As a 31 yr old Millenial the concept of home ownership has been rather fleeting. every time I seemed to get close to a property I desired, some hurdle would fall in the way taking it out. I have always had a decent income but entry level homes in my area have always been just out of grasp of affordability for the most part and 30 year mortgages just seem like a jail sentence to me.
when it comes to properties, single family/entry level homes seem to be almost non existent where I grew up. anything under 250k is pretty much in a trailer park with lot rents closing in on $1,000/month. I thought things were expensive when rates were 3% and now they're 20% more with 8% rates.
my plan this year was to buy a property at the Tax Lien Foreclosure auction to fix up, and live in it while I finish school and flip it when I am done, but a cottage in my dream area popped up at a price that was interesting enough for me to drive 165 miles the next day to look at on Easter. before I got there I told my partner that I was going to figure out how to get this property one way or another and that no matter how bad it was the location is so perfect for my life that nothing would dissuade me.
once I got there, I was pretty dissapointed, I knew it would be bad, but it was far worse than I expected. My realtor and her husband are my 2 best friends, her reaction was that this project is way out of my league, and her husband responded, "what did you expect for the price" followed up with "you can do it".
I had written off this house before I even walked inside it, I was so immediately deflated the moment I stepped out of the car.
the foundation had visible cracks, the property itself had water logging issues, the electricity was cut off at the pole from who knows what sort of violation, the roof clearly was slapped on over some poor timbe, the lot size is small, and the problems only got worse when I got inside.
the floors felt like a trampoline, the framing beneath the house was damp/rotted, there was mold inside the house and it wasn't quite level due to the sagging foundation issues.
by the time I left the place, we were all laughing at how bad the place genuinely was. there were 8 realtor cards on the table in the kitchen, I asked my friend Suzie if she wanted to add hers to the deck.
immediately after we left I had dinner reservations with my family for Easter, when I told my family about it they didn't seem to have the same dismissiveness about the property. when I started talking to them about it, all I could talk about was how it would be the perfect place to call home if it wasn't such a POS now. they seemed to be a little dissappointed I had given up hope so easily.
I had another showing lined up back near where i'm living now the next day for 5 acres with full ammenities on site ready for a trailer or to build for half the price of this .11 acre lot with a cabin.
when I got to the 5 acres the next day, I fell in love with the property, but the neighbors definitely decreased the value of the lot. and I thought 4 acres of woods would have drowned out any highway noise but it was pretty considerable inside my car still. then I would have been 180 miles away from my family which isn't that bad given its a straight shot on the highway, but they've come to visit once in the past year since I moved up here and I haven't made it down as much as i'd have liked; so if I bought it I'd have my own little paradise to be a recluse in. not the kind of life I want to live and the work opportunities out here are slim.
I had never really considered a cabin on a small lot, my goal has always been acreage with a pole barn to work out of. However a small house on a 1 acre lot is 600k here these days and with interest rates at what they are, It would put costs at over a million over the lifetime of the mortgage. it just seems like a lot of investment without figuring in upkeep over the life of the mortgage and would deny me better investment opportunities elsewhere in the mean time.
so I started looking at what a small entry level cabin goes for in the area, and one similar popped up for $250k and was under contract in 3 days. The thought of being 15 miles away from where I grew up(in a better area than where I grew up) started to creep back in real quick. $250k is probably about all I could get approved for. maybe 300k and i'd be stuck there for a while as I just don't see $250k cabins appreciating much if at all over the next 10 years unless rates drop considerably. add in repair and maintenance costs and i'm probably back to being better off renting.
I called my friend up and decided to tell her that I wasn't completely over the fixer upper. She helped me do my due diligence. between calling all the local authorities and ensuring it wasn't required to tear down, getting septic reports, to finding out who to talk to about back filling and building permits she has been invaluable along the way. Slowly but surely I was able to create a road map to repairing this hellish property. from backfilling, septic repair, lifting the house to repairing the foundation, replacing the floor joists, to ripping out the drywall to studs and repairing from the ground up. The insanity of the project became a business/life decision. If I were dedicated to the work, the finish product was a worthwhile investment with a likely upside of 100k or so when all said and done.
I have been walking around for weeks, talking about this project and running estimations for projects, permits, materials etc. and through the process I realized that nobody could hire contractors to do this for what the property is worth and anyone with half a brain isn't going to buy this property to flip as it's going to have too much money tied up too long before there's any ROI.
Getting my Realtor on board to lowball the hell out of this property was a different story. She and everyone else I spoke with told me that I wasn't going to get more than 20% off of asking price given the area, property and current price and I wanted to offer less than 50%, I told her what my max was, which was where she wanted me to start my offer, but given the complexities with this property and my feelings that most investors would be better off buying a few cheap flips in less desirable areas than seeing this project through; I managed to convince her to offer 45% of asking price. we settled on 60% of asking price which was significantly less than I was willing to pay. and far less than my realtor suggested we START negotiations.
I have restored a few houses at this point and worked construction in a few different trades previously so I have always wanted a fixer upper(though I did not expect to buy something this crappy). Anyone else go this route towards home ownership? I am about to throw up, have a panic attack and shit rainbows with excitement.
This moment really feels surreal, like something truely spoken into existence and a testament to Gods Blessings. It's going to be a ton of work, but I will have a paid off house by the time i'm 33. 15 miles down the road from my family,in an area I prefer, Life is insane. you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
would love to hear your stories on horror flips, renovations or how you built your dream property up. I just went under contract so I'm having all sorts of emotions (from excitement to WTF did I just commit to, to just enjoying the rush). I just finished renovating a 1500 sq ft home, so have all sorts of ideas for how I want to finish this place out, though I Imagine it won't be ready to outfit until after winter given this place needs to pretty much be reframed from the ground up.
I'm on cloud 9 right now, probably going to feel sick again after closing and I step foot on the property again
