For real estate experts, why is it that when they do their walk through they never find anything? I would fire that contractor because he supposedly checks the house and gives the thumbs up, but when work starts they find all this obvious damage. All the sudden they happen to find termite damage. Every other house they find the same issues, why not check for those problems from the get go?
shareI wonder about that too.
I can understand when it's damage way inside the walls, but sometimes, it's termite damage on the surface of the wood and that should be noticed by the contractor for sure. Example: I remember there was one home that was purchased by the couple, and that old house was almost completely covered by termite damage,so then they had to practically tear that house down and rebuilt it from scratch! That was a scary Flip!
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I wondered this too, I guess since they're doing cash payments instead of going through a bank they skip this part of buying a home. Banks as far as I know require them but if you're paying cash for it, then it doesn't really matter to them and they get to save a few hundred dollars. Plus it makes for great "drama" when they find something horribly wrong that an inspection would have found.
shareI think it's that they want to move quickly, and with an all-cash offer and accepting to buy the house as-is, they aren't negotiating with the seller to fix this or that as a condition of the sale. All cash, as-is will get a house sold very quickly.
shareHow real is reality TV? The show is 30 minutes. There is more that is filmed, yet not shown. I guarantee you that they do inspections and find problems. They just make it look like a surprise because it creates more drama.
This. Like everyone else who's noticed and posted, the surprises happen much too often, so I think its intentional.
share2 things
1. Home inspectors suck. They rarely find anything. One house we personally flipped we had an inspector inspect as we got a mortgage on it and the bank required it. All he came back with was some obvious stuff about paint chipping and the house needing new windows. When it came time to redo the kitchen we found out that the house's plumbing was a mess and needed to be re-done. Same with the wiring when we opened up the walls. They just want to come in, dot some I's and get a check for $500.
2. They buy alot of these houses without access inside them, which is common with foreclosures where the tenants still live there or other reasons the banks don't let you in, and if they do you aren't allowed to open up walls and plumbing to do the inspection. That doesn't let the contractor to find things. And even if they do scan, there's alot of things you can't find out about until you start opening things up when you're doing work.
Inspection are not a waste. It is up to the home buyer to research and find a reputable inspector. We moved from Los Angeles to Providence. The guy we hired saved us from buying a horrific home that seemed like a good house. It was a flip and the person did very shoddy work. We pulled the offer as soon as the inspector completed the walk through. The list of issues was very long. There are also certain things inspectors have no control over. They can't rip open walls or put scopes through every pipe. We used the same inspector for the house we are currently in and he was thorough and up front about all issues.
shareI was gonna make a post but this is basically what it would've been. Same thing for me, I've bought 5 houses recently. The first one we did a traditional mortgage and had an inspection on it. The guy found nothing and even put in the report that he didn't check things like the roof and foundation because it is as the winter so snow was around the foundation and he didn't have a ladder that could reach the roof. Needless to say as soon as we took apart the walls and tried to replace the kitchen sink we found out that the electrical had to be completely redone as well as the plumbing. Both things we found in 30 seconds.
The other 4 houses we paid cash and just had our contractor go through it with us and other than a small thing like finding out a wall we thought wasn't load barring end up being load barring. We had no issues. Inspections are just a scam that banks buy into as it helps reduce their risk. Any real issues an inspector can't find as you need to start ripping open walls to see them.
Plus like you said, plenty of them are occupied and can't be walked through.
If they did there would be no show. They save it for the "DRAMA". It really sucks that HGTV thinks all the viewers are dumb enough to fall for it.
shareExactly.....I have no doubt these homes are well inspected beforehand and they know what issues the house has. The process of "discovering" these problems is just played out as if it were a surprise for the camera so we can see Tarek get that look on his face like he is getting ready to have a stroke or something.
shareSurprised that no one knew the actual answer to this question. Its not done for TV drama or any of the other reason that posters on here guessed. They aren't buying properties that were foreclosed by the bank yet. They are buying properties at the county auction BEFORE the banks forecloses on them. You are not allowed to inspect these houses. You have to buy them as is and with cash. You must have a certain percentage of your final bid to give to the county on the day you win the property. You must then deliver the full amount of the bid within 3-5 days or you lose your deposit and the house is auctioned again.
At these auctions anyone can bid on the property including the bank. However, the representative for the bank gets free credit for the amount that the bank is owed on the property. Here is an example:
-House is estimated to be worth $450K and is in the process of foreclosure with the bank being owed $380K.
-So the bank representative can bid up to $380K without paying anything. So if the highest bid for this auction is for $380K by the bank; they get the property without paying another dime. The banks usually has a formula they use to determine how much they will bid on a house to get the best return. Sometimes it is higher then the amount they are owed.
-After making calculations for the above house they may decide that its worth $395K to them. They will bid up to this amount. If individuals bid higher then the $395K the bank stops bidding and the person with the highest bid now owns the property.
-If the highest bid is by the bank then the house is officially foreclosed on by the bank and will be listed as a "foreclosure" on the MLS. This is the type of foreclose people think Tarek and Christina are buying. These foreclosures do allow inspections. However, all their properties are bought at the county auction so that's why they cant do inspections before they buy.
As for the properties they buy on the MLS I suspect they put in a "no inspection" clause so that their offer is more attractive vs the other offers. Many times a bank/buyer would rather take a $5-10K lower offer with no inspection clause then an offer where they require an inspection with the right to cancel the contract if a certain dollar threshold worth of repairs is discovered by the inspector.
Exactly! A *no inspection* clause can make an offer to the seller very attractive even if it is several thou below asking.
shareThey know exactly what they're getting into. All of that drama is fake for tv.
share