Post 1: I Bought a House to Flip!

August 03, 2020

Post 1: I Bought a House to Flip!

I've been wanting to flip a house for years, even though I only know partially what I'm doing. My husband is less-than-thrilled with the idea but supports me. Although we loosely formed a business a few years ago to manage a rental property we bought for a friend, I used my own money to buy the flip house and will use my own money to pay for the services that I can't do myself.

I'd been looking in Franklinton for ages; this is an area of Columbus that for years was considered the bottoms, but in recent years has been starting to gentrify. For awhile, it wasn't hard to find a $30,000 house (about my target price), but after looking at homes that were either on the wrong street or too far gone for my skill level, I realized I'd just missed the window. Fixers went from $30K to about $150K or more. So I started looking elsewhere.

I realized that North Linden, another long-depressed area of Columbus, was also starting to, if not gentrify, become viable for people looking for more affordable housing. The houses are the same houses as Clintonville, a super-hipstery neighborhood where houses go for $250K - $500K. The North Linden houses are all the same architecturally, but had the bad misfortune to be on the wrong side of the freeway (71N) that had been put in after the fact.

Driving around the area today, you'll see a low-income area where people care about their properties. And you're starting to see more and more beautifully renovated homes.

In December 2019, I finally found the perfect home for me: a 1924 craftsman for $42,000. The house had been rented to a single tenant for the past five years. While it wasn't trashed, it wasn't loved. The renter bred dogs that tore up the carpet, and the place generally wasn't clean. But I could see the beautiful plaster walls, the original hardwood floors, and what it could be. Even in the state it was in, it would have been sold for $150K in Clintonville proper.

What finally sold me was the fact that the house directly next door has just sold the month before for $120,000, and the inspection revealed nothing too wrong with the place. I paid cash, and got the house days before Christmas.

The house is on Aberdeen Avenue, and I took this as a sign (even though I don't believe in signs), because we'd just been in Aberdeen, Scotland a month before buying this house.

I gave myself a year to finish this (partly to avoid paying capital gains taxes), and $20K for the renovations. Putting $62,000 into a house that I could sell for double that had great appeal to me. It would give me a chance to try this - the biggest motivator - and make a little money on the side. Of course, my time is worth something, and after taxes it's not like I'd be getting a huge check of $58K, but it would be a nice chunk of change should I manage to pull it off.

Even more important, however, was the appeal of preserving a beautiful home that someone would appreciate. I am very much taking the approach that I will preserve every detail that is safe and viable (like the hardwood floors and the gorgeous brick fireplace). Other things, like old knob-and-tube wiring, would have to go.

So let's look at the house, as I bought it!

Here's the view from the street:

The first floor has a living room, dining room, and kitchen.. Here' the view from the living room, where you enter, and looking into the dining room. The walls look to be painted white, but that is all wallpaper, and what I later found to be three layers of wallpaper: