Of course one needs to burnish the home’s “curb appeal” when putting a home up for sale. This often means painting the front trim, replacing the front door, etc. Often interior rooms are repainted to freshen up the look of the home, or to offer “neutral” décor after some brash color.
My favorite, though, is the meager attempt at repainting that follows interior water stains.
The inspector’s friend is MDF (medium density fiberboard) trim; unlike wood trim this warps right after being wet/doesn’t need much time to look rotten. It’s almost quaint when a seller will paint the MDF that’s misshapen from obvious water damage…like somebody won’t figure out leakage is happening.
My other favorite is poor paint patching…a small leakage stain at a ceiling may have gone unnoticed, until some shiny semigloss trim paint is used to cover it up, and brings my attention to it.