My Beef With Flippers (Pittsburgh, Dormont: 2013, house, buying)

[svband76]

I'm not arguing against flippers making a profit, but the trend of stripping away any character of a home and replacing with bland new materials is depressing. To wit: the attached Dormont home. Purchased for $67k a mere 5 months ago now listed 4x that much. With updates that are not pretty in the least. At least they kept the stained glass window and didn't sell it, for gosh sakes. This is a How To on making a 100 year old home unrecognizable. Thoughts?

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...4-94751#photo4

[WhoIsStanwix?]

Originally Posted by zalewskimm

I'm not arguing against flippers making a profit, but the trend of stripping away any character of a home and replacing with bland new materials is depressing. To wit: the attached Dormont home. Purchased for $67k a mere 5 months ago now listed 4x that much. With updates that are not pretty in the least. At least they kept the stained glass window and didn't sell it, for gosh sakes. This is a How To on making a 100 year old home unrecognizable. Thoughts?

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...4-94751#photo4

My thoughts are do you have any idea what the house looked like inside? My house is 115 years old and has a similar look inside. You'd probably think I am a terrible soul. What you wouldn't know, however, is that my house had substantial interior damage due to a fire in the 90's and graffiti on the front porch which was painted over. I had all of the paint removed and then spent another grand to have the grafitti removed and repointed the entire house.

[guy2073]

Flippers are in business to make money, they do what sells and makes the most profit. The trend now is to modernize a home with an open floor plan.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by guy2073

Flippers are in business to make money, they do what sells and makes the most profit. The trend now is to modernize a home with an open floor plan.

Bingo.

It doesn’t matter what you like/want, it matters what those who are buying want.

[jea6321]

Blame HGTV and the buyers it has created.

I can't say I'm a fan of the tile choices, but other than that its just a simple, fully updated, move in ready home with a little remaining Pittsburgh charm. I doubt it lasts more than a couple weeks on the market. That is all that any person flipping a house really cares about.

[chao]

lucky if flipper can sell it for 180k+, people way overestimate the profit of flipping business, and in this case, flipper is crazy to ask for almost 250k.

[Doowlle34]

Interestingly, the house just behind that one was also recently flipped, although not on quite so favorable of terms:


https://www.howardhanna.com/Property...stpenn/1316765


Purchased for 125k in March 2017. It was listed just last week and was under contract within 2 or 3 days.


The Tolma house isn't particularly noteworthy to me, in terms of preserving any great details. Ultimately, I think the flippers are doing a great service in Dormont in rehabbing these homes.


Now, if some brave soul(s) would just take on this project:


https://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/re...425404892.html

[Copanut]

I had almost the same type interior when I lived on Mervin, just a block away. The woodwork was not all that great, just like the flipper. I guarantee the bath and kitchen were small and very dated. Windows were probably crap WDH with no storm windows. They did a great job, and I'll guess the house sells for 230K.

[PreservationPioneer]

The most glaring mistake is the white vinyl on the exterior. It is much too high contrast for the dark brick, and looks awful. A dark window with almond or light neutral casing would have been appealing.

I see they opened some walls, but I also see some original woodwork, not that these homes had much to begin with. I wonder what happened to the fireplace and original doors. Perhaps this home wasn't very intact pre-renovation.

While I'm a big critic of what flippers are doing, I've seen much worse.

[PghYinzer]

That is one of the nicer flips I have seen. I actually like it. The living room is still “closed” off but the kitchen is open, which is nice. The staircase looks good and the design of the trim is to the original design. The carpet is probably what I hate the most.

You want a bad flip, no matter how bad the inside is, check this one out.

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...6_M40386-39242

Bought for $47k a year ago. Sold for $220 in a week or so.

This house has a strange selling history though. Someone paid $156k (very high for the time) in 2011. It was then sold to the bank for $1700 in 2013, sat empty for 4 years, and then picked up for 47k.