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You are here: Home / Information For Owner Builders / We almost bought a flip house

Information For Owner Builders

We almost bought a flip house

 

Yes you read that right, we almost bought a flip house.

Let me tell you a little bit about this house we almost bought

Think of a beautiful 100 year old brick farmhouse with a strong foundation, tall ceilings, original trim and doors, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large mudroom, white shaker style kitchen, original floors and wood staircase, beautiful secluded lot within a short commute of Ottawa…

…Okay, that was my dream of how it was going to look after six months

What it actually looked like…

Clutter everywhere, a leaky roof, asbestos, knob and tube wiring, a cesspool for a septic tank, a shed that was falling apart, trees blocking the entire house, lime green trim, forest wallpaper, orange and yellow kitchen, carpet in the bathroom, mold on the ceiling… you name it, everything was wrong about this house. But the house had good bones and lots of character and I could picture how beautiful it would be once it was fixed up.

So why did we try to buy it?

Well, Tony and I have talked for a long time about flipping houses. I have been listening to house flipping and real estate investing podcasts for years. In my spare time I like to prowl around realtor.ca to see what new houses come up. Tony had been on the fence, but then he started watching HGTV again and got a little bit of the itch. He mentioned that we should do it, and I hopped on board!

Fixing houses is something that Tony and I are both good at and love doing. We have lived in three different houses and fixed them up, and built a house (and our marriage is still in tact after all that). I’m pretty confident that we can tackle a large house flip project.

How come the deal didn’t go through?

So we put an offer on this house, and we got as far as the inspections. There were a few extra things that we didn’t know about before the inspection, like the roof replacement and septic system replacement. That is a very large extra cost that we weren’t considering in our budget, so we renegotiated. However, they did not accept our offer and we had to walk away. If we were more experience flippers we might have known our numbers better and could have made a deal, but we just felt like it was too  big of a risk.

What we learned

Through all of this we did learn that we really do want to do this real estate investing thing. It’s scary to think about spending all kinds of money and taking such a big risk, but I think we’re ready to take the leap. I do feel disappointed that we didn’t get this exact house, because I know that we could have made it beautiful, but there will be more houses.

What can you expect from this blog?

My hope is that this blog will turn into our house flipping adventures sometime within the next year or two. But in the mean time I’m going to keep working on our house,  sharing craft projects, doing furniture flips, keeping up with my Etsy shop, and looking for another flip house deal. I thank all of you for following along with our adventures!

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Comments

  1. jadoreledecor says

    December 6, 2018 at 1:21 pm

    What an exciting read Jessica! I think you and your husband would be GREAT at house flipping. You work really well together. I can’t wait to read more about the process.

    Reply
    • Jessica Vanderveen says

      December 6, 2018 at 1:23 pm

      Thanks Ola! I hope it happens soon, but I’m trying to be patient 🙂

      Reply
  2. Sherry Lee says

    December 6, 2018 at 1:34 pm

    We bought a fixer upper bungalow and LOVE it! Thankfully ours had great bones to it. We made the leap after looking in newer areas and realizing there is no tree development, the yards are so tiny, and the new houses all seem to have a LOT of stairs where we live. We have a great yard for our kids to run around in along with some garden space. We have absolutely no regrets. We didn’t buy to flip, but we did buy it to love it! 😉 We also watch a LOT of fixer upper shows in our house, which helped with planning. I repurposed some original items as well. We have no regrets and have now lived in this house for nearly 6 years.

    Reply
    • Jessica Vanderveen says

      December 19, 2018 at 8:12 am

      The bones of a house are so important, and other than that it’s just cosmetic! So glad you’re happy living in your fixer upper

      Reply
  3. Denise says

    January 8, 2019 at 10:17 am

    Jessica,
    So excited that you’re planning to get into real estate investing and flipping houses! It is so disappointing when deals fall through AND you won’t regret it – you now have experience knowing what your limit is and it will inform your next decision. We had 3 offers fall through (due to multiple offers in a super competitive market) before purchasing our 1st home. We are so happy the other deals didn’t come together because we wouldn’t be in the position we are in today – owning 2 houses (renovated the first house to include a basement suite and used the equity to purchase the house we live in).
    Can’t wait to read about your first flip house!

    Reply

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