And take a look at this progress photo of our finished basement!

Even the darkest, dingiest spaces have potential if you know how to look at things!

Here is an example of how easy it is to entangle yourself in all the many elements of a renovation. These are all changes we’ve made to one of our current properties. No doubt the future buyer will be ecstatic about all of the lovely changes and updates we’ve made…but before you buy a fixer upper, ask yourself whether this is something you can handle on your own. If so, more power to ya! If not, why don’t you give us a call to see what already-renovated properties we might have available.

We added a sliding door at the back of the house where the windows used to be located, because we got rid of the original rear door. We got rid of the original rear door so we could put in a new shower for the new luxurious master bathroom in the new master suite, which we created from a large unusable existing room. The renovation of this room required raising up the floor level to match the rest of the house, which caused us to re-design the structural posts and piers supporting the floor joist system. We had to run the plumbing through this joist system and create an access to it from the crawl space, causing more structural issues to deal with before getting the framing inspection approval. Oh, and to make the master suite nice, we cut through the brick walls to add two windows in the bedroom and one in the bathroom to make the space light and airy for the new buyers.  And I’m not even going to get into the cost of all these changes…

Now do you have an appreciation for renovation cause and effect?

I have a little more to share about a challenge we faced during one of our current renovations. Whether you are looking to buy a home or you are renovating an older home yourself, you are likely to run into something like this.

The Oddities of Prior Renovations

Many houses are renovated little by little over the years–an addition here, closing in a porch there, knocking out walls to combine rooms or building walls to divide them, another addition years later…often resulting in an odd, higgeldy-piggeldy layout. We ran into just such a challenge with this renovation, and it nearly had me pulling out what is left of my hair! Hopefully you can benefit from our experience.

The home had an original carport that had been enclosed many years ago. Unfortunately, when they built the floor at that time, they dropped it lower than the rest of the house’s floor level.

We wanted to tackle that challenge in order to provide our new buyers with the convenience and safety of an even floor throughout the first level. When we opened up the floor, the piers supporting the floor joists were very substantial–the floor joists themselves, however, were not, and we had to rip everything out to make way for the new joists.

We decided to use a TJI floor joist system to raise the floor level and span the room most efficiently. That process was simple enough, especially with the TJI manufacturer assisting with the engineering.

But wait a minute–you’d better talk to the building inspectors and an engineer first and get real architectural plans made up to avoid having to jump through too many hoops. We had to jump through some, but hey, we learned a lot about the new codes and have a ton of experience with drawings and calculations about live loads. Took a little time but it really turned out right.

When you start planning major changes on a property that you know make sense, be prepared to go through a couple of reviews of the design, and review those plans in detail. Again, it is always cheaper to do it right the first time, even if you have to take a little extra time. Or as my good buddy always says: “plan the work and work the plan.”

Recently we’ve invested in three properties that need various amounts of renovation. The one I want to speak  about now is our Fredericksburg single family home on one acre. This place was owned by a man who had many difficulties keeping the place up. After he passed away, his son inherited the property and realized that he had neither the time, the resources, nor the energy to tackle the renovation needed to either live in the property or to sell it conventionally. And this guy is even in the building trades, so you can imagine the amount of work we were up against when we got the call to consider purchasing the property!

A careful assessment was completed and a renovation budget was prepared. The potential of this property is awesome, but we knew we would have to roll up our sleeves to tackle this baby! Even with our many years of experience, this one posed a couple of challenges:

#1) There was a full unfinished basement with a drive-in garage under the house, lending itself to a terrific amount of additional living space, and we had to re-design the finished basement with today’s active family in mind. A powder room was decided upon to complement the huge family recreation room, the newly separated garage, and the large laundry/storage/utility room entering from the outside. The advice we got from our team was to make the floorplan open, but with some separation for multiple activities. With some work, we created a media room that opens to a recreation area. They are separate enough for dual activities, but the new owner can easily encompass both areas if needed.

#2) We were caught off guard by the number of floor cuts we had to make in order to meet today’s new codes for the laundry room drain and the utility floor drain. These were in addition to the new powder room piping we installed. For our guys, it was no problem that a major concrete saw and a jack hammer couldn’t deal with. Of course, don’t forget the good old fashioned shovel needed to dig down to the under-slab piping. The inspections process wasn’t so bad, after we got help from the inspections and code officials.

Even if you know the business as well as we do, seek out any and all help. You won’t regret the time you spent to get it done right the first time. We know from experience that it is a heck of a lot cheaper to do it right and pay for it once than to tear it out and do it a second time.

If you are looking for a home to live in, there are still deals to be had out there. But, that tiger on steroids is still lurking for unsuspecting buyers who get all pumped up emotionally about buying a foreclosure. Buying a house often turns into an emotional transaction. And many people who make money on these transactions bank on just that. DON’T, DON’T, DON’T make this an emotional transaction!

Responsibility

For most people in America, buying a home is the single biggest transaction of their life. It is up to you to get it right! Your name is on the paperwork with the bank saying you are responsible for the payments, condition, upkeep, and so on of the property. Screw it up, and they will hammer you. You won’t find the real estate agent’s name or the mortgage broker’s name there to help with any of that. They’ll be long gone with their commission checks, and have no responsibility to help you after the deal is done. So know what you are doing before plunging in blindly. With the rush to get a foreclosure deal in this down real estate market, people may be getting in over their heads again.

There were many, many parties responsible for the sub-prime mortgage mess and the collapse of the housing market. The big shot crooks on Wall Street, mortgage brokers, real estate agents, builders, etc. filled people’s heads with trash, convincing them they could afford these overpriced homes. And they said, “Real estate prices will keep rising. You can sell it at a profit if you find it too hard to make the payments.” But regardless of who says what, the person truly responsible for dealing with the whole mess is you, the buyer.

Now the big pitch for selling homes (particularly foreclosed, bank-owned homes) is that you’ve gotta get in before it’s too late. Yes, there is some truth to that. Eventually this mess will get cleared up and whatever constitutes a “normal” market will be here again. But, don’t get sucked in to “get a deal” that you get “dealt.” Do your homework, check out every person you choose to do business with, and really be honest with yourself about what you can afford — both financially, and as far as the time you are willing and able to spend on fixing up a distressed property.