Concept
Pro Diy
What it is
The things I am most terrified of when buying a house — still to this day — are the things that don’t come up on a home inspection. And these are the things that are done by what I call the professional DIY.
Somebody owned a house, they thought they knew construction, they watched YouTube videos, bought tools, and did work that was either never permitted or was permitted and then altered after the final inspection. It looks done from the outside: drywall hung, tile set, outlets covered, new paint. Behind those finishes is unlicensed electrical, unvented plumbing, framing that doesn’t meet code, and structural work that was never inspected. The cosmetic layer is designed to hide the defects, not fix them.
I bought a house once where it looked like all the mechanical, electrical, plumbing rough inspections had been passed. I saw the inspection tags. Figured everything was good. After buying, I realized they hadn’t actually passed any inspection. And upon further inspection of the work, none of it was actually right. This was some DIY flipper who had done work and I just didn’t catch it during due diligence.
Why it matters
This is one of three things I look for on every walkthrough, alongside bleeding and structural damage. What they share is that they’re iceberg problems: what you see is 10% of what’s there.
A gut job on a pro DIY house costs two to three times a gut job on a house that was left alone. Because you’re not just renovating — you’re un-doing work that was done wrong, bringing everything to current code once the walls come off, and discovering new surprises with every layer you peel back.
The safety and liability angle is real too. Unpermitted electrical is a fire risk. Unvented plumbing is a health risk. Framing that’s load-bearing and wasn’t done right is a collapse risk. You inherited the liability the moment you took title. If a tenant or buyer gets hurt because of work the previous owner hid in the walls, you own it.
My rule: if I start seeing signs of somebody who thought they knew what they were doing, I get real concerned about that house. The response is binary: walk or buy it as a gut job. Price the house as a gut job whether you plan to gut it or not. Buy with that margin. If it turns out better than expected, that’s gravy.
How it shows up
Houses leave behind clues. Outlets and switches in weird places. Junction boxes buried in walls with no access panel. Drywall patches that don’t match the original texture. Fresh paint in one room but not the others. Tile work where the grout lines aren’t straight. Trim cut by somebody who’d never coped a joint. Patched holes in the ceiling with no explanation.
The biggest tell is drywall that came down and went back up. Pro DIYers open walls because they’re doing work they shouldn’t be doing, and then they close the walls back up before the city sees anything. Look for tape joints that don’t line up with framing. Look for ceiling patches that bulge. Look for subtle ripples in the paint along stud lines.
Even more sinister: somebody came back to a house I bought and cut the wires inside the walls and in the crawl space after the sale because the prior flipper hadn’t paid their subs. That’s not usual, but it happened. Due diligence matters.
Related
bleeding, structural damage, gut job, grandfathering, the mirage, inspections, due diligence