Inspection findings questions

[MarieChele Porter]

Hi all,

So I am in contract with a property that is a flipped property and was built in 1917. The home and pest inspection were done on Wednesday, and Friday the plumbing inspection was done. Only problem is that only about 1/3 of the crawl space was able to be inspected because there is a wall blocking entry and none of the attic was able to be inspected because there is a wall cutting it off as well. 

To make things worse the plumbing inspection on Friday was also unable to fully be completed because there is no space to put the camera down the plumbing pipes.

There were additions added to the property and the inspector figured this is when the walls were added a while ago not from the recent flip. The flip was done beautifully for cosmetic purposes but subpar with other more expensive finishes, for example electrical outlets are all 3 prong but actual electrical is not updated and grounded. There are many other things you can imagine but to save you from giving a full inspection report inbox me and I'll tell the deets.

This property will be a good cash flowing property and there is a in-law suite that I plan to house hack. I just know that some of the things that were not able to be inspected could end up costing a lot of money knowing that they were not updated and the house is almost 100 years old. The thing is they can either be in good shape or they can be in bad shape and we just don't know since we were unable to inspect, but if they were in bad shape depending on how bad they can kill the whole deal after purchase.

I just want more experienced opinions about what you would do in this situation and if you've ever encountered a situation like this?

Thank you in advanced,

MarieChele

[Philip Coiro]

Originally posted by @MarieChele Porter:

@Philip Coiro

Honestly I don't even know. Is the seller supposed to disclose that information or am I supposed to ask? My educated guess would be no though. They did a nice job for cosmetics but you can see a lot of corners were cut that an inspector wouldn't have passed...

Right, if you want message me the address and reports. You can ask them what the scope of the renovation they did was for sure, doesn't mean they will be honest. If they purchased it for 100K and are now selling it for 255k, that kinda spread to me says this needed to be done with a permit. Flippers who do any type of decently sized work without a permit is a pretty big red flag for me personally. When I flip I go through all the hoops the right way so when we do sell, I feel comfortable about what people are buying and they don't have the concerns you're having. If my buyers wanted pictures of every step of the Reno I would happily send them everything I had because I'm proud of my work. 

I'm not saying this deal isn't good, but I would assume there's old knob and tube electrical in the walls with dangerous splices that have happened over the years. Did they insulate the walls? The plumbing? New windows but were they installed properly? Things that could potentially be dangerous (Eletric) or just messy (plumbing). If I sent you photos of the electrical issues I've found inside walls your jaw would hit the floor! Just make sure your purchase price leaves you room for these coming repairs.