Move-In Ready or Fixer Upper House?

Me and Stacey walked through a great house in a good neighborhood.

It was a split plan, big yard, 2-car garage and tiled floor throughout. It checked all the boxes.

But there was a huge downside...

It was a fixer upper house.

Kitchen needs to be remodeled. There are holes in the wall from previous tenants who snuck out and didn't pay. All the walls need to be repainted. The patio is destroyed and needs to be completely redone.

And that's just what we saw. Who knows what else a home inspector would find.

We went back to our apartment overwhelmed but hopeful.

Do we buy this fixer upper and do the work or do we look for move-in ready house?

The original plan was to buy move-in ready. But should we pass up this opportunity?

I understand some work will have to be done on any move-in ready home. I don't expect any house we buy to be 100% move-in ready.

We could buy this fixer upper and put in the work ourselves. We pay less for the property and use extra to fix it up. New kitchen, new patio, new bathrooms, paint the walls and fix what the previous owners destroyed.

That is if we get it way below the asking price, which is unlikely.

We slept like shit that night.

Waking up in the morning things became clearer.

We are over our heads on fixing up any property.

With a down-payment and all the closing cost we wouldn't have much left over. The loan amount is given to you on what the house will be sold for. You don't get extra money for the full pre-approval amount. So even if we get this house way below the asking price, we don't get the extra from the lender. We would have to cover all the renovating costs.

We also don't have any experience in renovating anything major. This means we would have to hire people to do it for us. This kind of work could take a toll on the relationship, on the financials and tarnish our first-time house buying experience.

We want to move in and begin to establish our home, not paint the walls and lay down tile all night after work.

We realized after adding up all the renovation costs, buying a fixer upper was not realistic. With the time, money and energy needed to do this we would be over our heads.

We quickly scrapped the idea of buying a fixer upper home. It was a good option to consider but in the end it helped us to narrow down what we truly want and what we don't want.

We are no longer considering fixer upper houses, only move-in ready.