flipper's houses

Hey folks, I’m thinking about buying one of them flipper’s houses in bed stuy and surrounding areas.  Anybody come across Masada/Prime Homes and the like while house shopping?  Can I trust that their electrical and plumbing etc passed inspection?  Is inspection by the city an automatic thing when gutting the whole house?  Or, is inspection only required when they have to file a permit?   thanks for any input!

jaesee75

in Construction 12 years and 1 month ago

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jaesee75 | 12 years and 1 month ago

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thanks for the input everybody! I think we’re going to skip on those houses.  We will continue the hunt for a decently priced house that we can reno ourselves.  take care!

kachuri999 | 12 years and 1 month ago

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My advice is to avoid properties sold by Massada, they’re very sketchy and their renos are cheap-o. I’m not a big fan of Prime Homes either, but am not as familiar with their reno jobs. I do remember a guy from Prime Homes going door to door on our block the day after hurricane Sandy offering cash for homes…great timing.

Springs | 12 years and 1 month ago

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Lipstick on the pig……buyer beware

BSDOD | 12 years and 1 month ago

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From what I’ve seen, rarely are permits pulled by these guys and unless you can work with them mid flip, there is no way to determine what is going on behind the walls, floors and ceilings. There is so much unpermitted work in brooklyn that very few houses will have all permitted work in it’s 100+ year history.

BobMarvin | 12 years and 1 month ago

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They don’t have a great reputation. However, you can easily check for permits on the DOP website. I’ve found the easiest way to access that is through OASIS Map: www.oasisnyc.net/map.aspx   Just enter the house address, click on “Location Report” click on search and then “Location Report” and go to “NYC Dept of Buildings” If a permit was obtained I think you can rely on some level of inspection (if there’s no record of a permit having been applied for RUN). However, with ANY house purchase, it is incumbent on the would-be buyer to always have their own inspection done.

slopefarm | 12 years and 1 month ago

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I do not know the flippers you mention, but had a bad experience with flippers. But as a general rule, if the flippers are buying unrenovated houses and then selling them as renovated, it is unlikely they are flipping without doing work that should require a permit. You can look up any address on the Buildings Department website to see whether there was a permit. 1\. See if there is a job filed and permit pulled. I would be cautious of a house that a flipper is presenting as renovated if there was no job filed. Ask a lot of questions about what they did and did not do — no point in paying a reno premium if all they did was cosmetic. And if they tell you they did the mechanicals (plumbing, electrical, heat, etc.) then you want to know why they did not file a job or pull a permit. 2\. If there is a job filed, you can the scope of the work and see whether the flipeprs are self-certifying the job or whether it is subject to inspection. Look to see if there is a violation history for the work. See whether the scope of the work filed matches the scope of the work they tell you they did. Be wary of there is a big mismatch.