tile guy or gal installed the bathroom tile, too. The floor tile chosen was beautiful. Too bad an amateur installed it. Not only were the tiles out of alignment, a section right in the middle of the floor looked like someone was trying to frost a cake. Grout three inches wide and two inches thick whipped up into in a swirly peak. I mean really, did they think no one would notice?
The MLS listing boasted built-in storage cupboards in the master bedroom. They looked nice. Too bad the carpenter didn’t leave room for the cabinet doors and drawers to open! Lack of skills rendered them useless.
With red flags everywhere pointing to a bad flip job, I asked the agent if the wiring and plumbing had been updated before the drywall stage. She couldn’t answer that question. Had the work been inspected? She couldn’t answer that question either.
When I expressed my opinion that this was one of the worse DIY jobs I had seen, the agent, a young 20-something woman, replied in a snooty tone: “At this price in Cobourg, this is what you can expect.”
Really? I would have preferred to buy the house in its worn state and have it fixed up right.
My former Ottawa hairdresser, who bought condos and townhouses on the side in the hopes of making it rich in real estate, also believed that anyone buying a “renovated” home shouldn’t have anything to complain about.
I toured one of his DIY townhouses: the laminate he had installed on the floors was like walking on springs. The laminate on the stairs leading from the living room up to the kitchen/dining area was a total mess (he must have skipped Carpentry 102). There was no railing on the stairway, and no railing at the end of the eating area — just a drop down to the living room below. Two safety rules broken.
In the bedrooms, he thought he would save a few bucks by leaving the clothes rods and shelves out of the closets. “It doesn’t cost much,” he told me. “They can do it themselves.” He had also painted the entire townhouse a brilliant white — fine for baseboards, but not something anyone could live with on the walls without wearing sunglasses 24/7. It would drive anyone crazy. Why this colour, I asked? It was cheap and, he figured, buyers could re-paint after they moved in.
I wondered what he was thinking.
Townhouses in that area of town attract first-time buyers on a low budget. They want to move right in without spending a cent (because they don’t have any spare cash for home improvements). They’ve worked hard to put together a downpayment on a home and they rightfully don’t expect to get bad DIY for their money.
I toured the place because my hairdresser wanted my opinion on why he couldn’t sell it. I gently told him he should get out of the DIY business.
For all you amateur flippers and home improvement do-it-yourselfers: there is nothing worse than bad DIY. You might think your crooked backsplash is better than no backsplash, but a buyer will disagree. All he sees are dollar signs. He is thinking about all the time and money he’ll have to spend ripping out your handiwork and starting all over again.
Bad home improvements make for entertaining TV (think HGTV’s Disaster DIY), but if you’re selling your home, it’s best to call in the experts before you waste time and money.
The cash you spend getting it done right will come right back at you, because buyers will pay for quality. They won’t pay for crap!