Poll: Why In the World Are You Doing This?
Out of curiosity, how many of you plan on living in your current home for the rest of your life?
Are the restoration/rehab efforts you are making now done with the idea of making your house more profitable for a future sale? Or are you going through this hell because you are turning your home into your dream home?
For our part, we plan on croaking in this home—or at least live in until we can’t take care of it anymore. With that in mind, we have tried not to cut corners (sometimes we make tight turns, though), and done things because we "want it that way."
For example we eliminated a bedroom to expand our master bedroom…Now our home is "technically" a three bedroom rather than a four bedroom. We didn’t add a master bath (when we had the opportunity) because we aren’t "bathroom" people. This sometimes drives my real estate friends crazy…and they mention our actions are not maximizing the home’s value…My retort is: What does it matter when we don’t plan on selling?
What’s your take? Just curious why you are going through this—to make money, or to build a home for the rest of your life?
Are the restoration/rehab efforts you are making now done with the idea of making your house more profitable for a future sale? Or are you going through this hell because you are turning your home into your dream home?
For our part, we plan on croaking in this home—or at least live in until we can’t take care of it anymore. With that in mind, we have tried not to cut corners (sometimes we make tight turns, though), and done things because we "want it that way."
For example we eliminated a bedroom to expand our master bedroom…Now our home is "technically" a three bedroom rather than a four bedroom. We didn’t add a master bath (when we had the opportunity) because we aren’t "bathroom" people. This sometimes drives my real estate friends crazy…and they mention our actions are not maximizing the home’s value…My retort is: What does it matter when we don’t plan on selling?
What’s your take? Just curious why you are going through this—to make money, or to build a home for the rest of your life?
posted by Patrick at 12:51 PM
10 Comments:
Um, our answer would be, essentially, "Yes." We (as in my family, that herd of longterm house rehabbers) treat all our houses as places we want to live, potentially forever, but we also usually sell them, and make money on the deals.
Our homes (and all have been homes, not just houses to be flipped) have consistently been valued at 10-30% more than otherwise equivalent properties in the same areas, even decades after we sold them.
We always do stuff like finishing the attic and/or basement, updating wiring, restoring period features, and landscaping the property. Those things are for our comfort while we live in the house, but they always end up being attractive to any new owners.
As for your realtor freinds, the averag homebuyer isn't every homebuyer - there are people who want the same things you do, and they'll probably be the ones who buy your house if you ever decide to sell it. Average homebuyers buy McMansions.
We bought the Devil Queen for several reasons:
1) My wife loved the house since she was 6 years old.
2) We wanted to save it from demolition.
3) We hoped to get enough equity out of the house to payoff our mountain of college related debt when it was finished (at this point I'd settle for paying off our renovation debt).
4) To make a profit off the house if we decided to sell it (good days we'll keep it forever, bad days we can't sell it fast enough).
Having learned from our first investment property, we refuse to cut corners unless it is a temporary fix to tide us over until we have the money to do it right. We also assume that we may live in the Queen for the forseeable future; as such we make a point to have everything the way we want it. Our decission to add an additional bathroom to the house was done with market considerations in mind (plus we are bath tub people too).
We are doing this because the house is unique and deserves to be preserved. We see ourselves primarily as caretakers.
We are also pragmatists and know we rarely stay anywhere long. So we also hope to make a decent profit when we sell it, and we are conscious of this when choosing finishes. Often there seems to be incompatability between keeping the integrity of the house and appealing to new buyers in a few years (granite countertops is an example that springs to mind; real estate agents lovethem but they look odd in a beach house).
We've given ourselves until 2012 to live here. At this moment though that seems to be too short a timeframe for me. I love the house and want to be in it for longer, so that I have time to relax and enjoy all the improvements we are making.
I agree with marg... when we bought our place (Kentville Money Pit) our plan was to renovate it for us to live in but be prepared to flip it as well (preferably for profit :-) )
We are always balancing the changes we make with what we want and what the average house buyer appears to want. The ultimate goal for us is to enjoy doing the renovations, enjoy living in the house while we own it, and make a profit if/when we sell.
We flip-flop all the time. Usually, we lean toward growing old here.
Starting out, we bought a big house with lots of room to grow in a kid-friendly area because we figured we'd stay forever. All our work is done for our benefit, not for some mystery future-buyer. We put our heart and soul into it, and alot of extra money that isn't really necessary to spend. Did a fancy-pants sink and faucet raise the house value more than their cost and the labor to install them? Probably not, but we get giggly when we see them. That's what counts for us.
Like you, some of our plans for the upstairs (like making the smallest bedroom a walk-in-closet) will likely be considered "bad" in real-estate terms. But as Marg said, your average home buyer probably wouldn't consider our house anyway so I'm not thinking too much about them.
Some days, we love this house so much we can't imagine being anywhere else. Other days (when knee-deep in a painful project, when my commute through snowy terrain is near-lethal, when the gas bills come in.....) we think we should sell it, take whatever profit we can get, and run.
I've got a pile o' student loan debt too, and paying it off in one shot is AWFULLY tempting. ;)
I plan on being carried out of here in a pine box, after being laid out in the parlor (as was customary in the early 20th century).
We are both in our 40s and this is our first home. We looked around for months (and drove out real estate agent nuts), finally found exactly what we wanted (and could afford), and proceeded to rip up, tear out, strip off.
Sometimes we will see a house for sale or in need of a little lovin'. We start to say something about "that house could use some help" or "look at that nice bungalow (of four-square") for sale. That's usually as far as we get.
Reasons we won't move:
1. We love this house and look forward to finishing all our projects.
2. It'll take us longer to pay for the new roof on the house and barn than it's guaranteed for (40 years).
3. We're too tired to pack.
This is our first and hopefully only home (barring relocation due to work), so, yes, we plan to live here for a good long while since we're in our mid-20's now.
All the decisions we've made have been based on personalizing the house for what we want, not necessarily any possible future owners. One example that immediately comes to mind is putting our garden tub in the bedroom instead of the master bath. That was DH's idea, but I absolutely love it now that it's in - I wouldn't have it any other way. Not sure how potential buyers would feel about it, though :) Hopefully we never have to find out.
Like many others, we plan to stay here a long time. Because we live in a 2 flat, we have many options for the future. We can duplex the basement, add a third floor addition at the back of the building, take over the whole bldg. as single family, or just move up to the 2nd floor.
We have alot of plans for this building. But after the 2nd floor is done this summer, we will take a break from major construction for a while I think.
That's unless you call getting a new back porch put on or a new patio major construction...
After reviewing the previous comments I'm going to sound like a broken record.
The house we bought was a little pricey but it has a huge yard for the neighborhood. We hope to add on to it someday and bring it into the 21st century. The house was beautiful when we saw it and it's in pretty good condition, and we loved the new kitchen and that the house was not re-muddled. We wanted the house for ourselves; raise a family, to help preserve it for the future, and it should be good retirement in 30 years.
Hi, I just stumbled along to this while looking for a creative way to finance a restoration project. My husband and I are buying an antique home that needs restoration and a roof and a kitchen... I am happy to read your accounts because sometimes I think I am the only one out there who doesn't care about "resale" I just want to live in an old house.
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