It’s April 2013 and my search for a house to buy intensifies, as interest rates are down, the housing market is going up, multiple offers are the norm and the amount of housing available to buy has shrunk considerably. All I have seeing are properties on a hill with faulty foundations that will need expensive repairs, houses from the 1970’s that once you come in, it looks like time have stood still, houses from the 1950’s that investors who flip houses, have tried to make it look better by putting laminate floors, cheap carpeting, basically doing minimal yard landscaping, refacing (or resurfacing) the kitchen cabinets, in order to save time, mess and costs of installing an all new kitchen. Once you open the cabinets, some of them look and smell circa 1955. These investors who buy houses for cash and then flip them, are more than a nuisance in the market, they’re driving the house prices up and all for some shoddy work that many people don’t understand and don’t know that the house they’re interested in, have been bought for the fair market value but it has been sold at a 200% mark up. For someone like me who has some understanding about construction, the work done in these flipped homes, it’s purely cosmetic and not very good work. It’s like putting lipstick on a pig.
When I decided to buy a house I thought I wanted an empty lot so I could build my dream house, hence the botched empty lot I bought. After I bought that empty lot I started taking classes about building a house from the bottom to the top. I took basic classes about interior decorating, plumbing, electrical, framing, roofing, flooring, tiling, and any classes that had to do with building a house. Best money I ever spent. On a future post I will delve a little deeper about the subject of investing time and money in order to know the ins and outs of your house, if you own one.
Once I leaned about how to build a house from scratch or to renovate an existing home, I realized that building from scratch was not the best option for someone who has a limited budget because there are a lot of new costs associated with a new construction, besides labor and materials. If you decide to build from scratch then the city will add their fees (schools, parks and recreation, etc.), then you add new meters for water, electricity and so on. It adds up real fast but if you buy an existing home that’s old and is in need of a face lift, you’re ahead of the game. After pondering for a while I decided that buying an old home was my best bet since I have a limited budget.
Luckily my lot has been sold by a lot specialist – an agent who specializes in selling empty lots. If anybody is looking for an empty lot to build a house from scratch, find a real estate agent who is a specialist in selling lots because that agent will know what it takes to find the perfect property for you by recognizing when the lot is worth buying or left it for someone else. David Eckert is the agent who sold my lot to a building company and he’s one of these very specialized agents. David knows his work, he sells lots but also multimillion dollar houses. I wish I had known him before I bought my lot. I know he would have talked me out of buying it. Well, water under the bridge.
Currently I am looking for an old house that I can renovate it and turn it into my dream home. Some of the houses I have seen, I’m not “feeling” it and the houses I liked, my real estate agent has done a good job of talking me out of buying neither one of them. The house pictured above is one of the houses that I really liked but based on what my needs are, Debra, my real estate told me that’s not the house I’m looking for. That deck is high above and the house has no yard, so she told me that according to the list of must haves I gave her, being a deck dweller wasn’t on the list. This foreigner just learned something new and the hunt goes on.
If you would like to take the same type of classes I took (how to renovate or build your home from top to bottom), from all the places I took my classes, there is still one in Sacramento that is still in business www.ownerbuildercenter.com. Skip, the instructor and owner, has been a contractor for more than 40 years; he’ll unveil the mystery and will cut through all the crap, so you’ll learn how to manage the construction/remodeling of your home. You can save more than 20% if you act as your own “Owner Contractor”.
