Flip This House # 7

Parent Cafe
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The video shows how wonderful this house can be. At first I thought that nice boat came with the house!!! Then I realized it was the neighbors dock. How lucky you are to have a dock. There are very few private docks in San Diego harbor (until you get to the Southern Coronado Cays area). To put it in perspective…one of the beautiful homes in Pt Loma with rare private dock on the bay just sold $8.5 million. Mostly for the dock

I’m pretty sure some kind of boat is going to have to be in your budget soon:)

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I too thought that NRE arrived on his boat to meet the inspector. :slight_smile:

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I am getting the new countertops in 2 weeks!!! The material is Cambria (in Berwyn, if anyone is curious). :slight_smile: The templater came to the house to measure,… He was gobsmacked when he saw the existing countertops. Limestone, anyone? I guess anything works when you don’t cook in your kitchen. :slight_smile: Wine stains? Just use a sander to sand them off. B-) That’s what the previous owner’s MO apparently was. Lol.

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Is Cambria a granite color or a material?

I was at a fancy kitchen place this week and they had displays of solid porcelain countertops. They were gorgeous and very intriguing. I’m going to ask my guy if he has ever fabricated the porcelain.

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@coralbrook

Thanks for the long reply! This house would be perfect for you - solid bones, dated interior with questionable design choices, owned by an estate where the heirs Want Their Money Now Because They’ve Been Waiting Forever.

Unfortunately they feel like they have already come down substantially in price - which they have, based on the ridiculous price they started at 2 years ago (yes, it’s been on the market for two years). They had a big (almost 6 digit) price drop a few weeks ago, and they came down another $20K for our offer. So while they are willing to do some of the other work, they aren’t budging on price. We asked for $15K off… no go. And of course now that they have it under agreement supposedly “offers are coming out of the woodwork”. Maybe, maybe not. Since DW is an agent, we are getting 2.5% back as her commission so it could be worse.

Yes, this! I am sure most of this damage is from before they replaced the ancient deck two years ago. And rather than fix the rotten wood they basically papered over it with T-111, and were hoping no one would notice. My inspector (who does an amazing job) noticed the wall is not flat and started pulling the T-111, and it was coming off in his hands - the nails weren’t holding at all.

We’re not happy about how the new deck is attached. Rather than bolting the new ledger board to the side of the house, they used wood spacers to get it away from the house, and bolted through those. So no flashing. We will address this.

They never got the final inspection to close the permit, which they have now agreed to do. We’ll see if the building inspector is ok with it, assuming he even looks closely.

I will do the drywall, electrical (which there is very little), interior trim and painting myself.

The entire house is floored with that horrible shag carpeting, with plywood underneath. In the basement it might be directly on the cement floor. The good news is that the bottom is visually separated from the top by the deck, so if the color isn’t an exact match I don’t think anyone will notice.

Yeah, we got zero. They’ve agreed to fix the leaky plumbing and treat for termites.

We do know some people in the trades, and they are telling me under $10K if I do the drywall and other stuff.

It’s the 70’s! Every single square inch of ceiling is popcorn. I’ll post some more pictures of the Museum of Bad 70’s Decorating, as we are fondly calling it.

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Haha, I wish! That is a sweet looking ride.

Probably only kayaks for a while. :smiley:

The latest potential catastrophe: flood insurance.

The corner of the building is just nicked by the 100 year line on the current FEMA maps, so we will have to get flood insurance. We called our agent to get a quote, and he came back with…

$16,000 per year. :(( :-& X_X

The seller’s agent says they are currently paying about $5K per year, and I’m guessing my insurance agent is not too familiar with how to quote flood insurance. I hope so anyway.

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Ask for their insurance agent and call quickly!!

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$16k? Holy JP Morgan. Shop around. Definitely!

Yeah, our sellers were not really into giving us much. Like 0, until our realtor reminded them the house was not listed as is (we did not want them to do any repairs because their contractors did so much shoddy work). And those mysterious big cheese renters also came out of the woodwork the minute we countered… And the backup offer for “much more” (illegal to have backups here per our agent) appeared at about the same time… :slight_smile: We know the drill. :wink:

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Cb, here is Cambria we are getting:

https://www.cambriausa.com/designs/design-palette/Berwyn/

It complements the paint in the cabinets so well I think I might even forego cabinet refacing! :slight_smile:

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I wish!!! I had backup offers during repair negotiations *

In 17 transactions I only had one verbal and one written backup offer. It’s rare that buyers will ever legally sign a written backup because it ties them up somewhat and they get too emotionally attached. Yes, agents might call as soon as something goes into contract because they have buyers that saw it on the Internet. We always invite them for a showing and it never materializes into anything.

Call their bluff and ask if the other ‘potential’ buyers have toured and inspected the home? Would they like to see your inspection report? Listing agent will back off quickly, especially if you hand her all the inspection reports and document the unpermitted deck. Once those docs are in their hand they have to disclose to any other buyers.

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For flood insurance, if you are in a bad zone, you can ameliorate that by getting an elevation certificate. A surveyor comes out and locates where the lowest finished floor is relative to the flood plain. If it is above, your rates will drop significantly. Around here, rates would go from $4000 to $500/year. Our house was in that situation because we were right on a dividing line between zones. Since then, the zones have changed and are better anyway.

The key is lowest finished floor. If you have a ground level floor or basement - leave it concrete and just paint it. If you put in wood flooring that could be a very expensive decision. I’m not sure about all the types of flooring that would still be considered “unfinished”. Surely there’s more than just concrete.

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I wouldn’t be surprised if they are getting a lot more interest because they did just do a major price cut, which put it to a much more reasonable price considering the work needed.

We are getting that information and I will call Monday.

I posted some pictures of some of the better museum pieces, with a few comments. :smiley:

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Good info. The key is “finished”. So a concrete floor with a big area rug (thrown down after they leave) would reduce insurance premium.

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Good info @greenwitch, thanks.

I added a few photos of the finished part of the basement, which also has a small full bath and laundry room. I’d consider ripping it all out if it saved me thousands in insurance per year.

https://www.■■■■■■■■■■/gp/32532343@N00/8e54s6

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Well, if the building inspector is not OK, that will sure give you a lot of leverage.

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Can you be present and point it out to the inspector or bring it to inspectors attention beforehand?

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In my town, I think you could visit the town hall and have a little chat with the inspector about your concerns. B-)

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I’d definitely make an effort to chat with the inspector prior to the inspection. This is not a trivial matter.

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Thanks for the photos.

That is an abomination of schlocky Spanish decor inside that house!!! Looks like something I would buy:)

I’d be blowing out that kitchen in a minute and opening it up to the living area.

One of my main concerns about that deck is a) it doesn’t look like pressure treated lumber was used for the main structure posts which means that the wood is termite food and subject to moisture rot and b) the wood doesn’t look like it has any sealant whatsoever. You need to slap on some waterproofing stain all over that lumber before it is too late.

I’m not familiar with whether it snows a lot in that area. I’m hoping the home inspector checked that those posts are set into concrete and raised up above the dirt so they are not in contact with dirt, water or snow (I am sure he did).

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That’s the long term plan! It will be delayed a few years because we need to use the renovation budget just to buy the place.

The deck seems pretty well built. Pressure treated wood everywhere, including the posts. The posts are on concrete footings which are above ground level. There’s blocking in between the joists. There’s a lag bolt in between every pair of joists all the way across.

Spacing the ledger away from the house is a valid way to build it AFAIK. Considering there are no gutters (something else we need to remedy) it might even be a better way to do it.

The Cape doesn’t usually get a lot of snow, but it doesn’t get zero either.

Staining the deck is one of the first things to do. The deck is two years old and the wood is pretty dried out.