I wanted to start a thread for all to join in on and who knows maybe if the input is good would turn into a sticky at some point.
I have been thru this process a few times in my life the first being a very young man with young children, working long hours and having endless energy and learning skills as I went. There wasnt an internet let alone anything called a DIY forum.
One of the first things I learned when I started looking at houses as a young guy was I couldnt afford what I wanted in a home and there was all these compromises to look at. Those days the housing market was growing rates were sky high and realtors when working with you had this term they used to try and sell you on called a Starter House The idea was you buy a house less than you want in an area you didnt want and pay for it for a few years building equity along with hoping housing prices kept going up and also improving your credit score in the process. If you did a little improvement that helped too. The idea was you sell it start all over a little closer to what you want and keep doing that and eventually you have the house of your dreams. Meanwhile your kids went to 3 different schools and about the time you got your dream home in the good community with the good schools your kids were in collage.
I wasnt one that wanted to fix something up to sell and move on and the type of hobbies I like gardening and stuff I hated to leave behind. I actually hate to leave behind my handy work in some ways also. I found out there was something called property tax and it varied all over the place even in the upscale town mostly dependent on the age of the house. In the town I bought in a 100 year old house might be taxed at $800 per year where a new home about the same size might be $3000 over 30 years thats $66,000 and that was enough to pay for the house. So my idea was find the location I wanted as in towns and schools etc. find something old and in need of lots of sweat equity that had a basic good structure to start with. The advantage I thought was it didnt need to have everything I wanted because I would just add what I wanted and how I wanted myself. That was how I ended up doing it. I was luck as I had the energy and the skills to do most of it myself and had some family willing to help. It is very easy to think you can tackle a big project and very easy to underestimate how much work you are biting off. I ended up with the house I wanted in the beginning and then some and was happy there for 30 years. So it can be done.
I learned a lot in the process when looking for houses I had several I looked at some newer than the one I ended up with all in about the same price range. The newer ones were more of what they call a spec house with the cheaper methods and products and those being around 10 years old really looked worn. The other reason they were priced comparable they were located just on the fringe of where I really wanted to be. I thought I knew a lot more than I did at the time and I spent more time looking the houses over than the realtor said she ever saw anyone do. There might have been home inspectors then but I never heard of one. There was local building codes but nothing like the unified codes today and it was a time when an owner could still build his own home and get financing and insurance to do it. So it was the tail end of a distant era. I didnt itemize and calculate and scrutinize like I do today I instead crawled around and in and under with a pen knife poking in structure looking for bad wood rotted pipes and bad wires. The house had a metal room circa 1940 metal roof that looked like it needed painted is all. I painted it once and said never again. I never really finished working on that house. Homes are like that. But it took a couple years and I was proud of my work and was a nice place to live.
Fast forward to 2013 kids gone work carrier coming closer to retirement older and smarter and still full of energy but the rest times between spurts of energy becoming more frequent and lasting longer. Thinking that smarter might replace the stronger I decided to do it again and take advantage of the awful housing market thats still hanging on around here and do it all again. Being smarter I wasnt about to tackle an 1880s house again so I started looking for something much newer and found a 1903 baby. Factoring in the 30 years that had elapsed I dont think I did myself a favor though. I used a similar methodology though but instead of schools I used golf courses to guide my search. Went south of the bigger city and looked in a little town that seemed more 1950s than 2000s kind of a Mayberry RFD setting albeit the town is a little depressed economically that made the housing all the more attractive. We looked at foreclosures and short sales and then some that had been in that state a couple years. I spent more time this time looking at neighbors properties and how they kept them up. Property taxes havent changed the older the better it still seemed. I wasnt as enthusiastic this time about doing high wire acts on ladders and roofs and the house we found was one that someone had made a really great start at doing and stopped. They had new siding on the whole house and half the roof surfaces were new. The whole house was rewired 200 amp service all done to code. The plumbing was a total mess and sitting thru 2 winters unheated made it even a bigger mess. They had a new high tech gas furnace in and the drawback was the inside full of junk and garbage walls and ceiling falling in carpets that looked like they needed tossed in 1955. And they must have had 20 cats. When we looked at the house there was ice and frost half way up the walls. It had a nasty drop ceiling and when I popped panels half the plaster was off the ceilings above and the ceiling wiring was draped thru the space. It was exactly what I wanted. Haha. I figured the house in that little town might be worth 80k if all done and if you could move it 30 miles north would be worth 120k. I looked at what it was going to take and it was 70% labor free to me if I did myself and 30% material. I itemized every bit of it and allowed to hire pros for the rest of the roofing and a few other things. I figured it would be ok if you could get it for 40k but having sat for 2 years it wasnt like it was going to sell fast and getting worse by the day. Doing my homework I find out like all homes now a day the mortgage had been sold and resold and liens had piled up on it and the bank that owned this PA beauty was in CA and into this place for about 80k. I had to think they were ready to cut it loose just because it was getting worse and they were paying to keep electric on and taxes. I told the realtor we would offer 20k and he said he was pretty sure they wouldnt take that offer, I assumed maybe that was offered before and he was hinting 25k might be better. I said 24k is our top number and they excepted. Figured it was done. Well the closing agent found another 10k lien to the local township and there was no money at the low selling point to pay that so the deal was off. As a last ditch effort I asked to speak at the township meeting and explained if they forgive the lien they get a new tax payer and all that comes from that, if not in a couple more years they would be paying to rip it down. They put it to a vote and it passed 2 to 1 and we got the place.
It is an ongoing project but we moved in after about 3 months of the dirtiest work and it is now 80% complete. I did something in this house I didnt know how it would work out. I bought 75% of the materials to rebuild the house based around cost off the internet and most of it off Craigs List. The oak kitchen we found 100 miles away and hauled in a cattle trailer. Windows, doors, light fixtures, ceiling fans, lumber, flooring, the list is too long to remember it all but I would guess it was all 10 cents on the dollar, and all in excellent condition. It was a lot of looking but there is so much used materials out there and its kind of fun to reuse them. I plumbed every inch of supply with new PEX smartest thing I ever did. Under those old carpets we found chestnut floors and all oak trim and have refinished all that. It took a good 6 months of evenings and weekends to do the bulk of the work and we had some good family help also. This house was a true rebuild Fixer Up in every sense of the term. We added walls and took out walls and added an archway. When you have a house like this its total freedom to make it what you want. One of our splurges was off the living room we put in a front projection theater room with a 110 screen something we both enjoy.
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LOL.
