Jason Robie: Foxy Fixer Uppers

The first property I bought was in desperate need of some TLC in the downstairs unit. I ripped up all the flooring, entirely replaced the bathroom and painted nearly every surface in the whole place. In that instance it was all well worth it. The upstairs unit was covering the mortgage and thankfully the repairs did not end up being that extensive (or expensive). In many cases though, folks get too excited about some (likely false) fantasy of a fixer-upper they see on some reality TV show and are more than disappointed at the end-result. Let's take a look at some history in the "needs some TLC" world and see if we can come up with a more solid strategy.

Porch.com did a study of over 1,000 homeowners and the data below comes from their findings. Most of us think that buying a home that needs some work is going to pay off in some way. Otherwise, why would we do it? The majority of respondents purchased their fixer-uppers because they thought they could save money, the next most popular reasons were they liked the home, they liked the neighborhood and they liked the idea of being able to personalize the home.