Attempting to buy a fixer upper

Has it been insulated well? Electrical updated in the last 20 years? If not. Pass for me.

>>1098760
if you can barely afford to buy it, you surely wont be able to dump money into it

>>1098760
My cousin just bought a 'tri-level' home for 225k about an hour outside of chicago in Indiana. Home prices are cheap there and he needed to do very minimal things to the house. The house is huge too, over 2k square feet, half finished basement. But he plans on having a dumb amount of kids. I think he's an idiot for it but the price and the house is fantastic for what he wants out of life.

How much is the house you're looking at?
How much house do you need?
How much house will you need in the future?

Is it worth blowing tens of thousands of dollars renovating a house that you won't use?

3 fireplaces seems like that kind of house.

Old houses have old hidden problems. Since money is tight make sure you find a house with modern features, double paned glass, insulated exterior walls, insulated attic, etc. You can spend what you think is a fair amount of money on a house then you see that first heating / cooling bill and find out you can't afford the house.

Also, inspect the crap out of the house since it is so old.
Chimney sweep for the fireplaces.
electrician
plumber - do a camera inspection from clean out to sewer
If any part of the yard slopes towards the house, an engineer

All of those inspections cost $400+ per inspection. The plumber and electrician may give you an hourly rate.

I just bought a 70 year old house knowing I have sagging old iron sewage pipes between pvc pipes and uninsulated exterior walls. Bought a sewage cleaning kit, used twice already, and I just got my first gas heating bill which is 150 times higher than the previous month. Also one fireplace doesn't have a damper. All this wasn't a surprise to me because I got a thorough inspection. I wish I had hired an electrician though. Whoever rewired this place in the 70s was a moron and Im still figuring out what he tried to do.

>>1098760
OP I bought a shithole for 21k.

I spend over 500 bucks a month trying to fix this shithole.

Fucking run the fuck away.

>>1098815
>$500/m
>repair for a year
>$6000
>Use that as tax credit
So it cost nothing

First off open all of the walls. Clean them and then hire an electrician to come in and rewire. Then hire a insulation company and have them spray the walls with foam. Old houses are complete ass without good insulation.

>>1098815

>run away from a home that cost less than a midsized sedan

Just picked up a house for 17k myself. It's only 1100sqft but it's just me and my girlfriend. I paid cash. I'll probably dump 5-10k in repairs to it, though it's definitely livable now.

My favorite part is the little two car garage with a workshop that some old man probably spent many nights working it. It feels really comfy.

Closing on a fixer-upper tomorrow for 245k Canadian Pesos.

Brick. Six bedrooms originally, but divided into a duplex (four on one side, two on the other). Going to live in the four bedroom side and fix it up while I rent out the already renovated two bedroom side. Mortgage will be $800 per calendar month, but I make a good wage, so I will be able to do a lot of work on it myself (mostly drywall) while servicing the mortgage. The wiring is already all updated. Only thing is it isn't well insulated, and I'm torn about trying to insulate the walls, as I have heard brick needs to be able to breathe. I will be insulating the shit out of the attic over the next year though.

>>1099102

> I have heard brick needs to be able to breathe

If you insulate inside how wouldn't they be able to breathe?

>>1099111

Oh baby, a triple.

I'm not entirely sure - I'm a newfag to DIY.

I've just heard that it isn't always good to insulate brick walls? Educate me please - thankfully (?) all of the drywall needs to come down, so I will have ample opportunity.

>>1099114

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/insulating-old-brick-buildings

>>1099116

>http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/insulating-old-brick-buildings

Huh, didn't know my country was weird. Most brick buildings here have double walls, only inner wall is load bearing. They just pump insulation in between.

>>1098815
>>1099087
Did you just contact the seller directly or through bank or realestate?

All cash? Loan issues?

>>1098760
All this depends on skill level. I bought a fixer upper and have done most work myself. I know how to do it so not a big deal. Make sure you have enough money for mortgage and utilities and an extra 300 a month for repairs if doing yourself. Focus on mechanics and function first. Save the 300 a month for things you have to hire a guy.

>>1098760
>needing only minor repairs
Definitely go inspect the house extremely thoroughly before you believe any "only minor repairs" claim. That's usually codeword for "this shitheap is about to collapse on itself".


Otherwise though, that's a a nice looking house, I love that style.

>>1099286

I search through zillow, but you can contact the bank or a real estate agent. I've been searching for about a year. You really just have to keep looking. I've heard some people have luck at auctions.

The bank originally wanted 26k for this property. I initially offered 15k just to see if they would take it. They countered 17k and I accepted.

Don't be too eager to buy a place. I almost bought a yuge house for 36k until I had started poking around and noticed a leak in the roof. It had probably been leaking since it got foreclosed, so mold had started to grow. If I bought it, I would have had to strip the walls and floor out of 25% of the house and replaced them.

>>1099337
Did you scout out the area/inspect/etc?

So its a foreclosed?

>>1099399

Yeah, I brought my mom and her repair man out to look things over. She buys alot of foreclosures to either flip them or rent them out.

It really only needs some minor things. I'm paying 700 dollars a month in rent, so in 2 years it will have paid for itself. For another 10-15k I could really make things nice inside: marble floors in the bathroom and kitchen, new fixtures, etc.

Whoever had it before me kept it in good condition. It's got a new porch too. It's definitely livable now. Just some minor things like pressure washing the vinyl would really make a difference.

>>1099400
You're probably in some rural flyover states right?

Still thats a very good deal. Works out good since you had a real estate mom and her trusty repair man.

Since this is a house buyan thread, what are some advices on buying houses far away?

Houses anywhere near me are too much, in order to get any house, I'd have to drive 3-4-5-6 hours away. Whats the best practices, should you even consider such things?

>>1098760
i'd stay away unless you have $100,000 extra to dump into it after buying it, more if you want to rearrange rooms, because every wall is probably load bearing.

i grew up in a house that was built in the late 1800's. news paper and tar paper for insulation, that's it (just to cut down on drafts). to this day i'm not a fan of plaster and lath walls.

my parents updated it slowly, every summer my father would gut a room or two, rewire it, insulate outside walls, put in fire stops separating the floors. pretty much bringing it up to current code if not better.

my father was a licensed millwright too (he could legally wire stuff). originally it was only 40 amp service, now its 200amp

we used to go through 100 gallons of fuel oil every 2 weeks, by the time he was done about 300 gallons of fuel oil for a whole winter, and that's a bad winter. i grew up in the north east.

check the local codes, some places you can do work yourself, it just has to pass inspection.

if you can't afford to update it, it's just going to end up a money pit you can't get out of. plus old houses go up like matches, no fire stops between floors because they have to breathe, or shit will mold. don't be surprised if you find asbestos either, don't cheap out getting it removed. even before you buy it test the water for lead, they used to run lead pipes in the ground because it could handle freezing better without splitting.

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>>1099405

I'm in NC. This is maybe 20 minutes from the center of a city with a population +100k, maybe 10 minutes to the closest shopping center. It's only on a quarter acre, but it backs up against a large National forest and there's only maybe 5 houses in the area.

>>1099438
Damn I'd love to get some of those deals.

Even better since there's a forest nearby and only 5 houses in the area. Thats like my dream area. Nice secluded area, large enough (1/4 acre) to do what I want to do quietly and freely.

>>1099431
Line up a day with the same agent to take you to every place you want to go.

I bought a house for 90k which is considered pretty much the bottom end of a livable house in this area. It was remodeled in the mid 90s by a terrible DIYer. I wish I'd gone room by room and ripped everything apart. The insulation is good but the windows are shit. The walls are textured and the carpet is gross. We just dumped 10k into our master bath, most of it on a really quality shower instead of shitty fiberglass.

Tldr: tear everything up room by room and redo it, unless the wiring is shit. Then do it all at once and finish your bedroom first. That'll give you a chance to update ducts as well

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>>1098760
just bought this Place, 2 apartments redy to live in, one came rented out. The whole first floor is unfinished, inside is nice but the finishing touch is missing, paid around 220k euro, house got around 600sqm, and the bitch which rents the apartment is allredy 3 month late on her first rent... Good luck to you

>>1099861
*3 weeks late and sry for the missing a´s

>>1099861
We'll find out exactly what the earliest that you can start construction renovation (loud hammering, etc.) and on what days...