6 ms·

It's not fully clear what Zillow is offering here, but my reading is that Zillow is buying homes, quickly fixing them up, and selling them. If this is what they

It's not fully clear what Zillow is offering here, but my reading is that Zillow is buying homes, quickly fixing them up, and selling them. If this is what they are doing, I can see a lot of value in these "Zillow Approved" flipped houses. I've read a lot of online horror stories where people buy flipped homes only to realize they bought a lemon. Houses with shoddy construction work, code violations, and the new owners are stuck with tens of thousands of $ in repairs. Home inspections help, but they don't catch everything. Anything inside the walls, such as poor plumbing/electric work, are unlikely to be flagged. I'd be happy to pay a 0.5% to 1% premium on the sales price to be assured the people who renovated this house followed local housing code, used proper construction procedures, and used decent materials.

tehlike 9y ago
This seems to be in a similar business/model with opendoor.
dagw 9y ago
the new owners are stuck with tens of thousands of $ in repairs. Don't sellers have any responsibilities for what they are selling in the US? Certainly in Sweden it is the sellers responsibility to disclose any known problems to the buyer and they're financially responsible for any problems they fail to disclose.
- kafquaesque 9y ago
  A “flipper” could be highly inexperienced and not even know the underlying issue. So they may not even act in bad faith. Having a brand behind a flipped house could assuage some of those fears.
  - dagw 9y ago
    In Sweden the law basically says you as a seller are responsible for anything you reasonably should have known about (and didn't disclose to the buyer). So it's not enough to claim that you genuinely didn't know that your cellar had been flooded (because you never went down there) or that you shouldn't use wood glue to put up bathroom tiles, you have to prove that it's the sort of thing a reasonable person couldn't be expected to know.
    - kafquaesque 9y ago
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/where-we-live/wp/2015/02/03/what-home-buyers-need-to-know-about-seller-disclosures/?utm_term=.10e743cc0175&noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/where-we-live/wp/2015/02... There is a market for home inspectors to prevent the purchase of a property with issues. I have yet to hear of anyone having a civil or criminal suit taken against them due to issues with a property (not saying it hasn’t occurred—just that I don’t know of it occurring).
- yardie 9y ago
  No. A seller is only responsible for what you can negotiate after inspection. Which is why it is critically important to have a good inspector. The only homes to have any sort of clawback are new constructions. Which are warrantied for about a year.
  - jiveturkey 9y ago
    10 years (by law) for structural issues.
    - baud147258 9y ago
      It's the same in France, 10 years for structural issues and 1 year for the basic stuff.
- sharemywin 9y ago
  Not exactly true, but still very difficult to get a remedy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_defect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_defect
throwawaymanbot 9y ago
they have to follow code on this already... its just another little tax of getting a place to rent or own. This should be illegal. screw them.
shostack 9y ago
I think there's a whole host of people who don't know much about homes and don't want to deal with the headaches of ripping out walls and such who would easily pay a small premium to be assured of a consistent level of quality (if it were well documented and enforced). Frankly, I'd just love an affordable service that takes care of regularly scheduled house maintenance tasks without breaking the bank.

tehlike 9y ago

This seems to be in a similar business/model with opendoor.

dagw 9y ago

the new owners are stuck with tens of thousands of $ in repairs. Don't sellers have any responsibilities for what they are selling in the US? Certainly in Sweden it is the sellers responsibility to disclose any known problems to the buyer and they're financially responsible for any problems they fail to disclose.

kafquaesque 9y ago
A “flipper” could be highly inexperienced and not even know the underlying issue. So they may not even act in bad faith. Having a brand behind a flipped house could assuage some of those fears.
- dagw 9y ago
  In Sweden the law basically says you as a seller are responsible for anything you reasonably should have known about (and didn't disclose to the buyer). So it's not enough to claim that you genuinely didn't know that your cellar had been flooded (because you never went down there) or that you shouldn't use wood glue to put up bathroom tiles, you have to prove that it's the sort of thing a reasonable person couldn't be expected to know.
  - kafquaesque 9y ago
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/where-we-live/wp/2015/02/03/what-home-buyers-need-to-know-about-seller-disclosures/?utm_term=.10e743cc0175&noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/where-we-live/wp/2015/02... There is a market for home inspectors to prevent the purchase of a property with issues. I have yet to hear of anyone having a civil or criminal suit taken against them due to issues with a property (not saying it hasn’t occurred—just that I don’t know of it occurring).
yardie 9y ago
No. A seller is only responsible for what you can negotiate after inspection. Which is why it is critically important to have a good inspector. The only homes to have any sort of clawback are new constructions. Which are warrantied for about a year.
- jiveturkey 9y ago
  10 years (by law) for structural issues.
  - baud147258 9y ago
    It's the same in France, 10 years for structural issues and 1 year for the basic stuff.
sharemywin 9y ago
Not exactly true, but still very difficult to get a remedy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_defect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_defect

throwawaymanbot 9y ago

they have to follow code on this already... its just another little tax of getting a place to rent or own. This should be illegal. screw them.

shostack 9y ago

I think there's a whole host of people who don't know much about homes and don't want to deal with the headaches of ripping out walls and such who would easily pay a small premium to be assured of a consistent level of quality (if it were well documented and enforced). Frankly, I'd just love an affordable service that takes care of regularly scheduled house maintenance tasks without breaking the bank.