Reply to Anyone buy a fixer and live there with little kids?

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[quote=Anonymous]In early 20120, we bought a house that was built in 1993 and somewhat renovated in 2006.  The owner could no longer make the payments and made it a boarding house. It was a disaster.   The kitchen had a fire. The carpets were destroyed (luckily no mold but we weren't so sure at first). The place smelled. The roof leaked. You name it and it needed redoing. The structure was basically fine though.  It was a great deal and my husband and I decided to go for it.  The great thing about a house that is 10-20 years old is that it probably doesn't have MAJOR issues. You can do a lot of cosmetic work and get where you want to be.  Once you have to start adding space and redoing plumbing and electrical, you get into big bucks and you don't actually see the money you put into it. Cosmetic stuff is also very pricey but it's more fun!

We moved to the area and didn't find a house right away so we lived in an apartment while searching. We lived there for the first 3 months of the renovation too. We hired a contractor to immediately fix the basement a little to make it livable (drywall repair, bathroom redone and primed walls and put in carpet).  We then moved into the basement (2 adults, one kid and a dog in one bedroom) for 4 months  while they finished putting in a new kitchen, new powder room, new master bedroom and bathroom and our son's room. That was our priority and the rest of the work continued after that and we did much of it.  We waited 6 weeks before we had a kitchen!!! That was tough. Didn't even have a microwave.  
I can tell you that it takes a lot of time away from your kids but it can be done. (I had no family, no sitters and no preschool).  My son just turned 3 yrs old and he'd walk into people's homes and say, "That's a great light fixture!"
It just became a way of life.  He is a handful so it was tough but we got through it and the house is exactly what we wanted. We didn't skimp but I searched for deals and negotiated everything.  My guess is that you are going to put that $100k right back into that house so make sure you think it's a good investment.  We spent about $150,000 redoing the interior and much of that excludes our labor.  I don't think I would have found a comparable  home for our purchase price plus $150,000. I'm not sure we would make much if we had to sell (and we might move soon unfortunately) but we'd come close and it was worth it to say we did it!

My logic was that I didn't want to pay market price for a home that I'd redo anyway because their style was different. This house allowed us to pay less and put the money back in (therefore paying close to market price but for the exact house we wanted).[/quote]

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