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 So we set out to find a nice house with good bones that was preferably outdated and therefore on the market for a “steal” of a price.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.