To any aspiring house flippers out there: listen up!
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Real estate photographer Greg Hendry (@atlanta.rep) recently revealed what not to do when flipping a house in a viral video with over 400,000 views, posted last Friday.
They put what on the stairs?
“Alright these contractors of this house used OSB board on the stairs and then just stained it, and that’s how they’re gonna sell it,” Hendry begins.
“OSB” stands for “Oriented strand board,” a type of wood paneling made by compressing layers of wood strands. If you’ve ever seen the mottled beginnings of walls at a construction site, you’ve likely seen OSB board in action.
“Check this out,” Hendry prompts before flipping the camera to reveal the OSB stairs in question. “Look at that,” he states, zooming in on the dark, flaky paneling on the staircase.
That wasn’t the only suspicious thing he found in the home.
“There’s a couple other things I’m gonna show you with this house but—it goes all the way up,” Hendry says as he swings the camera to show the paneling at the top of the stairs. He then heads up them, inviting the viewer to “check this crazy room out” at the top of the stairs.
“You come up the stairs and then you see this room here,” he says, showing an awkwardly-shaped alcove with a doorway tucked into it. “It just kinda looks like it was extra attic space.”
Hendry opens the door and enters a dark little hallway leading into a room.
“They just laid some flooring down,” he guesses as he flips on the lights. “I dunno, I guess you use this as a closet.” He reaches the room at the end of the hall, a small square space. The camera circles the tiny room once before Hendry turns around and walks back the way he came.
What’s wrong with the master shower?
“And then you gotta see the master shower,” he insists as he leaves. “This is crazy.”
The video cuts to a large, open bathroom with marble flooring. Against the far wall, there’s a large bathtub with a shower with a glass door tucked into the corner next to it.
Between the tub and shower, there’s a dividing piece of wall. Hendry focuses the camera on a long trim jutting out from the wall, which looks like it was sanded down or chipped along the edge closest to the shower door.
“Right here, I guess they trimmed it—they didn’t even trim it, that’s just how it is,” Hendry observes, showing the symmetrical part of the trim on the other side of the wall. “But when you try to open it, it hits there.”
Hendry demonstrates, attempting to pull open the shower door, which runs into the edge of the trim and doesn’t move.
“So you’re like, okay, that’s crazy, let’s just push it in,” Hendry suggests. However, when he tries to push the shower door inwards to enter, it hits the large shower head instead. “It hits that.”
“They used OSB board for the stairs in the renovation,” Hendry repeats in the caption.
Flipping out about house flipping
“Flippers should have to be licensed,” declared one of the top comments on Hendry’s video. “There is a reason people can’t have nice things. People like this sell houses at absorbent prices and then the new owner has to spend even more money to fix.”
“OSB Treads is wild,” another commenter stated. “I’ve never seen that before as a finish. Can you imagine how many splinters the residents of that house would have in their feet.”
“Imagine walking up those stairs bare feet,” someone else says, followed by a shocked screaming emoji. “Sensory nightmare.”
“Guess they didn’t realize those are sold like that to then be covered with vinyl or more wood,” a user clarified. “This is why flippers should get inspected by the city when ever they think they are ready to sell.”
But what about the shower situation?
A few eagle-eyed viewers noticed something off about the board being used as bathroom wall trimming.
“You can’t fool me, I know that board in the bathroom with the two corner cutouts is a fence picket,” someone claimed, punctuating it with a laughing-crying emoji.
“Is that a dog ear fence board top?” asked another user. “Like they took it off the fence out back.”
“Trim was installed then glass,” guessed a commenter. “Just have to trim a little more no big deal.”
“Easy fix yes but the house is ‘ready for sale,’” Hendry explained in response. “That’s the problem.”
Tiny closet controversy
Many users were confused about how house-flipping resulted in the tiny room at the top of the staircase.
“I bet they sacrificed a bedroom in order to expand the bathroom,” theorized one user. “That weird closet might have been what was left over.”
“Why does that random closet have an exterior door threshold lol,” asked a commenter.
“Lol I wondered the same thing,” Hendry replied.
“That extra room isn’t bad as long as they’re not labeling it as a bedroom,” countered a commenter. “Id make a walking closet or a laundry room.”
@atlanta.rep They used OSB board for the stairs in the renovation #renovation #house ♬ original sound – Greg | W&F Media | Atlanta
Do house flippers need a license?
If you didn’t know the proper name for OSB board until five minutes ago, chances are you’re also in the dark about the house-flipping controversy in the comments.
Do house flippers need a license? Last June, Kaitlin Davis of Rocket Mortgage tackled this question.
“You don’t need a real estate license to flip houses,” Davis wrote. “The coursework for a real estate license teaches agents about the laws, regulations, and ethics that govern the real estate industry, not the business and economics behind being a successful flipper.”
The pros to getting a real estate license, as listed by Davis, include credibility, additional income, gaining access to professional real estate tools and services, and not having to pay for an agent. However, those need to be weighed against the prominent cost and time commitment barriers of getting a license.
While answering the same question, Hannah Lapin of Visio Lending, a mortgage lender based in Austin, Texas, brought up an additional license the ambitious flipper could look into.
“Just as a real estate education and license can help when flipping houses, so too can a contractor license,” Lapin wrote. “You could pursue a general contractor license to learn how to oversee the entire construction process, or you could pursue a specific trade to lower renovation costs for specific projects on a flipped property.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Hendry via TikTok and Instagram direct message.
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