My 18K foreclosed home and barn purchase

[trailwart]

Last june my wife and i bought a 1500sqft ranch style home, this house sits on an acre and has a 24x40 pole barn. it had sat vacant for nearly 2 years and had some issues, many many issues to be exact. But we knew all of this going in on this project, so we knew there were no hidden surprises.

here are a few pics of the barn. nothing special

now on to the house. we ended up completly gutting it to the studs and replaced all wiring and insulation, plumbing and drywall and so on.

 

[trailwart]

here are some before pics.

living room fireplace

bedroom 2

bedroom 3

bedroom 4 is where the serice is

 

[trailwart]

the kitchen

the bathroom

 

[p_mori7]

Egad ! that's in need of a lot of elbow grease ! Good Luck with your project.

 

[trailwart]

now on to the deconstruction

this was the kitchen

 

[trailwart]

 

[rsanter]

that place needs a ton of work
but for the price I would say you got a bargain

bob

 

[trailwart]

 

[trailwart]

now for the reconstruction

 

[Red05GT]

About 25 years ago we bought a bank repo that looked to be in about the same
condition. Bought it for 17K, put 5K into rehab, lived there two years and sold it for
37K. Many people are turned off by the dirty work required to rehab, or they don't
see the potential. But these kinds of projects are great money makers as long as
you don't over improve or get carried away with the level of finish.

 

[trailwart]

 

[trailwart]

kitchen

 

[trailwart]

now this is all the fun, mud and sand

kitchen

 

[trailwart]

 

[trailwart]

now, i know this is a little ghetto, but this is how e rocked our kitchen for 2 months until our cabinets came in.

bottoms finally came in, still rocking the osb tops

the top cabs came in a month later

 

[trailwart]

finally could afford a bathroom vanity about 2 months ago. until this we only had a kitchen sink as the only sink in the house.

 

[trailwart]

had money for trim, but menards ran a sale on these 6 panel solid pine doors for 65 bucks, bought 9 of them and that went my trim money. but they were half price so i couldnt turn it down.

thats pretty much it for the house. i had over 800 pics to sort thru, most are just boring pics timelining the project. my countertops for the kitchen came in last week and yet to be installed, i wont get to installing them untill this week and i will post pics of em.

here is a little 16x8x24" shelf i built in the barn a week ago. needed some storage space.

 

[Bjkearns]

wow that looks really good
thats just crazy that you picked up a house for the cost of a cheap cheap new car

 

[Cryptic1911]

wow, great buy. you ****!

 

[Bo Heck]

Wow thats looking GREAT, good work

 

[trailwart]

we started at the end of june and made it livable by sept. but didnt move in until oct.
this winter our biggest gas and electric bill ran 235$ (michigan). we insulated real well- i bought almost 200 bags of cellulose and blew it in the attic and a minimum of r60 and all exterior wall are rolled r13. old furnace will get replaced sometime in the future which should net additional savings in the utility department. it has been alot of work but has been well worth it in many ways.

under 18K purchase price and less than 15K in materials to redo it, i think we can make money if we need to sell it, but mortgage free is such a great feeling. still need to do trim, and siding so i am looking at 20K i think when its all said and done.

I will say my wife wanted nothing to do with it at first, she couldnt see the potential, she had a hard time not wanting to sacrifice 3-4 hard months of working long hours on it.
i kept telling her the barn and land was worth what we paid and if the house was worse than i thought we could just bulldoze it and build at a later time. she wanted to start with just a piece of land and start from scratch. i dont think i could do a septic system and well for what i paid. so many things just had me pumped about this place, but i was the only 1 seeing the potential. now, almost a year after putting in the offer on it, she is seeing now what i could see then.

 

[milkovich]

Wow... looks good. Any plans for the barn? I'm planning on replacing the furnace in my basement and putting the old furnace in the garage and only turning it on when I'm in there.

 

[vtx531]

Where in MI?

 

[930dreamer]

Great job on finding a project with great return. Will you make crazy money if you sell?

 

[trailwart]

if osb sheeting drops back under 5$ when i have the money(both need to take place at the same time) i want to shhet the whole thing. my three year plan is to add another 80 ft on it off the back to make it 120 long. having the 40 as it is and the added 80 with 12ft ceilings, heated floor and attic trusses. that is the plan as of now, but.... i have had talks with my elderly neighbor about buying a chunk of his land, that would allow me to go wider and shorter on an addition. everybody around me has 5-15 acre lots, mine is the runt with just 1 acremy lot is somthing like 70x680, my neighbors are not that close but i just own a sliver compared to everybody else. my lot width allows me to go deep as the back of the barn is only 200ft off the road so i have almost 600 behind it.

 

[trailwart]

Great job on finding a project with great return. Will you make crazy money if you sell?

at current appraisal was 125K as this was needed for insurance puposes and such, we were told 150K would be in the ballpark when its all done, siding and trim. 3 houses down just sold for 210K (same size house) and no barn, but it had 5 acres.

But, going into this we had and still have the intention of this being our last house.

 

[d33pt]

great job and great deal! i love it.

 

[SSCustoms]

at current appraisal was 125K as this was needed for insurance puposes and such, we were told 150K would be in the ballpark when its all done, siding and trim. 3 houses down just sold for 210K (same size house) and no barn, but it had 5 acres.

But, going into this we had and still have the intention of this being our last house.

That's a good return for a little sweat equity. Congrats!

 

[Teach]

Mortgage free....just AWESOME.

 

[PurdueSD]

can you post up an outside pic of the house?

Nice work!

 

[dirttracker18]

Nice work on that find. I searched for a year trying to find a place with a garage. I ended up buying a house that needed major work and building my own garage. I did not get the deal that you did but those cannot be found in my area. We have had bidding wars on houses here for a few years now and prices just keep going up. I put my offer in the morning the house went on the market and was accepted before noon. On the closing date my realtor called to ask if I wanted to sell it for $30k over my cost. I stuck with it also hoping this will be my last house. However you got me thinking about trying to find another one for resale.

 

[Jpfreak33]

Awesome post!!! I love reading about people finding deals like this. I would welcome more posts like this, not discourage them

 

[RbrtAWhyt]

The house may have looked a little rough but it looks like it had great bones. Good job...

 

[nate379]

Those cupboards are new? I'm just asking because my folks have the same exact ones in their kitchen and they remodeled it in 1987!

 

[trailwart]

can you post up an outside pic of the house?

Nice work!

i could as i do have many pics, but.... i am just not gonna do it as there are always lurkers that are lookin for the next place to nock off and to protect my kids im leaving the identifying pics out.

 

[TAMPAGT07]

wow, great buy. you ****!

It's official. Trailwart is not the recipient of the coveted "You **** Award." Great find. I might need to go out and find a deal like that.

 

[JMohn]

at current appraisal was 125K as this was needed for insurance puposes and such, we were told 150K would be in the ballpark when its all done, siding and trim. 3 houses down just sold for 210K (same size house) and no barn, but it had 5 acres.

But, going into this we had and still have the intention of this being our last house.

I know that's a ton of work, but it's a tremendous accomplishment! Congratulations on investing your time so wisely. I wish I could add $100K+ of value. And mortgage-free to boot!

 

[cowboy73]

That is awesome 18K and 15K in materials!!!! I would love to find a place like that. There are alot of places like this just going to rot. Glad to see someone rescue a place and make it a home. Now get to fixing up that barn!!!

 

[JEEP2BLAZERS]

That is a great find and a great job. We have watched our friends and relatives go broke with huge mortgage payments for years. We have stuck to our simple house with small payments and will be completely debt free within 7 years ( I am only 35 years old). I am sure its a great feeling knowing you really do own your own home 100%.

 

[Trueno]

at current appraisal was 125K as this was needed for insurance puposes and such, we were told 150K would be in the ballpark when its all done, siding and trim. 3 houses down just sold for 210K (same size house) and no barn, but it had 5 acres.

But, going into this we had and still have the intention of this being our last house.

Those are words of wisedom!

Many (way to many) would sell it and then turn around and mortage their life away on a Mansion they can barely afford.

Props to you!

PS: I love you makeshift kitchen sink/countertop/door thing-a-magig!

And I don't know why you got rid of those lovely apple kitchen doors???