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Is anyone looking at fixer-uppers?
In this town, housing is pretty expensive (it is a small town but living within walking distance to downtown is highly desirable, so housing prices in town are expensive).
We *might* be able to afford a house in good shape in town. It would probably be at the top of our budget. The budget is somewhat unknown right now bc we are waiting for our old house to sell, and we have to see how much we have to drop the price to get it to sell.
The other option is a fixer-upper.
Option 1: listed for 99K, only 2 bedroom, small lot. Plan with this would be to live there 5ish years, then sell or rent it out and buy a bigger house. Possible that we would consider ripping off the existing kitchen addition (1 story) and adding a 2 story addition in the same place with a 3rd bedroom. Whole inside needs to be completely redone. Bank owned. How flexible is price on a bank-owned house? Could not fit a garage on the lot (many houses in town do not have garages, this wouldnt be a huge issue with resale, just annoying for us in the winter). 1200sqft
Option 2: larger, 3 bedroom, I think estate owned (or else an elderly person went to a nursing home or something and the family is selling to cover those costs). Very overpriced @250K. We would have to negotiate way down. 3 bedroom. About 70% of it needs to be redone. Has a family room addition so it has more living space than #1 and #3. Even if we got the price down a lot, though, it is quite a bit more $$$ than #1. Nice lot. No garage but has room to add one. 1600sqft
Option 3: updated bungalow, 3 bedroom 2 bath (although one of the bedrooms is TINY- like twin bed only). 220K. Nice lot. No garage but has room to add one. 1400sqft
Which would you choose? Why?
Re: Is anyone looking at fixer-uppers?
I can't really help you pick, however, with #1, be aware that if you rent it out, the total amount that you get for renting it will probably not be counted toward your income when you try to get a new mortgage. There is usually a formula that banks use based on vacany rates and other information.
So you'll need to find out what you might be able to rent it for before you jump into #1.
For me 5 years of living there wouldn't be worth the nightmare of dealing with the contstruction.
Personally, with out any extra information I'd probably pick the house that was with in my budget that I would live in the longest.
We bought one last year, similar to what your #2 is. It is on a great road and was over priced for the work that needed to be done as was also an estate sale. We did get the house at about 80% of asking and have made so many improvements over the last year. It's amazing to see the transformation and we still have a few more thugs to do (basement, master bath and bedroom remodel and guest bath update).
Without knowing your budget, I would say to think about how you plan to pay/do these renovations. We've done everything with cash so far but will be looking into a loan for our big project this year and then we'll save cash for the rest over the next 5 years. This is a house we do plan to live in forever or a really really long time.
I can't really tell you which one to do but don't get attached to these until you sell your house. That was one of the hardest things.
We purchased a fixer upper a few years ago and have been updating since, based on that 1 would be out for me it just sounds like too much work especially if your are trying to get it all done in 5 years. Renovating is expensive and time consuming!
Between 2 and 3 it would depend on the home layout, neighborhood, and how far down you could get house number 2.
The good news is we have nothing but time
We are just waiting until our house sells, and even then we have a month to month lease, so we can wait around and buy when the right house comes.
I think regardless of which house we end up offering on, we are fairly content to not get attached to a specific house, and lowball in hopes of getting a good deal, even if that means we pass on a few houses. All the houses we like have been on the market for quite a while so that should work in our favor.
My husband and I are currently looking at fixer uppers as well. We are of course, looking for the worst house in the best neighborhood so we'll be able to, hopefully, make money when we sell. We aren't looking to settle for a long time and the house would be specifically short term, which is why we're looking for the fixer upper.
We've been looking at houses that are mostly 125k and lower, and our biggest needs are that you could live in the house right away, regardless of what needs to be done with it. We'll be getting a large sum of money in the next few years, so we're wanting to buy the fixer upper for as low of a price as possible, put about 20-30k into it, and make money when we sell in 2-5 years.
however, in your situation, it doesnt seem like the 99k house has a lot of room to expand since it's a small lot. But I personally would probably go with that one because you could probably get the most value out of it when you did sell.
#3, your baby could have the small bedroom or it could be a playroom/office. I'm living in a very small house 2bed/1bath with a mobile child and it's very cramped. And we can go outside to play year round, which I know isn't always possible in your city (my SIL lives there with her 3 year old & two dogs...).
There's always the chance that #2 won't negotiate down with you and you would still have to re-do a lot $$$.
The time and money involved for reno wouldn't be worth it to me if we weren't planning to stay there for awhile.