Hi People,
I've been visiting this site now for several months and by and large I've been biting my tongue for most of that time and doing a lot of reading. I've enjoyed all that I've read and learnt a lot.... 99.9% of what I've been reading has been very positive.
I'm especially impressesd by the time and effort that all the very experienced and committed property investors have contributed to this site.
One thing that is missing from the site however is peoples BAD experiences. Now I'm not a doom and gloom merchant but I'd be really interestred in hearing from investors who have made a bad purchase. People learn vital lessons from these 'mistakes' and I think others can also learn from them, if we hear about them.
I bought a do up about 5 years ago and it had been owned by a handyman. Some of the things he had done cost me a lot of money and time to put right.
First thing I discovered was that he had removed 6 studs from a load bearing wall to set the kitchen into the wall to give the kitchen a more spacious feel. I had to replace the whole kitchen because by the time I extracted the cupboards from the wall to replace the studs, I ended up wrecking the cupboards because he fixed them in with 4 inch nails.
Next thing I had to do was replace all the gib throughout the house because he had painted it with enamel paint with sawdust mixed in with it to give a 'textured look'. It looked disgusting. Admittedly I noticed this when I bought the house but I removed a small section of the paint from the wall before I bought the house and so assumed it would come off O.K. I was wrong. The only thing that could be done was to replace the gib.
He 'rewired' the house himself and by the time my electrician tried to sort it out, it was in fact easier just to rewire the house again properly.
The house cost me a fortune in the end and I wouldn't have made much, if anything if I resold it. So I decided to keep it. I've got it rented out at the moment but when I return to NZ I'm going to live in it myself.
I will never buy a house again if there's been any shonky work done on it and I now look very carefully at at any renovations done by the owner. The new Building Regulations hopefully will resolve this particular problem but I'd be interested to hear anybody else's experiences.
Thanks,
Aston.
I've been visiting this site now for several months and by and large I've been biting my tongue for most of that time and doing a lot of reading. I've enjoyed all that I've read and learnt a lot.... 99.9% of what I've been reading has been very positive.
I'm especially impressesd by the time and effort that all the very experienced and committed property investors have contributed to this site.
One thing that is missing from the site however is peoples BAD experiences. Now I'm not a doom and gloom merchant but I'd be really interestred in hearing from investors who have made a bad purchase. People learn vital lessons from these 'mistakes' and I think others can also learn from them, if we hear about them.
I bought a do up about 5 years ago and it had been owned by a handyman. Some of the things he had done cost me a lot of money and time to put right.
First thing I discovered was that he had removed 6 studs from a load bearing wall to set the kitchen into the wall to give the kitchen a more spacious feel. I had to replace the whole kitchen because by the time I extracted the cupboards from the wall to replace the studs, I ended up wrecking the cupboards because he fixed them in with 4 inch nails.
Next thing I had to do was replace all the gib throughout the house because he had painted it with enamel paint with sawdust mixed in with it to give a 'textured look'. It looked disgusting. Admittedly I noticed this when I bought the house but I removed a small section of the paint from the wall before I bought the house and so assumed it would come off O.K. I was wrong. The only thing that could be done was to replace the gib.
He 'rewired' the house himself and by the time my electrician tried to sort it out, it was in fact easier just to rewire the house again properly.
The house cost me a fortune in the end and I wouldn't have made much, if anything if I resold it. So I decided to keep it. I've got it rented out at the moment but when I return to NZ I'm going to live in it myself.
I will never buy a house again if there's been any shonky work done on it and I now look very carefully at at any renovations done by the owner. The new Building Regulations hopefully will resolve this particular problem but I'd be interested to hear anybody else's experiences.
Thanks,
Aston.
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