We have been home owners for about 10 years now. I love my home. It’s a Colonial Built in 1959 with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and is just over 1700 sq/ft. It’s situated on a cul de sac and I like my neighbors. When we bought the house in 2000, that’s about where the charm ended. We chose the route of buying a house that needed A LOT of work and tailoring it to our tastes as we got the cash. It was decorated ala Brady Bunch…flower power or foil wallpaper in every room of the house, dark chocolate pine kitchen cabinets, avocodo and mocha colored bathroom fixtures, shag carpet. It wasn’t just all cosmetic stuff either. It needed a roof, a furnace, new doors, new windows, and a new sewer line. It was a beaut.

Last year marked our last major home improvement project, the kitchen. If I look how much money we put into it, vs what we can sell it for, we probably will break even, or maybe even lose a little money. I wonder now if we should have spent a little more and bought something that was more “done.” I can honestly tell you that I looked for almost a year and I didn’t walk into a single house and say “I love this decor.” Based on that, I’m thinking that even if we got something nicer, we still would have spent a small fortune decorating it to suit our tastes. The homes that were in better shape generally used low end building materials that were too nice to tear out but too cheap for me to like. You know the stuff…those oak builder basic cabinets and formica counters.
So now that I’m older and perhaps wiser, I thought I’d summarize what I think the pros and cons of a fixer are.
Pros:
- You have a smaller mortgage payment. (Good on so many levels.)
- You can add equity to your home by paying as you go on projects. (Somehow it’s mentally easier for many to do this vs paying extra on the mortgage. Perhaps because it’s tangible stuff you’re spending money on?)
- You don’t have to feel guilty and wasteful about pulling out those “builder basic” cabinets and upgrading to nicer stuff.
- You get to find out which of your friends has no vision whatsoever when they come over and can’t think of a nice thing to say…vs the folks who immediately see the potential.
- You’re probably going to spend money to customize it anyway, so why not buy something undervalued.
- You have an excuse to learn new skills and buy tools.
- You get a sense of satisfaction when looking at completed projects (especially the challenging ones).
- You can get a bigger house or one in a better location with the trade-off that it needs work. Generally people earn more as time goes on, so you might be able to avoid going the starter home route if you buy something with the potential to be nice.
Cons
- You always have a room in your house that’s torn apart
- Projects don’t get done as fast as you think they will.
- You have less free time to do other stuff
- Most remodeling projects do not return 100% of the money invested, so customizing to your tastes is more expensive than buying something that’s already done (because the previous owner is the one who got 50-85% back on his remodel.)
- Most fixers have hidden problems that make accurate budgeting difficult.
- If you unexpectedly have to sell your house before it’s fully remodeled, it might be harder to sell than one that’s in better shape.
I would also never recommend a fixer if you are using a high percentage of your income for the mortgage. There was many a month where our home depot bill exceeded our mortgage payment. I underestimated the costs by about 50% and time spent by probably 3x. I can’t even imagine how much more we would have spent if my husband and I weren’t handy.
What other pros and cons am I missing? Has anyone done both? Which route do you prefer and why?
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