This may only be relevant for people in hot housing markets, but flippers do some spectacularly bad landscaping around me, so I thought I'd share so we can all be judgy and laugh at them. First up, I give this until a mid-July monsoon before it collapses, and mid-August before it's all weeds. There is no support on that hill except for the (no drainage, non-porous, natch) wall at the bottom, and no weed barrier under the mulch. One of the middle level plants already looks like it's sliding. Also featuring the flipper special, impatiens from Home Depot.

Wow, that's really bad. I will add that the builders around here put too many shrubs in the front beds with nothing blocking the Bermuda grass from invading. Within 6 months if you don't keep up with it, you have one big mess on your hands.

teacup754 said:I will add that the builders around here put too many shrubs in the front beds with nothing blocking the Bermuda grass from invading. Within 6 months if you don't keep up with it, you have one big mess on your hands.

My neighbor a couple doors up just asked me how I plant with weed barrier. She didn't realize that I cut holes where the plants go, and then slowly cut them bigger as the plants grow. Even with weed barrier, I still battle Japanese stiltgrass, ivy, and some tree-ish thing that a bunch of seeds for blew into my yard from this year. Fortunately, with the weed barrier, most are easy to pull, since they're only rooted in the mulch, so long as I pluck anything close to a plant very quickly.

My front yard was mostly bermudagrass. I'm on my third round of trying to turn it into real grass. So far, mostly successful, if I could get people to quit stepping on one spot just inside my fence. Just...OPEN THE GATE THE WHOLE WAY to walk through it and stay on the concrete (props to the mailman who holds the gate open with his foot while he deposits my mail and never leaves the concrete!). First person to "correct," my roommate! (Edit to note: once the grass is established, people stepping on it won't be such an issue. But, it's new sod that went down in late March. It needs some time before being trodden!)

That slope looks awful.
Love being judgy on landscaping. My daughter bought a flipped house but, cheaper neighborhood, so they didnt plant anything. Better off, so we can plant without having to take out.

I hope you have a chance to tell the mailman how you appreciate that.

Builders here cram way too many shrubs in. And variegated liriope is practically a law it seems.

sallyg said:That slope looks awful.
Love being judgy on landscaping. My daughter bought a flipped house but, cheaper neighborhood, so they didnt plant anything. Better off, so we can plant without having to take out.

I hope you have a chance to tell the mailman how you appreciate that.

Builders here cram way too many shrubs in. And variegated liriope is practically a law it seems.

The houses up on the top of the hill all have steeply sloped yards like that. Those that "do it right" do it in 3 levels, with terraced walls and deep-rooted plants that will help prevent erosion. Plus a wall at the bottom that has proper drainage (brick/permeable stone with a french drain and multiple weep holes).

I did tell the mailman that I appreciated him staying off my new grass. He said it was just easier than opening the gate twice (to enter and then to leave), and my grass did look nice except for the spot people kept stepping on, so he realized that I was trying to improve the yard. My previous mail woman just put my mail in my box from the neighbor's yard (avoiding walking two stairs in the process), so that worked, too (neighbor's yard is 100% weeds and junk grasses, so no trodding issue)!

I don't mind variegated liriope in most cases, since it's hardy and attractive year-round (at least here in DC), but they planted nearly the entire exterior of my work building with it, and it's just boring when used in that quantity (at risk of giving away where I work, my work building has a footprint of 2 city blocks). It's great as a foundation plant, but not as the ONLY thing!

What nice mailpeople!

Slopes are so hard to work with- a street near my mom's house had yards like that and only a few bit the bullet and did terraces.

My sister bought new in Florida 30 years ago.. they planted easily 2x what number of plants it should have had.

I have the liriope in my own yard. it is so easy to use.

Your building could easily break that liriope up with patches of Autumn Joy or another sedum. Another (previously overused) tough plant.

Japanese barberry still seems popular with builders. How many owners are willing to keep that up, with the thorns?

Homeowners LOOOOOOVVVVVVVEEEE barberry!! I try (former retail here) to deter them but they want it no matter what.

@sallyg, I get ZERO input on the landscaping at work. That's low-bid government contracting for you! I believe they said they were going to preserve several old trees, and that didn't happen...

On the plus side, the real purpose of the project was security, which allowed them to remove the giant planters in awkward places on the sidewalk. So now when I run into tourists taking up the entire sidewalk (yes, I do mean literally), I don't run the risk of getting bounced into a concrete planter...

Well, I did give it until August before it was ALL weeds... (they still haven't put it on the market, so it will be interesting to see whether they weed before listing)



This is another flip a few doors up. They did the terrace mostly correctly (not completely...the support for that timber wall is out of frame, but also janky), and haven't landscaped yet, but the weeds are cooking here, too.

I would LOVE to have the space in the last pic to "play with!!"

Flipper landscaping & builder landscaping are pretty much the same recipe, from what I've seen. Remove the top soil to sell, put a row of non-native shrubs waaaay too close to the house, bonus points for prickly ones, an extra-large shrub on either side of the front door, or for a few $$'s more, a pair of topiaries, a much too big tree on either side of the front walk, cover all other space with sod, call it "maintenance free."

Have there been any other sightings?

I had kind of forgotten to keep up with this, but, yes, it's a disaster. House is under contract for 10% more than the previous highest sale price in the neighborhood (edit to note: that was the listed price...won't know what the final price is until it settles in a couple/few weeks) with only 3 days on the market, only photo being of the front BEFORE the weeds took over. Not clear if owners-to-be are aware of the state of the landscaping at this point.

I'm shocked at some list prices.. well all of them .. but I think an. Initial high price is just marketing strategy and maybe we'll get lucky thinking.

Another thing that catches my eye is the sloppy paint job. If I owned the property next door and I saw that sloppy mess on my brick I'd be throwing a major fit and making them clean it up.

High housing prices are due to high demand, low inventory. It's currently a seller's market so things are flying everywhere.

pepper23 said:Another thing that catches my eye is the sloppy paint job. If I owned the property next door and I saw that sloppy mess on my brick I'd be throwing a major fit and making them clean it up.

High housing prices are due to high demand, low inventory. It's currently a seller's market so things are flying everywhere.

That's mortar they were sloppy with when coating that whole wall with it (the wall is cinder block, coated in mortar, and then painted...let me know how that works through freeze/thaw cycles!).

Things are insane in DC in general (you've got the dynamics right of low inventory and high demand), but my block is in an especially interesting spot because there's additional demand for the outdoor space (while not in the state my back yard is in, this one has the same size yard). Or so the bright-eyed young homeowners cashing out their retirement accounts to win bidding wars think, until they actually have to do the maintenance.

sallyg said:I'm shocked at some list prices.. well all of them .. but I think an. Initial high price is just marketing strategy and maybe we'll get lucky thinking.

In my neck of the woods, it tends to go the other way. They list a *little* low to spark a bidding war, and then get a dozen or more desperate and escalating offers. To be fair, that was how I sold my two previous places (sold in 2016 and 2018 for 8 and 10% above list, respectively...8 offers on each), but it leads me to believe that the list price might even be a little low on this one, despite being so much higher than previous sales (from last year...there are only 40 homes on my block, and only 6 have come up for sale in the last 2 years...5 flips and an intensive owner reno where the owners had to relocate out of the area).

Good for me if something goes sideways and I need to take out a home equity loan? I know I could cash in, but I wouldn't get this space and convenience (25 minutes by bike to my office, <15 minutes walking to a Metro, 3 blocks to a grocery store) for anything approaching my budget, even after making bank by selling high..

Oh, yeah, so I also know an interesting factoid about this house. After a stop work order was posted on it a few months ago (lacking some permits), I looked it up in the city's permit system and found the floor plans. They were planning to put a half bath on an elevated, enclosed porch. I haven't taken a stroll up the alley to see if there's evidence of the flipper INSULATING that enclosed porch, but I suspect they probably didn't, and there are going to be a lot of burst pipes in the new owner's future.

My general observation is that every flip has permits go up in the window to fix the flipper's screw-ups within 2-2.5 years. This one might be even less (on top of the bathroom in a bad location, they also reconfigured a lot of plumbing, put in cheap windows, and I never observed them actually replacing the roof despite being home all the time).

So glad I bought the short sale and did my own work...

ETA: beyond the obvious stuff, this house needed a REAL bit of work because it was vacant and unattended from 2011 to late last year, had been taken over by squatters at least twice during that time, and was once bombed with really noxious stuff by the city because a massive rat colony had taken it over and they were infesting half the neighborhood. I'm *sure* the future owner is aware of all of that. /s

sallyg said:I'm shocked at some list prices.. well all of them .. but I think an. Initial high price is just marketing strategy and maybe we'll get lucky thinking.

You should come around here or in Spain: I may post some ads in the future just for a quick laugh.
Problem is Washington DC is New Rome on the Potomac: there's a lot of folks who want to go there. Here populations are steadily declining and in most of Spain the rural exodus is still going strong. But everybody loves to think they are holding on to a treasure of the greatest rarity.

To get back to the original topic, flipping here is recent stuff. Tax-wise it still doesn't make sense and flippers tend to get stuck with properties for years because new constructions are far outpacing demand, but debt is so cheap it's a growing industry. Which obviously came to roost next door to me.
As soon as I can bring myself to touch the phone I will take some pictures of that eyesore, especially the "garden".
To give an idea of the MIT graduates we are dealing with here, last week the owner was trying to cut grass on the slope with a Big Box Store brushcutter, wearing jorts and flip-flops. I think he lasted all of three minutes before giving up.

sheesh.
Please, tell us more. Even if you're saying there's no Shangri La on a dime there.

Did anybody else have to look up "jorts?" A handy term. It sounds like that dude gave up before the job was finished? LOL! Gotta give him props for taking on something it sounds like it was his first time doing.
Whether they're doing it well or badly, it's more fun to watch other people do yard work than to be the one doing it.

Buildings in the US that are made of actual brick, marble, granite, are a rarity, as well as older wood-construction structures with features like high ceilings, tongue-in-groove walls, transom windows above doors, dumb-waiters, pocket doors, gingerbread embellishments...

I am engaged in this fascinating discussion but also want to say that I love the spirit of flipping, especially if young people have taken an interest in an older building, as long as they're not ruining that which makes the building unique. Fixing, cleaning, giving something another chance - good stuff! But there is no doubt that it is often done ineptly.

If I see something under the subject, I'll take pics. Luckily most of the flips I've seen around this area were landscaped very attractively and realistically. My own yard is still in the midst of a very long-term plan that involves mostly sweat vs. $, with some plants in temporary homes in strange places, and probably looks messy as a drive-by. It's pretty normal for most of the homes in the area to be in various stages of periodic improvement. Some of the lots have newer homes at this point but our house and many others were built in 1900, or shortly thereafter as you go farther down the street.