Beware WinWinHomes – Bad experience

TL;DR: I bought a Seattle house from an LLC connected to WinWinHomes and have since found a long list of problems that weren’t in the seller disclosure. If you’re looking at one of their properties, get a second inspection

Putting this out there for anyone shopping for a home in Seattle. I bought a house not long ago, and since moving in I’ve been dealing with a steady stream of problems that would have significantly changed my offer had I known about them.

Here are the issues I’ve found so far:

• There was a hole in the furnace exhaust, caught only when PSE came to turn on the gas. My inspector missed it, so some of that is on them, but given the renovations that were done, I’d have expected it to be caught and fixed during the flip.
• The hole was caused by galvanized steel exhaust pipe sitting in direct contact with copper. That kind of corrosion keeps degrading the pipe once it starts, so I’m likely looking at an $18–20k repipe of the remaining copper (which wasn’t replaced with PEX) within the next five years.
• Tiling mud blocking the drains. Best guess: whoever did the bathroom renovations washed their tools and dumped leftover mud down the drain.
• Refrigerator which came with the place was unable to defrost, turns out it was refurbished and at some point every single model and serial sticker had been ripped off
• I learned after closing that the property has a serious knotweed problem, bad enough on its own, but I recently found it growing indoors, which means it has come up through the foundation (unfortunately common with knotweed).
• The dryer outlet was a 50-amp receptacle on a 30-amp circuit. When I swapped in the correct outlet, I found the wiring behind it was wrong in multiple ways. Even with the right plug, it probably wouldn’t have worked.
• General shoddy workmanship, Things glued to walls that shouldn’t be, closet shelves falling because they were installed incorrectly, shower floor tile with low spots where water pools instead of draining, a kitchen sink that wouldn’t drain because a pipe against the wall was never cut, and so on.

I looked into legal options and was told there isn’t much of a case: I’d have to prove the listed owner actually knew about these issues and failed to disclose them. If their contractors never told them, they’re in the clear, so pursuing it would likely just burn money. I want to be clear that I can’t prove anyone knowingly hid anything, only that none of this appeared in the disclosure and all of it turned up after closing.

I’m slowly working through the repairs and I don’t regret buying the house. But two lessons from my experience: first, a clean inspection report on a freshly flipped house should have prompted me to get a second opinion, not reassured me. Second, if you or your realtor find that a property is connected to WinWinHomes, get two inspections and go over everything yourself including anything the inspectors flag.