By skyforbes It is a scam designed to offload 30 years of deferred maintenance onto young people who are desperate to get on the ladder.
Every single affordable house I tour (under $450k) follows the same pattern:
The Surface: Fresh gray paint and cheap LVP flooring (Renovated!).
The Bones: A 25-year-old roof, an HVAC system from the Bush administration, and plumbing that is actively trying to fail.
The sellers lived there for decades, watched their equity triple, and never put a dime back into the structure. Now they want to cash out at top-of-the-market prices and hand the "bag" of repairs to me?
I refuse to do it.
I would rather pay rent and have a landlord fix the boiler than pay a $3,000 mortgage just for the privilege of fixing a Boomer’s leaking basement. That isn't building wealth. That is financial suicide disguised as the American Dream.