Top Tips for Buying a Fixer Upper

1) Good Bones are KEY.

The truth is, looks can be deceiving- even bad looks! You already know that when you buy a fixer upper, you will be doing a lot of work, but always always always make sure that you know that the actual bones (structure) of the house is in good shape. Cosmetic changes are no issue, but the structure of a home is definitely an issue. If the structure of a home is not sound, then you will be in way over your head and budget before you know it. If you know that this is a property that you are willing to invest in for your future because you will make it your FOREVER home and you are willing to have all of the proper work done to restore the structure and make it sound…then this is different. Understand that it will be a lot of work and money. The truth is, for 95% of us that buy fixer uppers, this is not something we want to mess with. Good bones are key- and you need to be very sure that the property has them before proceeding to buy.

2) Location Location Location!

It is so funny because we always hear that location is key. Well, this is so true. It doesn’t matter if you are going to resell or live forever, if you don’t have a good location, you will never get the full potential out of the property. For resell purposes, you need to understand and do some research on the best locations for selling and choose wisely. There have been homes that we have flipped to sell that have sold immediately, simply because of the location {and a beautiful home too}. Those homes are ones that we could have sold over and over again. There have been other homes that were just as pretty, but their location wasn’t quite as good, so they sat for sale a little longer. They did sell, but not quite as quickly. If you are buying to live in yourself, then you know the location you desire to live in, and that is the location you need to be looking for. Don ‘t settle just to settle, or you will never be happy. We made that mistake early in our marriage. We bought a property with lots of land, and it was gorgeous. It wasn’t a fixer upper, although I changed some things. It was already a great home to begin with, BUT it was not in the location we wanted at all. We simply loved the home and thought we could be happy where it was. We were wrong. It was so far from everything we liked to do, and it was very inconvenient. We did sell it, but it took the right person who truly wanted to be in that area. Think about those things before purchasing a fixer upper. You never know if you may decide to sell later, even if you think you won’t now 😉

Below you can see the AFTER picture of the foreclosure house we bought and lived in for a few years before selling.

For the other 5 TIPS for buying a foreclosure, be sure to check out my blog!

http://www.re-fabbed.com/top-tips-for-buying-a-fixer-upper/

These are great tips that you will definitely want to save for later.