I appraised a renovated flip recently. Before I had finished setting down my clipboard, I had counted five things wrong with the work, all of them visible from the middle of the room.
I am not a home inspector. I did not open a panel, pull a vent cover, or crawl under anything. I stood in a kitchen and looked around, which is the same thing any buyer does at a showing.
Here is what was sitting there in plain sight.
Standard white subway tile, run partway up, and then it changes. Flat glossy tile butted directly against beveled tile in the same field, same wall, no transition, no attempt to hide it.
They ran out of the style they started with and finished with whatever the store had. That is a decision somebody made on purpose, looked at, and left.
Stacked stone veneer around the firebox, with individual pieces visibly pulling away and sitting proud of the courses around them. Gaps you can see from across the room. This is a finish that had been installed weeks earlier, not years.
Nice looking fixture over the range. I put one finger on the end of the arm and the whole thing gave. A pot filler runs a water line inside a wall directly above a cooking appliance. It is not a decorative item. If the mounting is loose, the question is what the connection behind it looks like.
Open one drawer and the construction tells you the budget. Joints that do not close, boxes out of square, fronts that do not sit flush with their neighbors. Cabinets are one of the most expensive line items in a renovation and one of the easiest places to quietly save money.
Tile feature wall, mount installed, and the tile simply stops where the TV will cover it. Whoever did it decided that section did not count because nobody would see it.
That is the one that tells you the most, and I will come back to it.
Every defect above is cosmetic. Individually, none of them is expensive. You could fix the whole list for a few thousand dollars.
That is not the point.
Finish work is the part of a renovation that gets photographed. It goes in the listing. It is what buyers walk through and what the flipper is actively trying to impress you with. It is the showroom.
So when the showroom has two kinds of tile on one wall and stone falling off the fireplace, you are not looking at a crew that ran out of time at the end. You are looking at the standard of care for the entire job.
The tile behind the television is the clearest example. Somebody stood there, decided the covered section did not need to be finished, and moved on. Now apply that same thinking to the places that are covered permanently. Wiring inside a wall. Plumbing connections behind cabinets. Framing under new flooring. Flashing behind siding. Whether the electrical work was permitted and inspected at all.
Nobody photographs any of that. Nobody is ever going to see it. If the exposed work was done to a standard of “good enough, they will not notice,” the hidden work was done to the same standard, and it costs a great deal more to correct.
I want to be fair about this, because I appraise a lot of renovated property and the range is enormous.
Some of the best work I see comes from investors who do this full time, pull permits, use the same trades on every project, and treat their reputation as the asset. Their houses show it. Consistent materials, clean transitions, work finished in places nobody will ever look.
And some of what I see is a coat of paint, new counters, and a prayer.
Both are on the market at the same time, in the same neighborhoods, photographed by the same kind of wide angle lens, priced off the same comparable sales. From the listing photos you cannot tell them apart. That is the actual problem.
This gets confused constantly, so it is worth separating.
An appraiser develops an opinion of market value. I observe the characteristics of the property that affect that value and I analyze the market it sits in. Condition and quality of construction are part of my analysis, which is why I noticed everything above. But I am not performing a technical examination of the systems in the house, and my report is not a warranty of condition.
A home inspector examines the systems and components: structure, roof, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and the rest. That is a different scope, a different credential, and a different report.
Neither one replaces the other. The appraisal tells you whether the price makes sense against the market. The inspection tells you what you are actually buying. On a flip, where essentially all of the work is recent and none of it is work you watched happen, you want both answers.
Buyers go unrepresented more often than they used to. Sometimes it is a deal with a builder or investor directly, sometimes it is an attempt to save on commission, sometimes the seller offers a discount to skip the agent.
Whatever the reason, understand what you gave up. In that transaction, every other person at the table is being paid by the seller or has an interest in the deal closing. Nobody in the room is being paid to tell you not to buy it.
An independent appraiser and a home inspector are the two people you can hire who have no stake in whether you close. That is the entire value of it.
Yes, and order it yourself rather than relying on the lender’s appraisal. A lender’s appraisal is prepared for the lender to support its loan decision. An appraisal you order independently answers your question, which is whether the price is supported by the market.
Not the way an inspection does. An appraiser observes condition and quality of construction because those affect value, so obvious defects get noted. But an appraisal is not a technical examination of the home’s systems and is not a substitute for a home inspection.
Materials that change partway through a run, finishes already failing on recent work, fixtures that are loose, cabinetry that does not close square, and unfinished surfaces in spots that will be covered by furniture or appliances. Visible shortcuts in the showroom areas suggest the same approach was taken where you cannot see.
Arguably more. With no lender involved, no appraisal happens at all unless you order one, and nobody else in the transaction is checking whether the price is supported.
Yes. A pre-offer appraisal is ordered by you, for you, with no lender involved, and it is a common step for unrepresented buyers and cash buyers who want an independent read on price before they commit.
You are not buying a kitchen. You are buying every decision the crew made in the months before you walked in, including all the ones that are now permanently behind a wall.
The visible work is your only sample of that.
I have been appraising in the DC metro area for 34 years, more than 15,000 appraisals, and I work with buyers directly on renovated and flipped property. If you are looking at one and want an independent opinion of value before you commit, call or text 703-350-2542.
Fix and flip appraisal services
Mike Giampa is a Certified Residential Appraiser licensed in Virginia, Washington DC, and Maryland. This article describes general observations about renovated property and is not an inspection report or advice about any specific home.
