Deal or No Deal?

Charles Cutler, my favorite child, has described me as “retro”. He flew up from his home in Houston for a visit and was horrified when he realized he would be spending four days in a house with no cable TV. Yikes! No Sponge Bob! No cartoon channel!

Well, Charles, it’s now safe to come back! Your retro friend has finally enterred the 21st Century. My lower level tenant called Comcast and made it happen. So after years of resisting, I’m discovering, not just much improved reception, but a whole new world of real estate related programming.

Last night, I had an hour to spare before Desperate Housewives came on at 9:00. I found an interesting program on AETV called “Flip This House”. It featured a ruthless flipper who bought low – real low – then did a two week fix-up, during which he made his poor slob contractor bleed. The guy had 14 days and a budget of $8,700 for the spruce up. And this included knocking out some walls and fixing up the kitchen and baths.

Now, there were plumbers and electricians (who knows if they were licensed) crawling all over the place, but no mention of the code inspectors. Nastiness in the back yard was buried under mulch and a low-to-the-ground deck. They actually spray painted the grass in the front yard.

They sold the house at auction, and the eager bidders showed up about an hour before the sale. And not one of them thought to bring a home inspector! Then, voila, the show’s climax was the auctioneer calling “Sold” to some poor woman who felt really, really lucky. Such a deal?

The Flipster doubled his money in two weeks time. It would have been a really nice touch if he’d offered his stung out contractor a few thousand dollar bonus, but no.

Over the years, I’ve worked with some renovators who bought homes, renovated and then resold them. They used licensed contractors who had building permits posted in the windows, and they did quality work that usually took many months to complete. If the people who bought their renovated homes had any post settlement issues, they made things right.

Somehow, I doubt that last night’s auction winner will have that experience.

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