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Buying a 'fixer-upper' - would you?
Hi all,
I?m new to this site.....just got hitched a few months ago and decided to come over here from the knot 
So hubby and I are about to embark on the journey of home ownership....it's definitely time as we've outgrown our current place.
Anyway, I had a day off last week and went to check out a house that I saw in our price range - it's in a great area, excellent 5 star school district, has a huge property - especially for NY. The price is very nice too, especially for this town where houses start minimum 450k. This house is less than 300k. The catch? It needs A LOT of work. Like every single room needs something - although structurally, the house is fine. The house itself is liveable, once you do some quick fixie-doos. Most of the work is cosmetic. The house has new windows, new heat, new electrical box (the house is an old colonial home). Could use some newer updated appliances, but the ones in the place are in working condition. Roof is about 5 years old, give or take. House is quite small, but the size of the property allows for expansion in the future, and still have lots of room for a nice yard.
I'm thinking about this home as not just a place to live, but a long term investment for our future. Hubby is on the fence about it, but given what we can reasonably afford, to live in a decent area, and for some of our 'needs', our choices are pretty limited - so it's either getting a place like this for longer term, fixing it up and making it our own, or getting a coop. I do not like the idea of coop situation, because you don't actually own the property, you own shares and have to deal with bullshit rules of a board - maintenance can sometimes be outrageous and you are trusting that the people who are in charge of that maintenance money are doing the right thing with it. (I've researched some coops in our price range and the things I've read about them are horrible - one was actually fined by the EPA for having asbestos over the heating pipes)
Anyway, back to the original topic - would you consider buying a house that needed to be fixed if it was a good sound investment? Has anyone on here done this? Any advice for someone who is new to this whole home buying/searching thing?
Re: Buying a 'fixer-upper' - would you?
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We close next Friday on a 1970s semi that needs some work. It's nothing too major though - new trim, doors, a bit of re-drywalling and some paint will bring it back up to speed (oh, plus finishing the basement and re-modeling the upstairs bathroom...). Structurally though, it's a rock, and has newer windows, roofing, and appliances.
My partner is a carpenter, so we can do all the work ourselves and we have the cash to do it. Paying someone else to do the work is expensive, but doing it yourself takes a lot of time (and if you don't know what you're doing, it often won't look right or hold up well - not to say that's always the case, but we saw some pretty shoddy DIY work in houses we looked at).
In your case, finding a house for $300K sounds great, but you need to factor in the cost of repairs and an addition if you want one, etc. You also need to get a home inspection before you decide the house is truly structurally sound - it could have hidden water damage, be in a flood plain, have hidden mould or rot or termites or any number of nasty things you can't see/know on first glance. And try to find out whether or not that new electrical was professionally done - you don't want to mess with shoddy DIY wiring. I'd be skeptical of a place $150K below where most other homes in the area start.
All that said, if you think you're ready to take on the repairs, and there really is nothing wrong with the place, I'd probably go for it.
Absolutely yes, if the updates needed are cosmetic. Paint is easy; even patching walls and laying a wood floor can be done by a novice. When you're done, you'll have a minimum $450K house. As PP said, just make sure you have an inspection to confirm all that's needed is cosmetic.
We just did.. so YES!!
Everyone has their own opinion of what a "fixer up" is and what they are willing to do to a home. - that said - We looked at things from total rehabs to what we got.
sounds like most of the big stuff is done and you are looking at "little" things to make it your own. (not that appliances are little)
My best advice is get a good home inspection done - or two - opinions can vary.
Know your abilities and budget with what you can/can't do. Also take into consideration if everything has to be done now or if it can wait - you mentioned it was liveable as is - so is ours... it's pristine.. but it's 90 year old lady pristine.
Thanks everyone for the advice. Obviously, we wouldn't do anything until the house has a proper inspection - just from the initial run through it seemed like it was structurally sound - especially after the other house I looked at that had so many very visible issues and imo should just be torn down completely. This one seems solid enough - many of the initial fixes would be things like the floors, update the bathrooms and such - kitchen needs work too, but mainly just updated nicer appliances....overall though, the house would be liveable and we could do things a little at a time like you ladies have said.
An interesting thing for us is that we have access to pretty much anything we would need thanks to my inlaws. Also my father is a union painter, so I've learned a thing or 2 from him about painting and minor repair work. So yea, we're lucky in this respect to have people around us who have influenced us in a way where we have no problems getting our hands dirty.
One of the PP's mentioned to be warey of a house that is selling for a lot less than other homes in the town.....I agree with you, but I think the main reason the house is so cheap is because of the amount of work that does need to go into it - no one is going to pay 400k for a house that needs this much work - even if it is cosmetic - when they can buy another house for the same price, in the same town, that doesn't need any work whatsoever. One thing though - the view from the front of the house, diagonally across isn't so nice (there's some auto body shop there).....so this may be another reason why the price is so low. But that can easily be fixed with a nice high white picket fence so we don't have to see it - and with such a massive back yard, I don't think we'll be spending too much time in the front anyway hehe :P
Two years ago, we purchased a bank owned home that was overall structurally sound but still needed major work -
upstairs hall bath was non-functioning and needed a complete remodel
every room needed to be painted
all flooring needed either repair or replacement
no running water (basically all of the first floor pipes had to be replaced)
unsafe conditions in the (improperly) finished basement
all windows needed replacing
siding was warped and/or rotting in places so that had to be replaced
roof needed replacing
landscaping was a mess
outlets and light switches were improperly wired/old and needed replacing
Those are just the major issues...small things pop up here and there as we go along. We've done A LOT to this house, but we still have a very long way to go.
Why did we do it? The price was excellent. We could not otherwise have afforded a home in this school district (and getting that for our kids was the whole reason we were moving in the first place) that met our requirements - four bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 1/3 acre or larger lot, basement, garage (lots of homes around here just have carports or nothing). Even after we pay for all of the renovations we'll still have spent the same or less on this house than comparable move-in condition homes sell for and our house will be 1) completely updated and 2) exactly to our tastes. Win-win for us.
HOWEVER - it's extremely important that we went into this with our eyes wide open. We are not first time homeowners. DH is incredibly handy and has done/will do a huge portion of the work himself which saves a ton of money. We couldn't have done it if we'd needed to hire contractors, or if we'd (mainly DH) been less knowledgeable about home maintenance/repair. And it has been extremely tough to be giving up things like weekend plans, vacations (I took one with the girls, but it was short and DH did not go with us), dinners out, etc. All of that will change once the house is finished next year and we'll be thrilled we did it, but while you're actually in the middle of things it's hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel. Unless you have a lot of extra cash to just pay contractors and get it done ASAP, think long and hard about how much of yourself you're willing to invest in the process because it's difficult under the best of circumstances and could be downright impossible if you aren't prepared for it.
Just be sure to get a good inspection, if you need a good company and are on Long Island let me know, the company we used was awesome! Be prepared that there might be more wrong that you can't see...we had that happen to us 3 seperate times.
The location with the autobody shop might be an annoyance that could keep teh house from selling. Also, many of the towns have rules that work done in houses must be done by workers licensed in that town which might raise the costs. Most normal things can not be done by just your average person unfortunately and you need permits for EVERYTHING to make it legal. Just check out the town you are in to be sure.
dragonfly pretty much said it all....
you have to be in it for the long haul... if you don't want to have to pay someone. Even if you do it can be overwhelming (i'm sure??)
we are also experienced home owners (lots of rentals) and do it your selfers.
I/we have lived in a "construction zone" for a long time... it is (to me) worth it, and just part of life. (parents were always doing something - i was always doing something with my rentals.
take the whole light at the end of the tunnel thing for real... some days it is hard to see.... but it is there.
We aren't first time buyers but we just bought a fixer upper. We were open to pretty much anything that we could move into quickly (so no shortsales/foreclosures) and ended up with a house that was more of a fixer than we originally planned. We ripped off wallpaper, patched plaster walls, painted, put in hardwood floors and carpet, and demolished the kitchen before we moved in (in a 2 week period). DH has replumbed the whole house and rewired the kitchen/living room/dining room. He is really handy at everything and I can do a lot so we're pretty experienced. We redid a lot of our old house and had a rough estimate at prices but we've still gone way over budget. We open a wall and find 10 unexpected problems but it'll be worth it. We paid about half what other homes on the road go for with a huge lot. We'll be doing projects for the next 3-5 years but it's a fantastic house with a lot of potential. We hope to get it reappraised next year to drop our PMI (we put the minimum down on a conventional loan 5% so we could keep as much cash as possible for the renos).
Good luck in your decision. If you have the resources to help you do your projects and have the time and cash and patience to live in a construction zone - come home from work and work on the house til late at night, then go for it!
DH and I bought a fixer upper about two years ago. To be honest, we were not at all realistic about the amount of work the house needed as well as the amount of stress fixing everything up would cause. We had an inspection - everything was fine- the work that needed to be done was only cosmetic - but the more we started digging, the worse it got. Termite damage was the very worst - we have had to replace WALLS - after this happened, we started tearing everything down to the studs - the electric stuff we have found has scared the living daylights out of me.
At first, we thought we could do the work ourselves - but we both work 12 - 15 hour days - I am not sure what we were thinking. Thankfully, we have a fantastic subcontractor - we joke that we he should just move in. He has been a huge blessing and is absolutely fantastic to work with. Best of all, he has good "design" sense as well...before we started our guest bathroom remodel, I had it all laid out for him with examples of the finishes I wanted to use and he flat out told me that he didn't think the bathroom was "me" and to think about it for a few weeks - I did and I am so glad. So, first and foremost, find a subcontractor you can trust.
Anyway, we have plans to finish our kitchen, third bathroom, and utility room this spring. Thus far, we have spent around $50k redoing the house and our budget for the kitchen area is around $75k. Our original budget for the entire house was $50k. As we started to dig in, we found some issues, but the biggest expense was that I determined if this was to be our forever home then I wanted it how I wanted it and we haven't done anything cheap.
In conclusion, if we had to do it all over again, we certainly would. We have had a hell of a good time picking everything out and bickering back and forth about layouts and finishes. Poor DH has spent more time than he would ever care to admit in fabric stores helping me pick out fabric for drapes. We are both giddy excited about starting the last piece of the house in April. The first six months or so of living in this ugly house was pretty awful but it has been so much fun to watch the changes take place. I love that this home is our taste and doesn't look like a carbon copy of the house down the street. We have had to make a lot of sacrifices to pay for everything - that has been the hardest.
Worth every tear.