With the housing market turning around we are seeing a lot of investors flipping homes. What is a flipped home? Basically it's a home that someone or investors purchase for instance at $200,000 then they may invest $10,000 in repairs and upgrades. Once that is done they put it back on the market for 350,000 within a month or two. Thereby earning a lot of money for minimal amount of work on the home.

 I have run into quite a few of these flipped homes Especially in Poway.  The homes have had horrendous electrical problems that were covered up from people that purchased the home.  These flippers do a lot to make the home looks nice cosmetically but don't take care of the functionality of the systems of the home. Why do they do this?? I believe its greed I don't believe the people that they are using to do electrical work are licensed electricians or if they are, they have absolutely no conscience! I have seen live wires cut and left inside of a wall. I have also seen high voltage wires left in a cabinet where it could be subject to contact with people along with a lot of other things that just flat-out never got fixed. My heart really goes out to the poor people who spend their hard earned  money on their dream home. That is why I wanted to take the time to write this.

 So all that being said what can you do? My best advice to you is to get a licensed electrician to do an electrical inspection before you buy the house. I think the cost would be fairly cheap compared to all the money you will spend if there is a major electrical problem in your new home. I know a lot of people hire home inspectors to check out the house but it is been my experience that they only to a general a very general inspection of the electrical system because they are inspecting so many other things. Usually they will only catch things that are extremely obvious. Also it has been my experience that home inspection or home warranty company may not be as helpful as you thought. When you ask them for repairs they come up with more moves than a pack of Ex-lax.They will start quoting there contract and how it doesn’t cover this or that. If you get your inspection before you buy the house you can demand that these repairs be made before the purchase the home. I am not saying all flips are done in this manner but I am saying definitely have an electrician inspect before you buy it! It could save you thousands of dollars in the long run.

Take care John