Yup. That was what we saw on Redfin and couldn’t wait to check out. It’s gorgeous isn’t it?! It wasn’t cheap either, eeek! I’m from Ohio where the avg price per square foot is $118, this fixer in in California was $838 per sq ft. So, why the hell would we buy it?

This was just north of where we really wanted to be, but still accessible by public transit. It seemed that the location was still a bit sleepy in the eyes of people newer to the Bay. Had we found an undiscovered gem? Absolutely. We saw fixer potential and also general market growth potential.

why Buy a Fixer Upper?

Sometimes it’s the only way you can afford a home, particularly in a very expensive area. It’s also a bit more environmentally friendly, compared to building an entirely new house.

It’s important to understand the limits of what you can and can’t do with a house unless you are willing to undergo a massive renovation with a bunch of contractors that will take years to complete. Please, don’t buy a house and think, “oh, we will just add another floor, or move every wall in the house” without knowing how much that will cost in your area. It’s easy to watch HGTV and think that it’s totally manageable, but it’s also when your budget doesn’t mean jack shit anymore.

Go tour some houses, take a look at the disclosure agreements, which are just a typed up summary of everything that they know is “wrong” with the house. Get a feel for what standard problems are, what your deal breakers are and how much money it will cost to fix them.

If you are anywhere in the country outside of an insanely competitive market you can usually use these disclosures to negotiate the price down. Since the roof needs replaced, we’d like to knock down the price by $10K etc.

In competitive markets what you see is what you get, you can take that shit or leave it because someone will buy it.

We both really wanted a house that had some character, something with a post & beam ceiling and mid century lines. Luckily there are plenty of houses that fit that description throughout the Bay Area.

I didn’t know until years later that even my husband was not totally sure we should buy this home. Our house was built in 1954, we are still trying to figure out who the architect was but we refer to the style as Eichler-esque. It was well intended but over the years it had some odd updates and nothing matched or really made any sense for 21st century living. The window seals were all broken, it had these nasty metal blinds that were all bent and the cords were so filthy you could barely pull them because they would get stuck.

He could tell when we walked in that I immediately had a vision & a plan and thought it was something we would mostly be able to do ourselves. We had lost out on 4 other houses (which really isn’t too bad for the Bay Area), and we really needed to find a place to settle down because our apartment was being torn down in a few months (also it had a big mice problem and it was gross & smelled like mold). Story for another day.

This house had no deal breaker issues to us, there was nothing imminently dangerous, it was just ugly. We could definitely handle ugly.

So, Why don’t people buy fixers?

Honestly, I don’t know. I get that people are scared to make a mistake or take on something they have never done before. It’s all about knowing your limits and being willing to learn. Trust me we have made plenty of mistakes, but they are all fixable.

We have plenty of friends in the Bay Area that talk about buying all.the.time. At this point we are talking about people that have said, “OMG it would take us years to save for a down payment”. Instead of saving they continue to travel excessively and eat out, go to wineries all the time (pre-covid) and continue to complain about not being able to afford a home.

Let’s be clear, I am only talking about a group of people that make plenty of money, and I know not everyone is privileged enough to be able to even entertain the idea of buying a home here. It’s not the avocado toast, it’s the let’s travel across the world for 3 weeks, then go on a safari, charge everything they want to credit cards and never cook a meal at home people.

But here’s the deal. They could buy a home, they just have a must have list that is so ridiculous they would have to have $1.5M+ to buy it and it still would need work. No one seems willing to learn how to put some TLC into an older home. It’s not always easy, but I just don’t want to listen to people complain for literally years and not be willing to change anything about their approach to get what they want. I don’t know if they are spoiled or just insecure, but it’s a big pet peeve of mine.

Don’t complain about something for years and not do a damn thing to change it. I don’t have time for that bullshit.

So, there’s my rant about fixers. Would you be willing to roll up your sleeves to carve out a little of this world as your own?