In 1996 I was struggling to get on my feet. My dad helped me buy a "fixer-upper" house a few blocks from the Southern college my two sisters were attending, so we could all live there instead of renting. Mom and Dad made many 2-hour drives from their home to come and help with some renovations (I couldn't have done alone). It was a great bonding experience and the expectation was always that the house would be a good investment for me.
Flash forward to the present. I am married to a great man, who nonetheless is NOT the handyperson in our house, has no idea how to fix things, and we have an 8-month-old. We have since moved 1.5 miles away from "the Wilson Street house" as we call it, and have been renting it to college students.
It was an enormous boarding house, filthy and in bad cosmetic shape when we bought it. It's 3500 square feet, basically 5 BR, 2.5 baths, with foyer, LR, DR, kitchen, laundry room, front porch, small back porch. It's zoned for either commercial OR residential, backs up to a college area and lots of similar houses nearby have been restored for either home or business use. Its last appraisal was around $150K, and it was $92K when we bought it.
We installed central heating and air, renovated and rearranged both full bathrooms (keeping the clawfoot tubs and adding shower curtain rod surrounds) and the kitchen (new walls, ceiling, cabinets, flooring, and island). We had the center of the house raised 5 inches, which minimally cracked some wall plaster. We added new light fixtures, painted the rooms cheerful colors, painted the uneven floors in the bedrooms, and generally made it college student liveable. The back entry now has cabinets and decent flooring. We whacked back the jungley half-acre of shrubs and weeds to a manageable state.
Nothing in the house is "restoration quality." The floors, windows, walls, the bead board walls and ceilings, the staircase, everything is in need of TLC to be considered in any way grand. It's still a fixer-upper - though a lot cleaner and more appealing than when we got it.
The truth is, when I was living there and working on it, I was enjoying it, but I had more free time then. Now it is just a rental property that I am really sick of worrying about and I even dread going over there and dealing with whatever the renters dish up. So we are considering selling it. My parents worked hard on it but we paid them back for everything and I know they would not mind if I sold it.
Our options are these:
- List it as residential and if it does not sell within 4-5 months, get new renters (the current ones move out in July) and take off the market. I would love to sell it to someone who wants to give it TLC and live there or work there, but my realtor seems to think that most interested parties who will not lowball us will be people who want to rent it like we are currently doing.
- Continue to rent it ourselves for another year or two. Our biggest problem is having renters move out in the middle of their contract. The house costs a LOT to heat and cool (especially heat) so either we or our renters shoulder the expensive months, which makes no one happy. It's underinsulated and the main culprit is the old windows, which would cost thousands and thousands to fix or replace.
- Look into a property management company. The catch here is that due to its condition the house may not be considered 100% safe for everyone (children), is not handicapped accessible, etc. and I don't want to keep putting money into what will then always be a rental property, condition going downhill.
I feel SO GUILTY that this house, which could be really nice like its nearby neighbors with a lot more time/knowhow/investment, might continue to deteriorate until it is gone. On the other hand, it IS an investment, it is in an area of growth -- our city has big plans for that side of town -- and I don't know whether to cash out or hang onto it for a while longer. If we do sell it, I would love to advertise it where it might be seen by people who would be interested. I'm not the one to restore it to grandeur but I wish I could. I will try to post a picture of it - I'm still trying to identify the building style. It's kind of Victorian but not ornate enough to be that exactly.
Any advice? Comments? Rude remarks? What would you do?
pebbles396
house_vixen
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