6 Signs a Home Seller Is Hiding Something

Buying a house is always a fraught decision. It’s an enormous amount of money for most people, which makes it a stressful decision in the best of times—and a terrifying one when the market is tight. These market forces can drive house hunters to do some pretty crazy things, like contemplating a dramatic fixer-upper situation, or even buying houses without ever seeing them in real life.

The worst part of the whole experience is that your stress levels will probably hit their highest levels after you’ve bought the house—because that’s when all the hidden, overlooked, and unnoticed problems will emerge. More than three-fourths of home buyers discover expensive repairs shortly after moving into their new home, which is typically when folks are the most cash-strapped.

Most of these problems are just bad luck and part of the home-owning experience, but sometimes the sellers knew there were problems in the house and decided not to disclose them. This is unethical and downright evil, but if you’re not careful it could happen to you.

Weird staging

When touring a potential home, it’s not unusual to question the sanity and taste of the current owner—design and layout choices are highly subjective and personal. But oddball staging can also be the result of an effort to hide damage or obvious signs of problems, like water stains or structural cracks. A few things to look for:

• Furniture placement. Couches or other large pieces that seem out of place might be hiding problems on a wall or floor. Take a look under and behind them to see what’s there.
• Curtains. Curtains are pretty common in many homes, but think about their size and placement. Curtains where there are no windows are a clear sign of either strange design instincts or hidden damage. Curtains that are placed at the very top of a wall or that extend far beyond the width of a window could also be hiding something.
• Piles of stuff. If you encounter big piles of stuff, especially in basements or attics, you might be tempted to write it off as a messy current owner. But a big pile of boxes in a basement could be sitting on top of evidence of flooding, or sitting in front of cracks in the foundation. In an attic, a huge pile of stuff might be hiding a roof leak or other problems.
• Outdoor furniture. Odd furniture placement isn’t just an indoor problem. If you look in the yard and find some outdoor furniture (or odd statues or other props) sitting in an unusual spot, check underneath to see if they’re hiding a patch of dead grass that could indicate an old oil tank or other contamination in the ground.

Fresh paint

Giving a house a fresh coat of paint isn’t an unusual move when selling a home. But paint is the cheapest, fastest, and easiest way to hide damage in a home, so look for these tells:

• Single room. If only one room in the entire house has been freshly painted, look closer. The paint job might have been necessary after a roof leak or other damage.
• Painted deck. A deck is a great feature in a house, but if it looks freshly painted that’s a potential bad sign. Thick, durable outdoor paint creates a shell that can hide rot, split boards, and insect damage—just long enough to make it your problem.
• Patched areas. Look closely at fresh paint—are there patched areas on the walls and ceilings? This could indicate repairs made to eliminate structural cracks or water stains. If the underlying causes weren’t addressed, that fresh paint is just a temporary fix.

If the whole house was painted, look at the work critically: Sloppy, fast paint is often a sign of a cheap flip that will go sour on you, fast.

Odd showing times

Open houses remain a key marketing tool for selling a house. They give you the opportunity to be in the space and check everything out. You should always visit a house several times before pulling the trigger—and try to see the house at different times of day to see what the neighborhood is like. If the current owners insist on a very limited and narrow viewing schedule, be suspicious: They may be trying to hide environmental factors like noisy neighbors, snarled traffic jams, or regular flooding.

Hyping “as-is”

When someone lists a home for sale “as-is,” you already know the home will have some problems. You might expect that this sort of listing indicates the sellers are being open and honest—they’re admitting the house may have some issues and need some work, they just don’t want to be tasked with fixing anything.

But an “as-is” listing is also a way of eliminating liability. If you purchase the house, anything that pops up later is entirely your problem. Again, this is fine—it’s part of an “as-is” deal—but pay very close attention, because the sellers may be hiding bigger problems behind smaller ones. If the problems the sellers disclose about the house don’t seem particularly terrible and you start to think this is the steal of the century, be suspicious. Most people won’t offer a house “as-is” if the problems are easily fixable.

Too much air freshener

Smell is an underrated scent that can have a big impact on our emotions and thought processes—you’ve probably heard the old advice about baking some cookies to make a house feel cozy. Certainly a house that smells clean and fresh will show better than one that smells like old shoes and farts, and some sellers may try to leverage this with some air fresheners or diffuser action. If the house assaults you with a wall of scent, however—if every room is a wall of Febreze—this could be a sign that the homeowners are hiding a troubling smell, like mold, or sewer backup.

Mismatched stuff

Finally, when house-hunting, put on your interior designer hat and look critically at the finishes and fixtures. Odd, out-of-place stuff that’s much newer or in a wildly different style than the stuff around it could be a sign of a quick, cheap repair. A few examples:

• A brand-new faucet in an old and busted kitchen or bathroom
• A single new or mismatched cabinet
• A patch of fresh tile that’s much less faded than the rest
• New wallpaper that doesn’t match anything else in the room (or the house)
• A much brighter ceiling tile in a suspended ceiling

This can be pretty subtle, but if you go into the home with your eyes peeled, out-of-place stuff will jump out at you, and offer the opportunity to investigate.