Buying a Flipped House:
What Fresh Paint and New Floors Can Cover Up
A flip puts its money where buyers look. The inspection spends its time on the places they don’t.
A flipped house usually looks great in the photos. New floors, new paint, new kitchen. That’s the part the flipper paid for, because that’s what sells.
The inspection spends its time somewhere else: the attic, the crawlspace or basement, the electrical panel, the furnace, the roof. Those are the places a flip may not have touched, or touched only enough to cover.
Russ doesn’t always know whether a house he inspects was flipped. But fresh cosmetic work shows up in his reports often enough that the patterns are clear.
How to tell a house was flipped
Look at the sale history. A house that sold in the last 12 months and is back on the market with new finishes was probably bought to resell. The listing or any real estate site will show the dates.
A few other clues tend to come with it. The seller is an LLC. Nobody has lived there since the work was done. The seller disclosure has a lot of “unknown” answers, because the seller owned the house for a few months and never lived in it. The seller disclosure post explains what those forms cover and what they can’t.
None of this means the work is bad. It means you’re relying more on the inspection and less on someone’s memory of the house.
What fresh finishes can cover
Paint is cheap, and it covers stains. Russ writes up fresh paint when it’s in a spot that makes him wonder why. From his recent reports:
- Two freshly painted spots on a Portland family room ceiling. Paint in patches on a ceiling is a common way to cover a water stain.
- Ceilings painted in several areas of a Woodburn house, in a report that also noted roof problems.
- Basement walls, ceilings, and floors repainted in a Portland house, and foundation walls and framing painted or primed in a Gladstone basement. Fresh paint can cover old water staining, efflorescence (the white mineral crust water leaves on concrete), and cracks.
- A Vancouver basement with fresh paint and new carpet in the finished part, and moisture staining and apparent mold growth on the walls in the unfinished part. The report noted the new finishes may be hiding the same thing.
- Another Vancouver basement that had recently been finished, with moisture staining already showing on the new carpet near an exterior wall.
- New foam ceiling tiles in a Clackamas house, which can hide stains from roof leaks.
- A brand-new crawlspace vapor barrier in a Portland house, with moisture stains still visible at the bases of the posts and poor grading outside.
A new vapor barrier is an improvement. So is new paint. The report doesn’t treat either as a defect. It points out that they can hide what was there before, and that asking the seller is the next step.
Real Inspection Photos
Fresh Work From Russ's Inspections
Recent updates Russ has written up, and what was under or around them.
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Black roofing tar smeared around a vent pipe on a new roof. Heavy tar like this often stands in for flashing that wasn't installed right. -
A moisture stain on new carpet in a recently finished basement, near an exterior wall. -
Foundation walls and framing freshly painted or primed. Paint can cover old water stains and efflorescence. -
New foam ceiling tiles. They look fine, and they can hide stains from an old roof leak. -
A new washer box with the drain cap still in place, so the drain had never been run. The report asked for permits for the work.
The new work, and how it was done
The other half of a flip is the work you can see. New doesn’t always mean done right. These come from houses with recent updates in Russ’s reports:
- A new roof with heavy black roofing tar smeared around the vent penetrations and across shingles, a common sign of flashing that wasn’t installed right.
- Newly installed vinyl windows with uneven gaps around the frames and sashes that didn’t operate well.
- A shower with poorly installed tile and grout, where the bigger worry is the waterproofing behind it.
- Replacement plastic water pipe that wasn’t supported or secured properly at the joints.
- A new washing machine drain with the factory cap still on it, so nobody had ever run water through it.
- Wiring added after the house was built, with no way to tell from the outside whether it was permitted.
- Floor joists and support posts under one Portland house that had been cut, notched, and poorly supported during past work. That one went to a structural engineer. The post on when a structural engineer comes in covers that step.
The unpermitted work post goes deeper on what it means when a remodel has no permit history.
What stays old under the new finishes
A flip often updates the kitchen and bathrooms and leaves the systems buyers don’t tour. Depending on the flip, that can mean the original furnace, the water heater, the electrical panel, or the sewer line.
The report gives an approximate age for equipment when a data plate or label is readable. Older furnaces usually run 15 to 20 years and air conditioners 12 to 15, so a 1990s furnace behind a new kitchen is worth knowing about. The water heater age post shows how to read the date off a label yourself.
The sewer line is the one nobody can see. A sewer scope from a plumber is recommended on every home, and a flip is no exception. The sewer scope post covers what it shows.
Permits and the flipper’s license
Two things are worth checking on a flip, and both are public.
Start with permits. Ask the seller for permits and final inspections for the electrical, plumbing, structural, and roofing work. Trusted Home Inspections offers a property history report for $25, which pulls permit records for the address from both BuildFax and BuildChek. Permits show type, date, status, and the contractor on record. Coverage varies by jurisdiction and by decade, so a missing permit is a question to ask, not proof the work was unpermitted.
Then the flipper’s license. Oregon law counts a person who buys a house to remodel and resell it as a contractor, so a flipper generally needs a license from the Construction Contractors Board. In Washington, the owner exemption in RCW 18.27.090 doesn’t cover someone doing contractor work on their own property to sell it, so the work generally calls for a registered contractor. You can look up an Oregon license on the CCB website and a Washington registration through L&I’s contractor lookup. A license also tells you who did the work, which is useful if something comes up later.
For a house on the Washington side, the post on unpermitted work in Vancouver covers how that plays out in Clark County.
What the inspection does with a flip
The inspection is the same visual, non-invasive inspection Russ does on any house, under the Oregon and Washington Standards of Practice. He can’t see under new flooring or behind new drywall. What he can do is look hard at the places the flip didn’t reach and note anything that suggests recent work is covering something.
- What work was done, and by whom?
- Were permits pulled, and did they get final inspections?
- Why were these areas painted (any spot the report calls out)?
- Was there any water in the basement, crawlspace, or attic before the work?
- How old are the furnace, water heater, and roof?
- Are there receipts or warranties for the roof, windows, or vapor barrier?
The report comes with photos and approximate ages, and most reports go out the same day. That leaves time inside the inspection window to get answers to the questions above.
On a flip, the new parts are the easy parts to see. The inspection spends its time on what the flip left alone and on spots where fresh finishes may be covering something. Permits, receipts, and a license lookup fill in the rest.
To get a flipped house inspected, you can book online any day of the week.
Flipped House FAQ
