Tag: home buying

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The House you Shouldn’t Flip

Our home buying experience has taught us a lot. Flipping is a great way to work your way up to a home you otherwise couldn’t have afforded. If you make smart purchases and upgrades to your homes and always keep in mind the possibility of selling it for profit, not only are you being cautious for the unexpected possibility of needing to sell your house for any number of reasons, but you’re also giving yourself the freedom to be able to sell and “buy up”. We have learned that it’s good to buy under your budget. It’s hard to go for the outdated fixer upper that’s $50,000 less than what you’re pre-qualified for when you could pay $70,000 more for that immaculate move-in-ready home and stretch what you can afford- and of course everyone’s capacity for “fixing up” is different and depends on your stage in life, your resourcefulness, your time and your access to handymen/handywomen. But we have learned first-hand why buying under your budget can pay off if your goal is to flip your way up to your dream house without stretching your budget too much. Flipping is also a great way to make some extra money if you have the expendable income to invest in homes and the guts to take on the risk of a fixer upper.

And then every once in a while, you get lucky enough to find a home that you wouldn’t flip for anything and that’s kind of how we feel about our house now. A lot of things fell perfectly into place when we bought this house and we know that we can’t possibly take credit for all of this, because there was undoubtedly divine intervention. We are beyond thankful for the opportunity to live in our dream home and have the ability to house friends and family who need a roof over their heads.


This is the house our first daughter is growing up in and the only house she remembers (she was just barely 5 months old when we moved in).


Our second daughter was born in this house (literally born at home) but this is more than just a house for us. This house is huge– 3,500+ square feet not including the 350 square foot unfinished mother-in-law suite we have out back. We knew we always wanted a big house. It was one of our top priorities for our “dream home” for lots of reasons.

I’m a bit of a closet introvert and a homebody, so that combined with the fact that I work from home means I spend a lot of time in this house and I like to feel relaxed and recharged when I come home (or stay home all day). I believe that “our homes should inspire us to go out into the world to do great things & then welcome us back for refreshment.” -anonymous

I also love to host- I think I got this gene from my mama. While I am an introvert, there is something nice about being able to share my home with others, and maybe it’s because if I get overwhelmed by so many people, I can focus on refilling the food bowls or straightening up while my extroverted husband and toddler talk and entertain the people. We compliment each other nicely in that regard.

I also like having the extra space to offer a room to anyone who needs one. This big house has housed many friends and family- the people dropping by for a quick overnight stop before heading elsewhere and the people wanting to settle in and visit awhile. Our guest bedroom currently houses a family friend who’s finishing up college and I love being able to say without hesitation that we are happy for her to stay as long as she wants while she searches for jobs, and works on figuring out where she wants to go next. This house was home to a 10-year-old orphan from Latvia over the 2015 Winter holidays and we loved learning about the Latvian and Russian cultures and watching Markuss light up about the American skateboards and trampoline parks and our family dogs.

There is beauty in living small, but there’s also beauty in living big and the more space we have, the more we can grow our family and offer a piece of our home to others as well. We have big plans for our detached mother-in-law apartment and I’m thankful for every opportunity and blessing that has led us to where we are now. I know we call ourselves the Phillips Flips, but right now we’re just too flipping in love with our home and all the potential we’ve got. So hopefully you will love following along as we continue to flipping love and live in this home of ours.

When you find the house that holds your family with room to grow together, space to thrive independently and that extra something that reminds you that no walls or ceiling can hold back your potential, then you may have just found the house you shouldn’t flip- not because you can’t, but because who would want to? I know that it’s not the home you live in, but the people you share it with that really matter, but when you’re lucky enough to find the right space to share on top of it, each of those moments are infinitely more vibrant and you can live more peacefully with all the people (or animals) that make your house a home.

Photo Credit: Petal & Vine Photography -The good, high quality photos in this post set in our master bedroom were from my sweet friends over at Petal & Vine, but I added in a couple selfie’s and iPhone pictures too.

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Our Dream Home- The Best Flip we will (hopefully) Never Make

We have come along way since June 2015 when we purchased our 3rd home.

Our house stats when we purchased it were:
3,534 sqft
5 bedrooms
4 bathrooms
Purchase price: $160,000
Appraisal value at purchase: $180,000

When we bought this house, we knew it would require a good amount of work. We spent $40,000 in improvements just in the first year, and the majority of that went toward mandatory or practical improvements (not the fun cosmetic stuff), but after a year of work, we can finally rest easy knowing that we made a good investment.

When we moved in to this house, we had insane house bills for the entire first year. Not only were we paying to fix things that needed fixing, but we had added insurance costs because our home had previously been a foreclosure. We also paid a much higher rate for very little insurance coverage due to the fact that we had cloth wiring and extremely old galvanized plumbing. Our electric bill was sky high in the hot months (which in Florida is about 360 days per year) because of old single-pane windows and very little insulation. Additionally the PMI (private mortgage insurance) we had to pay for not being able to put down a 20% down-payment tacked on almost $200 per month.

So we were on a mission to lower those costs in every way possible. We focused on material updates that would increase our home’s value (to help us get rid of our PMI), and also anything to help us lower our insurance costs or save on utilities. The updates we did in the first year included:

  • Replacing all the windows- $5,000
  • Replacing one of the A/C units- $1,000
  • Purchasing and installing all kitchen appliances (there were NONE originally)- $5,000
  • Paid handymen to remove above ground pool built into part of the deck and the deck that surrounded it- $1,200
  • Replacing all galvanized plumbing- $5,000
  • Replacing and updating electrical (removing cloth wires)- $2,500
  • Drywall repair after redoing plumbing and electrical- $3,000
  • Installing a home security system complete with smart-home thermostats and smoke detectors- $100
  • Redoing the hall bathroom (the sub-floor under the tile was moldy from a small leak that was never fixed and when you walked on the tile floor it moved similar to that of a trampoline under your feet)- $2,000
  • Purchasing and installing doors (multiple rooms didn’t have any doors- thus the beauty of buying a foreclosure)- $600
  • Fixing leak in sports room ceiling/reworking lighting/drywall repair- $1,500
  • Replacing lights in kitchen with recessed can lighting- $500
  • DIY wall install in master bedroom to make a walk through closet- $300
  • Built in IKEA closets- $1,900
  • Reworking lighting in upstairs master bedroom and relocating some wall outlets in the nursery- $1,000
  • Drywall repair and painting for upstairs- $1,000
  • Replacing upstairs floors (including 2 bedrooms and stair landing) and stairs with hardwood floors- $5,200
  • Adding foam insulation in walls and attic throughout the house- $800
  • DIY painting interior walls, purchasing and installing light fixtures (where there were none) and other minor DIY fixes- $2,400
    Total first year costs: $40,000

After a year, we were hopeful that our updates combined with the housing market’s natural climb would get us an appraisal  of at least $200k to allow us to cancel our PMI payments. (In order to cancel PMI manually, you have to purchase and order an appraisal on your home and it has to come back at least 20% above your original home loan price).

Our current home stats are:
3,534 sqft
5 bedrooms
4 bathrooms
Purchase price: $160,000
Appraisal value at purchase: $180,000
Appraisal value 1 year later: $275,000

After a year of hard work, staying focused on our budget and gritting our teeth while putting our hard earned money into many practical things that will possibly never be seen (i.e. plumbing and electrical), we are proud to say that our home appraised $115,000 more than we purchased it for and with an overall investment of $200,000 ($160,000 purchase price + $40,000 renovations), that gives us a net equity value of $75,000! Also, after cancelling our PMI and making the necessary updates per our insurance requirements, we were able to get solid home insurance coverage and reduce our monthly payments by almost $400.

We are in our dream house and we don’t have plans to flip this house anytime soon, but it’s comforting to know that we wouldn’t be underwater if we had to sell.  In the meantime, stick around, follow along as we work our way through our home updates and renovations. Now that we’re through the worst of the mandatory fixes, we can finally focus on the fun stuff.

Next up: Backyard makeover!

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How to Choose a Style and Color Scheme for your Home

When it comes to home decorating, most people have a style that they gravitate towards and most people decorate individual rooms with similar color schemes, but should you have a house-wide color scheme and style?

Maybe you should.

While there may be some legitimate reasons to have a room with a different color scheme or style (for example: kids rooms and nurseries or specialty rooms like a theater room or kid’s play room may have some different style/color needs that exclude them from following your house-wide color scheme), for the most part you should stick to a cohesive look. Having significant variations in decor/color/finishes can make your home seem choppy and feel smaller than it really is. Especially with the open-floor plan trending high on most priority lists, a house-wide color scheme and style is even more noticeable and needed.

When you’re looking into buying your decor/textiles/paint colors or considering bigger more permanent renovation projects like changing the floors, cabinets, light fixtures or other major renovations, having a color scheme and style in mind is key to making sure that the decisions you make for your home now will be good decisions for future buyers as well as your future self.

Coming up with an idea board and color scheme for your home is a great place to start.

First, consider your house. Does your house have a style already? Maybe you’ve settled into a 1920’s Victorian. Your mid-century modern pieces probably won’t be welcome there. Victorian houses typically look best with darker wood tones and rich colors like maroon, navy, and maybe some green with off-white accents. The fixtures usually have an antique style with black iron or brassy finishes. They are usually chock full of character and intricate woodworking details. Vintage rugs always pair nice with this style- although I may be a bit biased because I’m convinced that vintage rugs will go with any style.

Some houses may not have a distinct style in which case they are more of a shell to infuse with your own style. The good thing about those houses is you’ve got a clean slate to work with. The bad news (sometimes) is that the more generic houses that are flexible enough to work with any style usually lack the unique character that most people love, but you can always add character pieces in! Other houses may have a subtle style that can be changed by changing colors, finishes or fixtures.

Whether you’re looking to flip or just lovingly inhabit, you’ve got to have a style in mind. Once you’ve determined your style, start pulling together some ideas for an idea board. This is a great time to incorporate Pinterest. You can search on your specific style and/or colors that you’d like to incorporate and get a feel for the vibe you want in your own home. Here’s an idea board example of a modern beachy style perfect for houses near the coast- or landlocked ocean lovers. Someone with this idea board would be looking for most all neutrals (tans, grays, beige, greige – yes! that’s a thing). They would accent with lighter wood tones or vintage or weathered wood pieces, anything white (or white-washed), woven textiles, linen fabrics, and lighter blue tones or anything that pairs well with those. You could accent with a little bit of navy or coral or even bright red if you wanted a more bold look- but not all three.

Consider the more permanent/semi-permanent features of your home. Do your floors and cabinets go with the theme you’ve picked? If not, consider if you plan to change those or if you may need to change some of your ideas around to fit with your current fixtures.

Here’s a mid-century themed board. Mid-century houses are usually accented with medium wood tones, gold or brass fixtures, tapered legs and always the starburst lighting. This is usually a style relegated to houses built in the “mid-century”- think 1940’s to 1970’s occasionally the 1980’s and while this is a pretty distinct style, you can usually infuse this style into a more generic home with mid-century decor and maybe a few added character touch-ups. Commonly used mid-century colors include mustard yellow, dark orange and olive among others. A common trend these days is the mid-century modern style which combines the mid-century board (below) with more modern elements.

Once you’ve got your idea board, pull out some specific things to help define a template for your home theme. What type of wood tones will you have? What temperature will your neutrals be? For example, do you like the warmer tans, beige and cream colored or off-white neutrals like the farmhouse idea board below?

Or would you prefer cooler toned neutrals like pure white and shades of gray? Make a list of your top neutral colors as well as the accent colors or brighter colors you plan to have in your home (if you’re planning for any). And then use your idea board as a guide when you’re picking out new decor or paint colors. This bright bohemian board is almost enough to convert my style. I just love the fun and bright eclectic patterns mixed with the crocheted hammocks and Pom Pom decor. And of course bohemian style isn’t complete without house plants.

For our house theme, we’ve got a industrial modern meets mid-century modern vibe going on and I’m gravitating towards black and white and cool grey neutrals. We’ve got a giant camel colored leather sectional from Restoration Hardware that lives in our family room which is really the heart of our house so the camel color is part of our home decor board. In addition to our cool neutrals, we’ve accented with navy and an occasional pop of yellow- because yellow is just the best color ever! We have a mix of finishes from black industrial-style metal finishes to stainless steel finishes in our kitchen and then a handful of the more mid-century gold accents as well. We’ve installed some light hickory hardwood floors with lots of variation from light to medium tones and we plan to install more downstairs eventually. We also want to add in some polished grey concrete floors in our family room and some fun cement tile accents- probably black and white. So I use this idea board as a base for our home decor purchases and any new finishes. That doesn’t mean we don’t ever go outside of the box. For example, my daughter’s bedroom is a fun cotton-candy pink with grey and white accents. And since our sports/theater room houses our old dark brown and tan sofa and chairs, that room has more warm tones to coordinate with the furniture. Also, the sports room has actual football field turf on the floor which isn’t really part of our idea board, but it makes for a fun (and super cheap) floor covering for the (mostly) football-themed room. Remember when I mentioned those exceptions above? There will always be some. But for the most part, our open-spaced living downstairs, follows the rules for our intended style and color scheme.

Here’s our home idea board complete with pictures of our actual home and decor as well as a few “dream” items.


You’d be surprised at how much an idea board like this helps when you’re browsing the throw pillows at Target and trying to decide if they will go well with your decor or not.

How do you keep a cohesive look in your home?

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Our First House (Flip)

In honor of our recent closing day anniversary, I thought it would be fitting to share the before and after photos from our first ever house which later became our first house flip! Technically speaking, I guess we bought and flipped our second house, then bought our 3rd house and flipped our first house. It was a crazy 3 years! More on our Phillips Flips (home flipping stories) here.

On March 21, 2013 we bought our very first house. It was dreamy… and I mean “dreamy” in the sense that you had to dream about what it would look like one day and not what it looked like right when we bought it.

Here’s what it looked like when we bought it:

And the inside:

Check out those floors! The floors on the right of the picture above are linoleum tiles. There was 2 full layers of ceramic tile where you see the tile up there at the top and the carpet to the left was dark green. And about 8 feet inside the front door was a nice little 3-way junction where all 3 of the mixed floors met up for no real reason.

All the bedrooms had that same dark green carpet.

The kitchen was pretty small and awkwardly closed off to the rest of the house. So the first thing we did was grab a sledge-hammer and bust through some walls:

We removed the wall shown above which opened the kitchen to the entryway and a little more to the dining room over to the left.

We removed the upper cabinets that were hanging above the island which opened the headroom up a bit and made the kitchen completely open to the family/TV room.

We ripped up all of the floors to make way for light-colored hardwoods.

And then we got to work! We painted the kitchen cabinets white!

It was much more open with the overhead cabinets out of the way.

We painted the front door this fun minty color and I DIY Frosted the front windows with a little hand cut monogram in the center.

I replaced the fan in the dining room with this Maskros Pendant Lamp from IKEA and we painted the fun accent stripe wall on the side wall over there. That was SO “in” back in 2013!

We gave all the other walls a fresh coat of paint (either white or light gray).

And replaced the dark green carpet with a neutral “greige” color that we found on crazy sale at one of our local carpet/flooring warehouse places. We found just enough carpet to put in our sunken den area and all 3 of our bedrooms. It was meant to be!

I didn’t get a ton of great shots of it, but originally we had vaulted ceilings that were covered in dark wood paneling. We painted over that with white paint and it looked kind of like vaulted shiplap covered ceilings!

With the wall knocked out, the upper cabinets gone and the white paint, the kitchen looked much more open and bright!

And finally, we got around to painting the outside of the house and redoing the roof with light metal panels.

On our first ever house flip, we spent about $10K in renovations:
Flooring: $4,000 (purchased whole sale and installed by a friend of a friend)
New roof: $5,000 (we pulled our own permits and had a friend do the work for us)
Paint: $1,000 (we used a lot of leftover paint that we had sitting around in storage and we may have used plain old white primer on some interior walls- you got to save wherever you can!)

We ended up selling this house for $16K more than we paid for it which was a $6K profit on the sale alone. We also rented it out for several months during some of the transition time while we were in between houses and we made a total of $11,700 in rental income. So all-in-all we made $16,700 on our first flip.

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The Phillips Flips- 3 houses in 2 years

Yes. We DID buy 3 houses in 2 years. We started small, tried our hand at renovating, got familiar with the real estate market and ended up in our 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 3,500+ sqft (fixer upper) dream home. It needs work, but we see lots of potential.

Here’s how we did it!

We closed on our first home (the Pinellas House) in March 2013.

The Pinellas House- BEFORE

Pinellas Stats:
Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 2
House size: 1,600 sqft
Lot Size: 1/4 acre

We shopped for about 6 months before we landed on this beauty. To be clear- we were looking for a fixer-upper. This was still our first home though and we weren’t ready to delve into major plumbing/electrical/construction. So we set out to find a nice house with good bones that was preferably outdated and therefore on the market for a “steal” of a price. One thing we could have done better with our first home was pay more attention to the location. We weren’t in a terrible neighborhood, but we were located right in front of a 3-way-stop intersection which we learned quickly meant having headlights shine through our front windows at all hours of the night. We were also within 1/3 of a mile of several commercial businesses- which isn’t really the greatest for up-sale later. Also, Walmart is great to have nearby, but if you live TOO close to one, there is a good possibility of having shopping carts left in your front yard- not great for curb-appeal. All in, we spent about $10K in renovations and ended up selling this house for $16K more than we paid for it which was a $6K profit on the sale alone. We also rented it out for several months during the time that we owned 2 houses at once and we made a total of $11,700 in rental income. So all-in-all we made $16,700 on our first flip.

The Pinellas House- AFTER

It didn’t take long to learn that although we were in a good school district and not far from other really nice neighborhoods, the exact location of the Pinellas house wasn’t really a great location. We knew this wouldn’t be our forever home. We knew we wanted to be closer to the historic district and in a bigger house- big enough to house ALL of the kids we wanted (about 5 kids give or take). So we kept our eyes peeled. Even as we fixed up the Pinellas house, we were constantly checking out other for-sale signs and browsing the online listings.

Then we found Kensington.

Kensington Stats:
Bedrooms: 2
Bathrooms: 1
House size: 1,300 sqft
Lot Size: 1/3 acre

Kensington was a smaller house on a bigger lot, in the perfect location- a dreamy oak-tree lined, brick-paved street less than a mile away from some of the best (and most expensive) historic houses in the city. We got Kensington for a crazy deal and acted fast. It actually didn’t need much work. We spent about $80 renting a sander to sand down and re-finish the original hardwood floors ourselves and didn’t change anything else in the whole house (not even paint colors). We sold this puppy 9 months later for $19K more than we bought it for- making ourselves a profit of $18,920.

Our original plan was to either add on to Kensington or demo it and build from scratch our dream-house. When we lived here, we spent most of our evenings on Pinterest, pinning all of our ideas and drawing floor plans that we hoped to bring to life one day.

Then we stumbled across the Sagamore House.

Sagamore Stats:
Bedrooms: 5
Bathrooms: 4.5
House size: 3,500 sqft
Lot Size: 1/2 acre

When I say we stumbled across this house, I do mean that literally. We were out walking our dogs one night and just one street over from us, we saw this house with signs all over the window. JP (who had gotten his real estate license) looked up the code to the lock-box and we went in right then and there to check it out. It was enormous inside. It was a bank owned foreclosure and it was listed just $10K more than what we had sold our first house for, but it was more than double the size and in a better location. The house needed LOTS of work, including but not limited to: new windows, new A/C unit, updated electrical, completely redone plumbing, paint, fixtures, doors, a demo of the existing run-down moldy above-ground pool, removal of a giant rotten wood deck in the back- and the list went on. So of course, we decided we had to have it. We put a bid in the running $10K above list price and won our dream-home auction style. One year after we purchased this house, we got a new appraisal done. In one year we had spent about $30,000 in renovations and our home appraised for $115K more than what we bought it for. And that folks, is why we love flipping! Buy the fixer-uppers, fix the fixer-uppers and one day you’ll be able to fix-up the dream house you could never have afforded otherwise. Read on to hear more about all the fun projects we’re doing on Sagamore these days.