You got me. Unless I was purposely setting out to buy a fixer upper for a bargain price, I'd want to buy a home that was move in ready. Moving is a big enough hassle without having to re-build a house from the foundation up.

Edit to add that I understand changing paint colors, replacing carpet with hardwood/laminate, remodeling a kitchen or bathroom, but it's tearing a house down practically to the framework and basically re-building that I don't get. If a house needs that many changes to be happy with it, perhaps it's not the right house. An exception to that might be if the house is in a great neighborhood or on a lovely piece of property such as a lake front or mouth dropping mountain views.

There are lots of reasons I can think of. For example, inventory vs a time crunch. A hot market may also limit one’s options, that’s what happened to us. Affordability or that one’s DH/DW/SO may like something you don’t and you compromised. Or going into a fixer with the idea it can easily be fixed and then finding out ooops, not so much. What I notice a lot is how when buying, people don’t seem to think things through very well and then they end up not so happy about their choice.

Weird, what happened to the other thread? I posted that ours was a learning experience. We bought our first home 4 years ago, and the kitchen and bathrooms needed updating. When we bought it, it didn't seem like a problem but the reality is it's been 4 years and neither of us feels like tackling that big of a project. Next house will definitely be fully upgraded.

We bought ours for the size and the land. Remodeled everything.

I have similar questions when people buy a house and then ask questions about how to fit their furniture into the space. Didn't they think about that before they made their choice? Of course, I understand if you are buying for location and plan to redo everything. That's different.

The market is going crazy here in Colorado. But....the cost of materials to improve a property is relatively cheap.

If you gut the whole thing, you get the quality "you" want and it's all arranged to suit your personal needs. Then the market goes up and you could flip it in 2 years(a lot of my neighbors do that) and not pay capitol gains tax.

This house sold in 2 days! It's hard for me to believe THIS is something people really want to live in.....beats me.....

Or simply location.

I posted too but it wasn't important enough to repost. :)

Few things are more fun than making your home your own. the posts to which I’m referring usually present nearly impossible to overcome challenges and start with “I hate this wall, makes my kitchen so small. can I remove if it’s load bearing. Good question, but wouldn’t you ask that b4 buy? If answer is no, then kitchen is NEVER going to work, and it’ll be miserable the entire time. It just seems a hard way to do things.

Had a late lunch, maybe just cranky.

Chi, I posted then deleted due to problems. You’re not cuckoo.

I addressed this in my first post that disappeared... “I hate this wall, makes my kitchen so small. can I remove if it’s load bearing. Good question, but wouldn’t you ask that b4 buy?

Sometimes you have to be in a house, with your own things before you realize the space doesn't work for you as it is.

In our case we were surprised by a 3rd pregnancy (not sure how that happened! :) and had to build on another bedroom. We also decided.. with the addition of another kid... that the 2nd bathroom layout didnt work. It just needed the bathtub and toilet relocated.

It is a hot market in the KC area too. My DD & hubby are building and their present home had a contract within 2 days on the market by people from Florida who bought from Zillow pictures and never saw the house.

Location, lot features (like views), layout, potential.

Remodelling can be a hassle but it's not daunting. We've done it a number of times and have always been happy with the results.

Nichole, that house is literally a take off from Property Brothers on HGTV. Every house they do looks like THAT. Not my cup of tea either.

I REALLY wanted a house. Close to cycling opportunities was a GREAT option, close to stores I can walk to another GREAT option... but the paint... YIKES how can anyone paint their place like this was. I wasn't as old as my previous house (1927), it was only two years older than me. ;)

I sunk all my money in to it. Then found out I REALLY needed new duct-work, and heater. YIKES, needed money from my bank account in Germany to pay the house taxes... and sat here for over a year before I had the money to buy paint, and start making this mine.

It feels right now, but for a while, it only had LOCATION going for it.

Sometimes, you just do, what you think you gotta do.

Moni

What I don't see is people who buys a tutor home and want to change it to a modern house. or buy a colonial and want to make it a farm house. Let the house and its interior tell you what it wants to be.

Location, proximity to commutes and schools is why people settle. Not to mention hot markets where it is extremely difficult to break into the housing market unless you are wealthy.

Those that live in some parts of the country that don't have the ridiculous markets some of us do have no idea how difficult is is for young working families to find any house much less their dream home. They buy what they can expecting to put a lot of sweat equity into making a house their home. The new starter home in most desirable or even semi-desirable parts of our state is no longer the builders tract home. In our area "affordable housing" is an 800 square foot apartment renting for 1500 a month or more. Today it is whatever one can afford and sometimes even the location has to be compromised.

Lukki, i love all the property brother houses. All of them are so fresh and clean. Of all the flippers, i like them best. Yes, the houses they do all look very similar. Same methodology. Like musicians when you can recognize the group by the music. Same as you can recognize clothing designers or an author by his writing style.

The market in central NC is crazy, too. Starter homes sell in a day, above asking price.

We sold Dad's house a few years ago. 1960s brick ranch with full basement on 3/4 acre. Neighborhood is now very desirable. The people who bought it planned to raise the roof and add a second story. What??? Why would you do that? Either push the house over, or buy somewhere else.

Nope, the house is about finished now. The MCM -ish style is gone. The exterior brick walls are in there somewhere, as is the basement. They've been covered over with some other material. The inside gutted and a second story added. I guess the current style is modern. It's .. interesting. I can't imagine the cost, knowing what they paid us for the property. Had to be at least that again for the rebuild.

I'll never understand it, but I don't have to. Though I sure would like to ask.

Or is it a sign of the current times where there is less inventory on the market? At least that is the trend here. Buyers seem to want something ‘done’ rather than something they can remodel or tear down and build from scratch on a desirable lot. And there just isn’t that much that fits that category out there, other than more new construction. So I suspect many buyers are settling for something in a desired location or price range that doesn’t exactly meet all their needs.

Well, I've always hated my kitchen cupboards. And that's being nice. But I can't afford to tear them out and buy new ones. So I'm stuck with them. I keep telling myself I don't live in a cardboard box in a back alley so I'll make do with what I have. And the price of my house was dirt cheap (foreclosure) so we couldn't pass it up.

Nicole, did you look at the price history on that house? It sold in September, I think, 2015 for $80K! Two and a half years later $600K........I'm sure it has all been redone but I'm betting the profit was nice.

Moonie, I completely understand and even agree. I still watch the show, but after a binge of 4-5 one Friday night, I started seeing a pattern from start to finish and it’s the same every show. First sign of trouble is in the kitchen, an engineer is always needed at some point (oh the suspense LOL), there’s always a beam or pipe that needs reworking, and every show had the same stove, the same refridge, the same white cabinets, and island w/waterfall counters, the same metal stools and dining room chairs, the bunches of pillows on the sofa....you get what I mean. I just thought it was kind of funny and strange all at the same time. I think they need to expand their horizons a bit.

I had to laugh the other day because I read on some news page in Flip that right now, Grand Rapids, MI’s market is just as hot as some town in the bay area of California. We’re 3 hours from there and while the market where we live has always been better than most ares in SE Michigan, it’s very strong as well. One trend I’ve noticed though is that a larger portion of the new builds are smaller single story ranches, 1300-1600 sf. The perfect size for that retiring boomer.

Beware the oft-'remodeled' home -- and always ask to see permits.

You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. We almost tried that, buying an old ranch on 'the perfect lot' and thinking we'd remodel it. Lucky for us, a friend who was an appraiser brought suggested a teardown. We got 'all-of-a-piece' deign and new *everything* -- in a prime location, without living through remodeling, with all its 'surprises'. (The surprises were demolished in half a day.)

I am told that in our area, there is an advantage to doing a rebuild/remodel. Not sure if it's county or state, but if even a small part of the original structure is saved, like one foundation wall, it's considered a rebuild and is subject to different rules regarding permits and possibly taxes. I don't remember that part, this was several years ago. This might explain why some people keep an old house instead of tearing it down. The person who told me did flips, and that was part of his strategy.

"I read on some news page in Flip that right now, Grand Rapids, MI’s market is just as hot as some town in the bay area of California. "

Not hardly. According to a quick search, the median home price in Grand Rapids is $181,000. That won't buy even a garage in other than a very rough/rundown neighborhood in any area reasonably proximate to the coastal population centers. And if so, just a garage

Here's an example:

Teardown sells for $2 million

I bought a house that had things about it I didn't like, BUT I knew they were fixable. I also made sure my furniture would fit BEFORE we put in an offer.

There are houses posted on the Home Decorating forum that the only cure for is a fire! They are horrible and not fixable other than a total tear-down. Why buy a really ugly house? Or one with a horrible floorplan? I don't care how "hot" the market is - they is surely something better and if no, rent for 6 months and continue to look.

I think HGTV has convinced the uneducated/unknowing public that they can turn a really ugly house into a beautiful one...easily. Even with an unlimited budget (and who on earth has that and still buys an ugly house!), it's often just not possible. And there are some REALLY ugly houses out there and ones with floorpans that will never work, load bearing wall-removal or not.

Houses in great school districts tend to be nice houses - it's rare to find a truly ugly one in a great school district. I think people just take what is offered and make little effort to find a house and never think how they might live in that house.

I wanted an old 1800-'s farmhouse and looked for years to stay in kids' school district. Turns out the house I bought is in their district but they had graduated. It's quite charming and is on the historic register with a plaque out front. But only a certain portion of the population would want it. It has wooden siding, it has teeny closets, it has a small but charming bathroom(the powder room is twice it's size. It has 48 old windows. But it has a gloriously wooded lot taking up three lots, two koi ponds, a Williamsburg carriage house, it has all original pine floors, and three fireplaces and it does have a fairly new Plain and Fancy designed kitchen. It's in a small town and is close to everything...theater, doctors, dentist, stores, gym..none are more than five /ten minutes away.

And those people, Anglo, are the ones I find irritating.

aok2750 -- Our city has changed its tear down rules since we built in 2001. We were able to technically 'remodel' with only the chimney and garage left standing. That's changed today; we'd pay tens of thousands for building permits.

I was happy to see that they also reined in the meddling Building Review Board. Some member of the old guard here was afraid we were building something 'excessive'. In response to this mover and shaker, the city issued a stop order. They had already given us a demolition permit and approved our building plans. The house was already *down*. Yes, this was illegal, but we could either mollify them or win in court. Trouble was, the case could be delayed for two years. Dealing with this was a horror.

bossyvossy, I totally agree! Sometimes it's all I can do to restrain myself from suggesting burning the place to the ground!

I can attest, Lukk, that the Grand Rapids market is super hot, because I live there. In my specific zip code, a little suburb of GR, last week there were 90 houses on the market. Most were “sale pending” with 27 remaining available for sale, and the bulk of those were pushing and over $400K. Our median price might not be the same as the Bay Area, but the area is very desirable and many homes are receiving multiple bids and going for over asking price. People are held up from moving here because they can’t find housing.

Editing to add...Lots of reasons people buy houses that aren’t just right. Aside from those already mentioned, I have seen here many times a woman will say that her husband HAD to have their house, while she wasn’t in love with it, and now she is the one figuring out how to fit the furniture in or what to remodel so she is happier there.

I buy a home for location, layout, size and how mover in ready it is. If it needs a few cosmetics like paint, lighting or carpet, no problem. I wouldn't base it on if my furniture fit. Furniture is cheap to replace compared to the price of a house. I wouldn't pass up a house just because a sectional wouldn't fit right in the living room.

The population of Grand Rapids, as with other towns (aside from Detroit) and with Michigan overall, is pretty unchanged from where it was 50 years ago. It's not much of a population magnet for inbound migration. If people are moving in, others are moving out in a like number.

jae....I "did" look up that houses price history. That was just the lot for $80k. Flips around here are usually $13k -$100k profit .....after materials, not including labor of the flipper. This one they LOST money on. The city won't let the septic be replaced, it's shot. To hook up to city sewer, I was quoted $92K! The people starting the fix up put in all new windows, canned lights, there's a brand new furnace in the garage, a new 1/2 bath started in the basement, new wood framing, new 2 car garage, new roof, new electric panel, new yellow paint, new deck railing and columns(I looked up the "before" photos). fyi: just down the street are mansions selling for a million. When completed it should be worth at least $475K.

Bluebell66, I can appreciate and sympathize with man loves, woman hates & is stuck with it. Or as somebody posted, family grows and need to reconfigure. I’m not talking about those people at all. Today I saw one of the ridiculous postings that made me feel like somebody is running nails on chalkboard. I had to fight HARD not to copy and paste here to illustrate the irritating postings.

Location, price, and one or two really primo features.

I bought the previous home because I really really needed to move out of the Anxiety Condo From Hell, where the putative coke dealer above me was making my life miserable. My main criteria then (I didn't have a lot of disposable moolah) was price, being closer to work, and PRIVACY from anything that might resemble him.

So...

I ended up with a nice house with good privacy, a decent price, horrid gray paint, a kitchen from hell, and a driveway from hell in the winter... but the fact that it was steep added to the privacy factor. And I was closer to work.

The house was in great shape, and I repainted quickly, or reasonably so. Couldn't do much about the driveway or the kitchen (other than some tweaks on my then-budget) but I was glad I was Out Of The Anxiety Condo from Hell. And, I had a great private side yard.

My furniture stays with me wherever I go! It was not cheap in the first place (and much of it was inherited or is antique English wood), and I love my furniture. We're not talking about a $1000 sectional that is too big for a room. I've never not used the same furniture in any move I've made and much of this moved with my parents and my in-laws multiple times as well. In the past, people did not consider furniture a "disposable" purchase.

We have owned 3 homes over the years. All were bought for the location.

Almost 20 years ago we bought a house that wasn't really what we wanted -- we're still in it. It does contain a number of things I "hate" (thought that's a strong word for it). So why'd we buy it?

- It is a large, solidly built, all-brick house with a fenced in back yard.

- It is in exactly the right spot for the schools we wanted our kids to attend -- and our jobs.

- It is conveniently located to the shopping, restaurants, entertainment, our doctor, and our church. All the things we really wanted to be near.

- We found an excellent deal -- literally the cheapest place we could've chosen, which allowed us to sock away college money for the kids and retirement money for ourselves.

For those positives, we have put up with an inconveniently placed laundry, too-small closets, lackluster natural light, and a corner lot. Other things too, but those're the things I thought of right away.

After all the natural disasters here in Colorado, I'm starting to like HOA's. Everyone should mitigate the fire danger on their property. Just me taking care of mine isn't enough. Then...maybe it should be gated. People sleeping in their cars in front of your house and urinating on the lawn.....,yuck. I've currently got a neighbor that dragged their old broken hot tub out of the back yard and set it in the front yard....permanently. The house across the street from that has a HUGE broken solar panel on the roof. Another neighbor put a truck load of branches in the middle of the street. She said her boyfriend would haul it off, not to worry....well a month later I hauled it off....in my spare time....using my gas...paying the dump fee.

I'm starting to think "good" neighbors are as important as the house and the location.

I agree with you, Nicole. Neighbors can make quite a difference on how you feel about your house. I'm so blessed to have my current set of neighbors. They create some minor annoyances, but no major problems like I have experienced before. The sad thing is that it's difficult to know in advance who your neighbors will be. Even if you like the neighbors when you buy your house, there's no guarantee that those neighbors will stay in place for the entirety of your tenure.

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION.