(or... When bad things happen to good Eichlers)
I've noticed a few things when photographing Eichler homes for the past five years: (1) How much I love my Canon G9 camera (even more than my much more robust Nikon dSLR); (2) How a little bit of effort in the wrong direction can make a house look passable at twenty feet, but reveal itself to be terrible at two feet; and (3) how the good bones of an Eichler combined with farly decent photography amplifies the "passable" notion noted above.
Case in point: 1243 Lancashire. This house is a terrible flip (and I'll detail that below), but when editing these pictures, they actually don't look bad... but don't let this fool you. This is a bad flip in all the wrong directions — not just aesthetically, but functionally (and safety-based). Buyer beware.
This house was purchased a few months ago for about $330K and is now on the market for about $450K... with $120K, one could have done great things, but sadly, this is not the case here. The shortcuts that were taken combined with the already jacked-up state of the house leaves a buyer with a home that might look OK from a distance, but might be a headache later on.
First, let's start with the "stop work" notice pinned to the kitchen wall. That's always a good sign, right? It seems that every "update" to the house was unpermitted. Combined with some very obvious code violations in the house this makes for a very shady situation.
The outside sure looks better now, although I have to wonder about the practicality of the clear glass on the front of the house. This model has no atrium and — as you can see — when stepping into the carport, you're looking right into (and through) the house.
Moving around to the side of the house, you'll notice RV parking — lots of it — with loads of questionable electrical (and structure) pulled from god-knows-where. This is a pervasive element throughout the house. Lots of non-code-compliant or questionable "upgrades". Having lived in and worked on many Eichlers, mystery electrical is perhaps the worst thing you can encounter. There are open connections, redundant lines, mystery outlets — it's a mess. And with electrical, that also invited the potential for danger.
Moving to the inside of the house, you'll find:
- Laminate flooring and carpet — both of which make the radiant floor heat work doubly hard to heat the space thus increasing already high energy bills
- A contractor-grade kitchen package that stylistically isn't a good fit, not constructed well, and not to code — for instance, there isn't an outlet on the island. With that, I'd guess the electrical behind the wall isn't up to code either, but that's just a guess.
- Lots of shady electrical work in the garage and elsewhere
- A dangerous open floor electrical box. Floor boxes themselves are typical, but this is not how you set it up. Imagine a flood, leak or errant mop water getting in there as-is.
- A poorly "renovated" bathroom with a spray epoxy tile coat and terrible (rusting) tub fitting.
- Interior doors were replaced with inexpensive, panelled hollow-core pre-hung doors.
Moving to the outside, you'll find:
- A pool that is amazing, but needs to be replastered (a $3K - $5K job).
- A diving board turned planter (not pictured) — weird.
- Mystery PVC throughout the yard. You can't step three feet without tripping on a PVC pipe heaving from the ground.
- Again, lots of questionable structure in the form of sheds and covered RV parking.
(Edit: Apparently, this set-up is original... albeit cramped.)
While I'm not a licensed home inspector, many of the above issues are glaringly obvious to even a modest DIYer who's been paying attention to HGTV. I'd advise anyone looking at this house to have it thoroughly inspected by separate independent inspectors: general home inspector, electrical inspection, pool inspection, fireplace inspection and maybe even a separate roof inspection. Stepping into something like this unaware could be very costly.
And, yes... we're available for design consultancy before a project and as a watchful-eye for potential buyer during the purchase process (which is how I ended up at 1243 Lancashire Dr.).
Comments