I'm a Realtor and your experience is very typical of "flippers". This is why I'm not a fan generally of flipping when the work is done by someone not skilled. Not all flips are awful, but it is more common than most people know. It is far better IMO/IME to get the house prior to the work and do it with a qualified contractor. It's a very good thing you cancelled the contract. There are other issues that show up once you close that the home inspector doesn't see.

Now, I can say that what the Listing Realtor did would be absolutely wrong in our MLS. We have 48 hours to change the status from active to pending or contingent and if it isn't changed, then the listing agent is fined. Consider notifying the agent's broker of her actions. I hope you are able to find something better for your daughter.

A young friend of mine bought a flipped house. The basement flooded halfway up the wall the first time it rained. When the drywall was torn out, mold was found growing rampant behind the walls. She had to move out and has been fighting a lawsuit for over three years. She hasn’t lived in the house yet. The house passed inspection three times before she moved in.

They don't say let the buyer beware for nothing.......every one wants a deal and they want to believe what they want to believe......you can buy a house with an inspection or not, and still get a bad house. For every one bad house there are probably 10,000 good houses.....you just have to be careful and get it all in writing.....that is a good reason to find the best realtor you can and it doesn't hurt to read a book on what to look for when buying a house....good and bad on both sides, so do your due diligence when spending on the biggest thing you will ever buy in your entire life. Just sayin' that if you think other people will take care of your end and not their end when money is involved, then maybe you should not be buying a house.

During our house hunting process, we got in the habit of checking the sale history on every house we were remotely interested in to weed out obvious flips. The ubiquitous gray walls and wood-look vinyl floors combo was the other dead giveaway.

We ended up with an old fixer upper house that has had very little done with it over the last century or so. We have typical old house problems, but we knew this going in. Quite different than thinking you've bought a cute turnkey house and having all sorts of hidden defects and shoddy workmanship lurking behind the walls.

If you guys want a real flipper horror story, look up the saga of the hoodwinked house. Not sure if the website is up anymore, but dang it was bad. To add to the woe and misery, the unfortunate buyer made some dumb and expensive DIY mistakes trying to fix the flipper problems. He really should have ripped everything down to the studs and started from there or burned it down and tried to convince insurance it was an accident. Or sold it again as is for a loss. It was really really bad.

^This. As a Realtor, I very occasionally see a flipped house where the house systems were replaced if needed (roof, HVAC, electrical, plumbing). Most of the time the flipper does the absolute minimum and those improvements are cosmetic only. Not good for the buyer at all as they are paying top dollar and then they have to do the real work once they close. As you can tell, I'm no fan of those homes from fast and cheap flippers (my terminology).

This is why I hate TV shows about any usual DIY work you have no idea of the background and how much the people love what they got a year later. I takes huge skill to renovate a house we have done it and we still get a good electrician and plumber to do the work we are not experienced enough to feel safe doing ourselves.

I almost got into a flipper but my inspector caught a lot over price home as well. Lost my earnes money had a uninterestEd realoter she didn’t care at all. The house was pretty but ugly underneath. I chan my mind I still believe I should have gotten my money back. The house sold 3 weeks later so why I didn’t get my money back. They fought me threatened court because I didn’t want that mess

Flipped homes are virtually NEVER a good idea. Your interests as a buyer are diametrically opposed. The flipper has zero interest in providing a good quality home renovation.

Their goal: meet minimum cosmetic and legal requirements for the cheapest possible price with materials that will last at least as long as it takes to close a sale.

Your goal: pay for a newly renovated home that has been safely and competently renovated and updated with quality materials that will avoid a situation where you need to do further major repairs or renovations in the near future.

Those two goals nearly never overlap in any meaningful way. There are some flippers out there that do good work, but not many.

Our house was a flipped house. Our realtor, a family member involved in the repairs/improvements on the house, showed us this house. We looked at 9 houses, total and this one still fit our needs. We know that the hot water heater, gas furnace, kitchen remodel (cabinets & appliances), 2 bathroom remodels (toilets and 1 shower) & laminate floors were all new. I had assumed that a family member would indicate there was an issue with this house because the others we looked at, there were comments and concerns mentioned. I figured we were getting a good house with minimal issues. The first month, we kept having electrical issues and after three months, we figured out what the problem was and had an electrician fix the problem who informed us that he was surprised the house didn't go up in flames. We had faucet & drain issues in the kitchen and drain issues in the bathrooms within the first month. Microwave above the range was wired into the garage circuit and we had to call an electrician for a new circuit. Range & dishwasher, although they were new, very inexpensive. Dishwasher is very noisy and the oven will get so hot on the range after an hour it melts the counter tops and you can't touch the top around the burners without using an oven mitt. Just over a year after we moved in, I had one of the toilets shift while I was on it and flipped me into the bathtub. We removed the toilet and discovered that there were two wax rings and nothing to attach the toilet to. The plumber said that the only thing that prevented us from having a mess under the house was the two wax rings they installed. The flange was so rusted there was nothing there to attached the toilet to and the hole in the floor was so big and dry rot that the toilet would have fallen through the floor if it wasn't for the vinyl flooring holding it up. He also discovered that the support beams were replace with 2-2 X 4's and were bowed to the point of cracking under the toilet. Just this month we discovered that the garage door going to the backyard had not been secured to the house. We had put on the molding around the door inside the garage, right after we moved in and it was cracking and realized the bottom section to the mid section of the door was outside. Right after we fixed that, we found a leak under sink in kitchen. It was attached to pipe inside the wall. We removed the old one pipe and figured we get a new one and replace it. It turned out that they had used plumbers putty all around the connection to keep it from leaking around the connection from the hose to the pipe inside the wall. I called our wonderful plumber and the next day he had to remove all of the drain system and replace the "T" inside the wall because someone had cut the threaded section off from the pipe. He did educate us on the proper plumbing for a house and told us it was not up to code under the sinks. I really trusted our family member who sold us this house and now we have issues, which is sad. I wouldn't recommend buying a flipped house. We are still doing cosmetic stuff and are finally replacing the horrible dishwasher and range. I would say that if you're not wanting to do the work yourself, don't buy a flipped house. If you don't mind doing some of the work yourself, do your own remodel, at least you'll know for sure what's been done.