We bought our first fixer upper and are sharing the process!
So, obviously, this post isn’t anything about food…..but it IS about A LOT of DIY! My husband and I bought our first (potentially) fixer upper. We wanted to document the process and also to share our ups and downs with others who might be wondering if fixer uppers are for them!
We lived in an apartment for 7 months after we sold our house out in the country, shopping for houses and trying to figure out our next move. We didn’t really have a reason to live in the country (so far out, 20+ minutes from town in either direction!), but we weren’t sure we wanted to just buy a house in the city.
We have also been trying to figure out ways to diversify our income. My husband has done lots and lots of research and talking to realtors, wholesalers, banks, friends, all of the people, to find out all he can about rental properties or buying fixer uppers to sell for a profit.
We pulled the trigger on this house and it is a great house, with LOTS and lots of potential. It’s in a decent neighborhood and in a great town. However, as with most things, it wasn’t without some risk and some headaches during the process of buying it.
Be sure to check out my post about how we made over our fireplace!
We were supposed to close in December, but the bank we used asked for every single thing they could think of, and our firstborn child, before the sale ever went through. It was one hiccup after another, for 4-5 months.
We FINALLY closed in January. Our lease was up on our apartment at the end of January so we extended it for one month and got to work. The house was not livable. Like at all. The previous tenants hadn’t had running water or gas in a very long time. The bathrooms and kitchen sink were DISGUSTING. The entire house needed to be gutted and redone. So we had our work cut out for us trying to get it livable for us to move in at the end of February.
It was a lot of work but we did it. We moved in with still about 2 full weeks of work to do that we originally planned to have done before we moved in. But it was livable, we had running water and gas.
We moved in on February 27th and have been working hard to finish. We did get the bulk of the work done before we moved in, and in the following two weeks after. Now we use the weekends to work on other things still needing to be done. We haven’t even touched the outside yet, with the exception of a new roof and new garage door.
The process has been as eye-opening and hard as we thought it would be. Originally we planned to turn this house into a rental. It’s 4 bed, 2 bath in a school district LOTS of people love. It would literally be a great rent house….and we may still rent it. But right now we are leaning toward flipping the house in a year or 2. That part remains to be seen.
We do plan to buy additional houses, 1-2 at a time over the next 5 or so years, and turn them into rentals. This is how we want to diversify our income. It’s great because the kids (2 teens, and 1 toddler) can help us with these projects. We homeschool so they are learning great money management, how to do basic and more advanced home maintenance, and lots of life lessons during this process.
Now, if you are a lover of before and after transformations here is the fun part: before and after photos!
The house isn’t finished, but I will keep posting a sharing this process as we finish things out.
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Our first fixer upper
