Where to start when considering buying a "flipped" house in Brooklyn?

Today there will be an open house in Bed Sty. A reader here sent me an inquiry about my services and sent the address of the open house. I have checked and the house is a flip. what we mean by a “flip” is that the house was renovated with the purpose of selling it for a fast profit with the current owner ever having occupied it. its all about money.

In the case of many of these houses, including today’s open house, the person renovating the flip often makes the decision to remove the entry vestibule and remove the partition wall (and pocket doors) in the main hallway to open the main floor up. Doing so is very attractive to unsuspecting (and often young) buyers who prefer an open floorplan. The division of the spaces in the original, old houses was not done to create small dark rooms; it was done to enable the occupants to restrict air movement and easily heat smaller spaces in a time before modern insulation and central heating. Flippers, in their infinite wisdom, often do not change the 19th century entry doors (they are part of the curb appeal and recreat ing new a new but traditional looking entry door unit will cost over $20k) and make no effort to insulate and seal the old ones.

The old, double doors are very hard to seal and seal in a professional looking manner. the reason the flipper does not attempt to do it is because what they will end up using some adhesive backed foam which will look like crap to a potential buyer. so they leave the doors with the gap between them ( which you will not see because they are blocked by an astragal) and since they do not know that there are decent looking wood capped sweeps available by special order (in my other company, the tinkers wagon, i make them) and they do not want to put Home Depot looking brass sweeps on the doors, they leave the gap underneath.

Every winter we get calls from people who buy these houses and find themselves very unhappy as they sit in their home and suffer all sorts of cold air coming in. they tell me the kids can’t play on the floor and that the cold air is running up the heating bill (this is the truth) and i arrive and tell them it is going to be very hard for me to seal the current doors (the trick is the keep the vestibule and seal the SINGLE door, that can be done with ease). since i don’t want unhappy customers, i often refuse the attempt to seal them).

If you will be going to today’s flip… i am not telling you the address because i do not want a rock through my window, but i will tell you this. if you are going to any flip and it has the original entry doors do this: go to the top floor of the house. open a window. leave the door open to the room where you opened the window. go back to the entry doors, close them tightly, and check the draft. what you will feel is called “stack effect” and even the best sealed houses have it (houses are ‘giant chimneys’ is what i tell people). if you have fire places with drafty flues, it will be worse (and i would not put it past people selling homes to block the flues as they are showing the houses in an effort to slow this down).

if you know anyone looking to buy a flip, send them to me. i have worked in buildings and construction since 1980 and have had to deal with all sorts of people – some honest, some not so honest. if they have done something wrong and i can find it without opening walls and lifting flooring (inferior sub flooring is another thing they do; putting glue down wood floor on fiberboard; when that stuff gets wet, it expands; the manufacturers of wood flooring explain what the flooring has to go down on and these people do the wrong thing anyway), i will find it.

Steve
www.brownstonehomeinspection.com