Went to an open house (rant/laughter/moronic owners)

[IHateMyJob2004]

Well, the house was nice overall. They were asking $500K. $2700 square foot home. Problem is that everything that is in the house is the cheapest you can buy. There were alot of new lighting fixtures. But my background also tells me that htey are the cheapest thing you can find. The chandolier over the dining room table couldn't have been more than $100. Forget Home Depot. The thing looks like it's from Wal-Mart. The kitchen cabinets are OK, but they are also the cheapest thing from Home Depot you can get.

They redid the master bath and you guessed it. The vanity is the cheapest thing you can get at Home Depot. The new spa has stains from hard water, but do you think they spent any money putting in a water softner knowing there is hard water? And I'm talking about a stain they couldn't even clean to show the home. It is that bad. Same thing for the half bath on the first floor. Chepest crap in there.

And they did a paint job on their own. You can tell because the areas where two colors meet are not in a straight line. You can easily do a straight line, but why bother taking the extra 5 minutes. LAZY bastards.

What am I getting at? Everything in this home is done cheeply. They are trying to sell the home and didn't even bother to paint the ceiling where a water stain is. This stain is in the great room! FAirly important room to make nice if you ask me.

I had to laugh when I took a peak in the garage to see how big it was. Remember, it's very apparent these people can't afford even average quality items for the home. And they drive a Mercedes and BMW! Not the cheepo ones. Middle of the line somewhere. 5 series BMW....

Oh, and by looking through the home, I'm guessing it will go for about $400K. I can easily see putting $30K into the home immediately (new kitchen) and hte popcorn ceilings have to go in some of the rooms. And just about every single chandolier/lighting fixture has to go. And there is pretty much no basmeent for storage. What little basement there is, is finished as an exercise area.

The cars though. It just killed me that they spend all their money on an item that looses value over time, but they ignore their home. So superficial.

Cliff Notes:
0) Went to an Open House
1) People are cheapskates when it comes to their home.
2) They drive expensive cars
3) laughter ensues. (reason: superficiality)

 

[RagingBITCH]

Maybe b/c they didn't care about their house to begin with, just wanted a temporary house before they moved in somewhere else?

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
Maybe b/c they didn't care about their house to begin with, just wanted a temporary house before they moved in somewhere else?

They've been there atleast 5 years. Cars are new since they moved in.

 

[DaveJ]

Sounds like the people who owned my parents' house before they bought it... The house itself is well built, but everything inside is cheap. The cabinets in the kitchen don't even have backs, they just spraypainted the drywall brown to make it look like they do. They painted over the hideous 1970's *orange* wallpaper in the kitchen, and all of the counters were resurfaced with this textured gritty material that is a bitch to clean. I could go on and on about the crap the previous owners did to that house, but it'd take me all day... I have no idea how people can be that cheap, especially when they appear to have money...

Dave

 

[flamingelephant]

Funny stuff,
When we refinished our house to sell it, we certainly didnt buy cheap crap. We didnt have that much money, but good quality stuff isn't that much more.... Quality vanity tops over the cheapest home depot ones. We got lots of returned special order stuff and make it work, and turned out well. (oh, HD doesnt let you return s/o stuff anymore, so cant really do that now)

 

[Argo]

You know, I'm all for overpaying for cars, but damn you gotta put some money into a house.

 

[b0mbrman]

Maybe the marginal benefit of improving their house is way less than the marginal benefit of improving their cars...dunno. I can see doing that as I really enjoy driving and very few people ever visit my little condo here.

In fact, based on what my place is worth, the cars I have now, and what my next car may be, you can see that I'd be very much like those people...

 

[flot]

So, while the things you listed may have impacted the selling price of the house, you seem to be overlooking the obvious, that maybe they just didn't care.

I bought a house that was remodeled in similar fasion - everything was near-bottom-of-the-line and like you I noticed this - however, the truth is, it all works fine. Even the $99 home depot dishwasher looks fine and has been working great since I moved in. I figure the guy probably spent ~$20k remodeling to do it cheaply, but if he had only spent $25-28k it would have been really nice. But you know what? He made $70k on the deal so it didn't matter to him.

There is also the other extreme. I have one friend who put $4500 in blinds into his house (when $1000 would have done just fine) that he'll NEVER get back, and another who put in a $20,000 kitchen that looks nice, but for $10,000 he would have gotten 90% of the same look and feel... it's all about what you want to put your money into.

 

[Budmantom]

Sounds like they will be laughing all the way to the bank.


Tom

 

[z0mb13]

which area is this?

CA?

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Budmantom
all the way to the bank.

"nice..."

 

[Modeps]

It's very possible that they knew their fixtures looked like crap previously, so they bought some new shiny ones on the cheap to 'spruce' up the look.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

I hate half-arsed remodeling jobs on houses. I learned most of what I know helping my sister and brother-in-law turn a sixty to seventy thousand dollar house into a five hundred thousand dollar house in Seattle. With the property values there, it's probably worth even more now. I wouldn't be able to do that kind of crap the OP mentioned if working on my own dwelling. Maybe if I was being paid to work on a place owned by someone else.

It's amazing what you find when you are tearing things apart to remodel. Beneath the orange (I think it was orange) shag carpet in the entry, living room and den was a very nice hardwood floor that required nothing more than a bit of sanding and refinishing. After tearing out one stairway, a second stairway was discovered beneath the first one. The gap in between was filled with sawdust and scraps of wood, and a pair of shoes was sticking out of the sawdust. Thankfully, no one was in them.