The Flipper Wants the Cheapest Fix That Passes
Why this matters
"Just do the cheapest thing that passes" is the most common sentence an investor says to a trade, and it can mean three very different things. Sometimes it means the code minimum, which is a legitimate scope you should be glad to do. Sometimes it means a fix that meets code today and fails the next owner in two years. And sometimes it means "make it look fixed," which is a request to help hide a defect from a buyer who will rely on that house being what it appears to be. Your name ends up on the permit, the invoice and the buyer's inspection file either way. This article is the fork: which answer you give, what each one commits you to, and how to say it so you keep the good investors and lose only the ones you should.
How investors' money and timelines work, and the contract terms that protect you, are covered elsewhere. See related: Working for House Flippers and Investors.
Before the fork: anything dangerous right now
Some of these conversations start in a house with a live hazard, and the hazard comes first, before any discussion of price.
- Gas odor or a known leak: everyone out of the house, no switches, no phones used inside, call the gas utility from outside.
- Scorched, arcing or energized exposed wiring: turn off the breaker feeding it, label it at the panel, and do not restore it.
- A fuel-burning appliance with a cracked heat exchanger, a disconnected vent or flame rollout: turn it off at its switch and its gas valve, tag it "do not operate," and tell the investor in writing.
- Water running into an energized area: shut off the water at the main, and turn off power to the area at the panel before anyone steps into standing water.
None of these is a budget conversation. The investor can choose the fix; they cannot choose to leave the hazard live while they think about it.
The three answers
Code minimum. The least work that meets the adopted code and the manufacturer's installation instructions, permitted where a permit is required, and performing correctly when you leave. This is not a lesser job. It is the job the code defines as acceptable.
Safe and durable. More than code minimum, because the minimum will predictably fail or create a hazard in this specific house: a water heater that meets code but will be undersized for a four-bedroom family, a patch on a drain that will leak at the next joint because the whole run is deteriorating. You recommend it, in writing, with the reason. The investor may still pick the minimum.
Walk away. The request is to do work that does not meet code, to skip a required permit, or to conceal a defect so that a buyer or inspector will not see it. You decline the job, not just the method.
Most requests sort cleanly once you ask four questions in order.
The four questions that sort a request
- Does the cheap version meet the adopted code and the manufacturer's instructions? If no, it is not on the table. You may offer the code-minimum version instead.
- Does it need a permit, and will one be pulled? Required work done without a permit is unpermitted work in a house about to be sold, and it surfaces in the buyer's inspection or a later sale. See related: Open Permits and Unpermitted Work in a Sale.
- Does it leave a defect in place that the fix makes harder to see? Paint over a water stain with the leak still active, drywall over a damaged joist, a new cover plate on a scorched box. If the effect of the work is concealment, the answer is walk away no matter what it costs.
- Will the minimum predictably fail in this house within a short horizon? If yes, recommend safe and durable in writing. If the investor declines, the minimum is still a legitimate job, provided your write-up says what you recommended and why.
Question 3 is the one investors push on. The test is not whether you would do the work for yourself; it is whether the next buyer, reading your invoice beside the house, would be misled about its condition.
One house, three requests
A first-time flipper bought a 1979 ranch and walked a shop's lead technician through it with three asks, all framed as "cheapest thing that passes." The house was vacant and had power and water on.
Request one: the water heater. The 12-year-old tank had a weeping drain valve and no discharge line on its temperature and pressure relief valve. The investor wanted the same size tank swapped in, no upgrades.
The tech ran the four questions. A like-for-like replacement with a proper relief discharge line, the venting and gas connection brought to the current code the department would inspect against, and a permit, meets code. Nothing is concealed. Is it likely to fail in this house? No; a three-bedroom house with the same size tank as before is a normal installation.
Answer: code minimum. The tech quoted it at 5 hours with the permit, and wrote in the quote that the gas connection and venting would be brought to current code because the inspector would check them. Approved.
Request two: the panel. The home inspector the investor had hired before buying noted two double-tapped breakers, two conductors under one terminal not listed for it. The investor wanted those two fixed and nothing else.
Questions one and two: correcting a double tap, by adding a breaker or pigtailing where the panel allows it, is a recognized code-compliant repair. Question three: nothing concealed. Question four: the panel itself was a common brand with no known defect history, 120 amps, in good condition, but the investor's plan included a new kitchen with a range, a dishwasher and a microwave on new circuits. The tech ran a quick load estimate along the lines of the NFPA 70 dwelling load calculation: the existing service would be tight once the new kitchen loads were added.
Answer: safe and durable recommended, code minimum accepted. The tech quoted the double-tap repair at 1.5 hours, and separately quoted a service upgrade with a written note: "Existing 120A service is likely to be insufficient for the planned kitchen. A load calculation per the adopted electrical code is required before new kitchen circuits are added; if it does not support them, a service upgrade will be needed." The investor took the double-tap repair only. That is his decision to make, and the note is now on the record for whoever does the kitchen.
Request three: the bathroom. A ceiling stain below the hall bathroom, and soft subfloor at the toilet flange. The investor asked for the toilet to be reset on a new wax ring, the stain primed and painted, and nothing else, "because the listing goes up Friday."
Question three answers it. Resetting a toilet on a soft, water-damaged subfloor does not fix the floor, and painting the stain while the source is unconfirmed covers the only visible evidence of it. The combined effect is a bathroom that looks repaired and is not. The buyer's inspector may or may not catch it.
Answer: walk away from the requested scope, and offer the real one. The tech offered to open the floor at the flange, assess the subfloor and the joist below, replace what was rotted, and find the source of the ceiling stain before anything was painted. Quoted as an assessment of 2 hours first, then a priced repair. The investor declined and said another plumber would do it his way. The tech wrote that down too.
Where the three diverged. One house, one investor, the same sentence each time, three different answers, because the four questions came out differently: request one passed all four, request two passed the first three and failed the fourth, request three failed the third.
What would have moved each one. Had the water heater been undersized for a larger house, request one moves to safe and durable. Had the inspector found the panel was a brand on the known-defect list, request two becomes a replacement recommendation with a stronger note, and in some insurance markets the buyer's carrier would force it anyway. See related: Four-Point and Insurance Inspections. Had the investor agreed to open the floor, request three becomes an ordinary repair and a reasonable ticket.
How to say it
The words that keep a good investor are short, about their timeline and their buyer, and never about your ethics.
INVESTOR: Just reset the toilet and paint the ceiling.
Listing goes up Friday.
TECH: I can have someone here tomorrow to open the
floor at the flange. Two hours tells us if
it's a patch or a joist.
INVESTOR: I don't need it opened. Paint it.
TECH: I'm not able to paint over that one. If the
floor's soft, the buyer's inspector usually
finds it, and then it's a repair request on a
deadline instead of now. Want the two hours?
INVESTOR: No. I'll get someone else.
TECH: Understood. I'll send you the note on what I
saw so you have it either way.
Two things that line does deliberately. It frames the refusal around the investor's own risk, a repair request on a deadline, which is true and which an experienced investor already knows. And it ends with the record: the note goes out whether or not the job does. See related: Writing a Findings Letter Buyers, Sellers and Lenders Can Use.
What goes in writing, by branch
Code minimum: the scope, the permit, and the code basis the work meets. Nothing more is needed.
Safe and durable, declined: your recommendation, your reason, and the investor's choice, in the quote or a follow-up email. If the minimum later fails, this is the document that shows you told them.
Walk away: a short note of what you observed and what you offered, sent to the investor. It is not a threat and it is not addressed to anyone else. Whether you have any duty to tell a future buyer what you saw is a separate question that depends on your state and your relationship to the sale, and it is one for your own attorney, not an assumption in either direction. See related: Your Findings and the Seller Disclosure Obligation.
Do not let the investor reword your findings onto their own letterhead, and do not sign a document stating the work you were not allowed to do was completed.
References
- The building, plumbing and electrical codes in the edition your jurisdiction has adopted, and the equipment manufacturer's installation instructions they incorporate
- NFPA 70, National Electrical Code, load calculation requirements for dwelling services, as locally adopted
- See related: Working for House Flippers and Investors
- See related: Open Permits and Unpermitted Work in a Sale
- See related: Your Findings and the Seller Disclosure Obligation