Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

What are your thoughts about this. It's cheaper..... but may be way more expensive in the long run.

Has anyone purchased a fixer upper?

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

They say to buy the cheapest house in the best neighborhood as opposed to the best house in a so-so neighborhood...So it does make sense. If we were more handy I would definitely buy a fixer upper, but DH doesn't do any home improvements himself, so it makes it more difficult.

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

I consider MANY, if not all of the homes I've ever seen on LI as a fixer upper. There's always SOMETHING that needed fixin'. lol With that said, if I saw one that was priced really well (low) in a really good neighborhood, I'd def be interested.

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

Here-here (waving hand). My house was a total nightmare. It needed literally EVERYTHING. We originally thought it was cosmetic stuff (kitchen, bathroom, paint, carpets, etc.) but as with most fixer-uppers, NO maintenance was done, period. So when we started taking down the paneling on the lower floor, there was no insulation and no sheetrock behind it. Added costs that we weren't anticipating. I wish I could say that was the worst of it. Let's not forget that every wall in the house was chewed from beam to beam from termites, there was substantial water damage on the lower level because the concrete wasn't pitched correctly. The list goes on and on. The wiring wasn't to code, the roof had damage it sustained during a windstorm, etc. It didn't help that our inspector was a dried up old a-hole who wasn't certified to inspect the inside of a soup can. At the end of nearly two grueling, hard working years, we had a house we were totally proud of and we had final say in EVERY detail of it. It would have literally been our forever home (if only our marriage had the same longevity):

Here's what it boiled down to:

Paid - $160,000
Invested - $150,000
Sold - $410,000

So yeah, we made money and we lived in a great house for seven years. Would I do it again? Hard to say.

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

we bought the worst home in what I consider the best neighborhood.... I orginially thought of it as a total gut job, but now that we did some minor cosmetic things it looks 100% better already

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

We did it. You can check out my album for before and after pics.

It was a very extensive renovation. My FIL's contractors were there everyday for 4 months, we couldn't live in it and had to live in IL's apt. but it was so worth it in the end.

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

They are all Fixer-uppers!!!

We spent a long time looking for the perfect style house, then looked for the perfect neighborhood.
We are so happy with our choice and making it our own, makes it even better.

http://picasaweb.google.com/tjlealand3

Better neighborhood equals more resale, equals happy me.

Good luck,

Message edited 4/22/2008 7:59:03 PM.

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

if you and your DH are handy and can live with a mess for a while...then get a fixer upper...if not, dont even consider it.

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

That's what we did and it was worth it- but DH is a contractor so we did all the work ourselves. It's a looooong process though.

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

i guess it depends on your definition of fixer upper! i was specifically looking for a fixer upper, but wanted a house that we could live in while doing renovations. my DH is handy, my Dad is a contractor and we figured we would want to change things to our own style anyway. the hard part was finding a good deal.

i think that as long as you are up for the challenge and you find a good deal in a good neighborhood, a fixer upper can be well worth it.

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

We did. My DH is also extremely handy and bascially built a brand new house on the inside.

It's worth it IMO---and the $$$ we saved just by doing it ourselves was well worth it. Granted, we had no summer to enjoy last year.....but we will be able to enjoy this years.

Having what we had done by someone other than us, probably would have costed 2x as much as what we spent.

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

We bought a complete fixer upper in a great neighborhood...or as they called it "handyman's special".

It sure is. We do things as we can (one thing at a time) and every little thing we do is a major improvement, but its fun and we are enjoying the home improvements. A big plus is that my DH does almost everything himslef so we save on labor. We love our home!

Re: Fixer Upper in good neighborhood?

They always say... buy the shabbyest house on the nicest block, so I would definately buy a fixer upper in a nice neighborhood.... as long as we had the money to fix it up.