Looking at Buying Fixer Upper Need Some Advice

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artistkate

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So I am looking at buying my first house, and I haven't found anything I like in my price range. However this weekend I came across a house that I have completely fallen in love with. It's big, beautiful, and old. Just what I've always wanted. But I'm not sure how to go about getting a loan for something like this. It's listed at 36k and it has a few walls that need repaired, a few rooms need carpet, about 5 or 6 windows need replacing, and when they sided it in 2012 they didn't do window trim or gutters. So I'm wondering what it may cost approximately to get all that done. My dad said probaby about 3000 for all the walls and floors to be done but I'm not sure about the window trim and gutters. The kitchen is already done and so is the bathroom minus the floor, it's plywood. It's a 4 bedroom house, 2300 sqft with 2 living rooms 2 bathrooms and dining room. I just am nor sure what the best way to do this is. I would have about 5k of personal money left after my DP, would a home improvement loan even be worth looking into? I plan to do everything myself minus the outside work. If anyone can give me any advise I would really appreciate it.
 
Here are a few pictures that I took just to kind of show what I'm looking at.

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Welcome to the site. Congrats onlooking into buying. 36K might buy the lumber to frame that house where I live. Of coarse you never know until you dig in but I would bet you are looking at very old wiring and plumbing. Can't help with finance questions, that's more a local thing. These old houses can be really rewarding but they can also be a money pit.
 
It's in a very small town of about 300 people just outside of the city I work in. The siding was done in 2012, water heater in 2013, circuit board and wiring redone 2014, kitchen addition and roof in 2006. Double garage that is double deep, 1/3 acre lot, gazebo, small utility shed, and a nice big deck out back. Basement had copper pipes, and new brick foundation. Hardwood floors throughout. Bathroom has all new pipes, wirlpool tub but no floor.
 
If it was all fixed up like would like to see it done , how much would it be worth? I am not trying to discourage you, I think it's great but it has to work for you.
 
Is that ceiling damage from a water leak?
Will you need to blow in some insulation into the walls?
For financing, talk to you local lending agency.
 
The ceilings are covered in wall paper and it's hanging down, not sure why there are holes except for where the electrical was ran. I don't see any water damage but I didn't go in the attic since we did not have a ladder to get up in it. I was planning to hire an inspector to look it over if I did place an offer on it. I would plan to redo at least the exterior walls and reinsulate over time. I could see this being a 15 to 20 year housee for me and have always grown up in home renovation. So this would be a slow going reno. Just fix the major things up and then work on the extras. From what I can tell right off the bat it needs all the wall paper torn down and a few holes patched. A couple stairs need fixed, bathroom needs a floor. There were 5 or 6 windows that needed replaced and a couple carpets torn out. Plus the outside cosmetics.
What do you think of the outside of the house?
 
Oh and other comps in that town that are decently remodeled and close to same size were selling around 130k range.
 
Here are some closer ups of the roof, not sure if they are something to be concerned about.

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Question for the inpector.
Inspect for new wiring when in the attic.
Height of chimney over roof.
The plate window in the first picture, studs were cut that shouldn't have been, have him check to see if that is showing signs of trouble. It may have been done properly.
Do the inpection with your inpector look at everything he looks at and ask what he is looking for. Anything that interests you and he says is ok, take a picture anyway.
I think the outside looks fine, the deck look like they may on their last legs but it all looks pretty straight.
Before you change windows you want to strWith the wood ip the inside and check the framing for rot and be prpared to fix that when the windows are out.
With the wood trim around the window will allow for full removal and proper new constructure proper installatin of the new ones with out touching the siding.
 
Oh and other comps in that town that are decently remodeled and close to same size were selling around 130k range.

That leaves you lot's of room to make some money.
Get your inspectors thought of the venting in the attic, That is one thing I don't like and ask him if it is plateform or balloon framing.
 
Awesome sounds good thank you. I'm going out Wednesday withat my realtor to look at a few other homes but I feel like every bone in my body is screaming this is my house. Lol.
From what I could tell the deck was still really good, and I know it needs cleaned but snow had also been meltin making it look discolored.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum. I have been thru this a couple times in my life and both times I would say the homes were in just about exactly the same condition yours is or maybe worse. Before I talk about anything with the structure, and it’s clear you are in love with the house let’s talk about the economics of the house. Neal is correct you are almost paying for the property and the well and septic etc. or you could say the framing or any one of the upgrades would get you to 36k. So how long has the house been for sale? And do you know the pricing history of the house? How long has it been unlived in? Do you know the reason for the sale? What are the total taxes per year? Do you know the utility costs? Quite often taxes on these old places are very low and can be a great reason to buy one compared to new construction and save you many 1000’s over the years you will live there. You mentioned comps in the 130K range close by. Have any actually sold in the last couple years. Small towns are priceless and if it’s reasonably close to your work that’s a plus. What are the schools like?

Falling in love with an old house is a good thing in many ways and can be a bad thing if it clouds your judgment to look past the reality of what you are getting into. It’s also never a good idea to tip your hand to those selling it just how badly you want it. Treat it as a business deal at least until you become the owner. I actually try and find things to discourage myself and estimate things on the high side in my planning process.

You need to put pen to paper and try and ball park the short term and long term project to really turn this place around for you. The facts are they are asking 36k. If it’s been on the market a while and the town is still in a depressed state as to home sales. Maybe you offer 28K and they come back with 32k and you counter with 31k or something like that. You are talking about spending about what many people spend on a car or truck and you can have this place paid off in 3 to 5 years. Then for the next 25 years you won’t be paying some bank interest forever. Remember if you bought that 130k place on a 30 year loan you would be paying back 2 or 3 times the 130k.
But all great ideas in life have a down side and the down side to doing this on your own without a lot of working capital is you are going to be building sweat equity and asking for a lot of help from friends and family if you have them to help. But it’s mostly going to be on you. It doesn’t all have to be done at once but you don’t want the project to take 20 years ether. You are looking at 2 years of coming home from work grabbing a PB&J and a glass of milk changing your clothes and working 4 or 5 more hours. Weekends will be great as you have some daylight to do outside stuff and some helpers might show up. We can’t tell you if you are that kind of person or not only you know if you are ready for this. I have found when a person has a passion for a project like this and is doing it for all the right reasons and being smart about it. It’s not even like hard work it’s actually fun and something you can’t wait to get home and get started.
It has been my experience that people that buy a fixer upper like this and then hire it all done end up paying more than the 130k in your case the comp would be.

Now for my opinion based on what you have told us and the photos you have shown us and knowing there is a lot more to look at that’s still unknown.
I think someone owned this house that was on the right track and the work they did looks good to me. For some reason they got so far and had to stop. I think the house has good bones and if the upgrades are as you described I think you have found a little gem that needs finished up.
 
Falling in love with a house is only good for the seller, not the buyer. As they say ...love is blind. You need to look at a house as though you hate it so you're less likely overlook its' flaws.
Their are so many things that these pictures show that would concern me. Just the last photo, how they just pieced in the top trim...and did a sloppy job. How the gutter butts right up to the house and with the downspout feeding into it. You know lots of water would splash up and run behind the siding. One can only imagine what kind of damage is going on under the siding, which you won't be able to see.
There will be issues because this is an old house, because it's been neglected, because someone attempted to do work on it when they obviously had no clue what they were doing.
You'll have to fix what others have done. You'll have to fix what you can see, and what you can't see. You'll have to change out the windows...frames and all.
All in all....if someone gave me this house for free, I think I would decline.
This appears to be the proverbial money pit. I can see what you like about it but from my perspective, the negatives outweigh the positives.
Just my opinion.
 
I would have never pieced together that trim like that ether and it looks like the plan was to do soffits, fascia and windows with aluminum and ran out of money and just replaced some of the gutter where needed. So all that pieced together stuff was to be covered up.
My house we now live in was freshly sided with vinyl but all the trimming was done also. I poked around as best I could before we bought it to try and figure out what they went over. Short of tearing some of the siding off all I could tell is it was covered in the fanfold stuff before siding and I was ok that it was done correctly or good enough. Once we got it and went into demo and rebuild mode I had to add two windows and a door and had a chance to see what was below. In my case it had two layers of siding below the siding. The original wood siding 1890, then some space age 1950 stuff that shall remain nameless, then the fan fold and then the vinyl. I had to get creative with building the new framing out and needed deep jambs coming back. Compared to modern building practices all these places look like a nightmare, but then again they have been standing for 150 years keeping someone out of the weather. I often wonder looking at homes built in the 1980 comparing them to the 1880 now and find 1980’s are looking a little worse for the wear.

The house we have now we paid 24k for and put maybe another 15k in with a whole lot of work that rang up as zero, but I know better. We had two types of comments going in. From the good friends they would walk thru and say nothing but eyes said a lot, and then the good friends that were outspoken mostly said I would have turned it down if it was free. After we began tearing into it even the say nothing friends began getting more vocal and mentioning the free would have been too much thing. The truth is they were right because the house sat for over 2 years without heat and a few dozen house flippers looked at it and passed. The reason they passed was one they wanted to resell it and in this town nothing was moving at that time or they wanted to rent it and there are a dozen houses for rent close by that they are giving away because no one wants to live that distance from where they work. So from an economic stand point the only person I talked to that was seriously looking at buying our house was the neighbor that owns the property all the way around ours. His goal was to rip it down but he saw some high costs in the demo just to make his side yard larger. We were the only people that the location fit and crazy enough to take on the challenge. We didn’t hire an inspector as I joked his list would be short if he only wrote down what was right.

If I was the OP for sure I would get a siding guy in and explain I want all the eves and windows trimmed in and flashed properly along with proper gutters. Get a quote and double it and budget that expense into what you know you will need to spend right off the bat. You need to have a dry shell around you before you even think of fixing anything inside. That and what your building inspector says should tell you a lot. He needs to know you are buying this as a project and you don’t need to know every crack in the plaster you want to use his time to look for major issues of concern. Mainly big $ items that are out of your skill set.
 
I called the listing agent and talked to him briefly he was with a client though so he said he would call me back. I will ask him as much as I can come up with and then let you guys know. What are typical things you all ask sellers? It's listed as-is.
 
I was also doing some more digging around online and found that the neighbors house that is 1800 sqft no garage sold for 92k in 2014. And the estimated home value of this one is 185k if it is completely renovated though I'm not sure where they got that number. The appraised value is 58k, but being bank owned I'm guessing they are trying to get rid of it. They do still have electricity, water, and gas on. Estimated utilitis are 150 to 180 a month.
 

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