What are the Benefits of Buying a Fixer-Upper?

If you’re a person with an inclination toward doing things yourself, you may not have to burdened by a huge mortgage.

Buying a fixer-upper can be a great solution to a tight budget, especially if you have a little know-how and time to apply it to a home. There’s a lot of information out there on how to effectively fix up homes, and there are even real estate agents who specialize in finding and selling these homes.

While each home is different, requiring different levels of involvement to fix, there are a few undeniable benefits of buying a fixer-upper.

Benefits of Buying a Fixer Upper

Millennials are starting to reach home-buying age, and results are showing that they’re more interested in fixing up older homes than they are in buying new ones. They’re on to something, and here’s why.

1. There Are More Savings Than Meet the Eye

It’s easy to understand the primary benefit of buying an older home in need of repairs: older homes are cheaper. There are a lot of factors that can play into a home being put up for sale in less than great condition, most of them resulting in an extremely low sale price.

These prices allow people to actually own their property rather than rent it, which would be otherwise impossible in most cases. Those shiny new homes with big mortgages have a lot of prerequisites. From getting pre-approved to coming up with the cash needed to put in a down payment, most people aren’t able to set enough money aside for it to work.

While fixer-uppers are typically well-below market value, they aren’t always a dream. The costs of repairs can get quite high, but there’s a silver lining if you look a ways into the future. That silver lining is the fact that you could soon be living in an exceptional house at a fraction of the tax costs.

Taxes Come at the Rate of the Home’s Sale Price

That’s right. Even after you’ve renovated your home to perfection, you’ll be paying taxes on the price that you bought the home at. Additionally, there are some circumstances which allow you to write off renovations on your taxes. In order to get those breaks, your home will likely have to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Even if you can’t get your renovations written off on your taxes, you will be able to turn a profit on them if you don’t see yourself living in the house forever. Fixing up and selling is a perfectly feasible option to try and find some upward mobility.

2. You Can Design in Any Way You Want

If you’re pressed on cash, odds are that you don’t plan to turn your new home into a personal palace, but you do have the option to work as much or as little as you’d like. Whether you have a pristine vision of your home or your one to explore your options as they come, buying a fixer-upper will allow you to do what you want.

Building companies can build and furnish homes with whatever materials they like, typically with the interest of providing enough quality to last while making as much profit as possible. This could put buyers at a disadvantage financially, but fixer-uppers allow you to use and work with whatever materials you see fit.

You are sure of the quality of your home because you were the one who made the renovations and adjustments. It’s smart to have your home inspected once you’ve completed your renovations, though, and in most cases, it is required by law.

3. It’s Actually Very Similar to Buying a New Home

If you think about what choices the buyer makes when building a new home, you’re going to find that, in most cases, a lot of the decisions kind of go over their heads. In other words, what do you really care about when making decisions on a new house?

Probably the layout of the interior, the quality of the appliances, and the addition of an extra room for the kids, etc. Those things are all possible to choose with a fixer-upper, only you don’t have to fork out hundreds of thousands for all of the brand new things that would go into a new home as well.

Buying an old home gives you just as much of a blank canvas as a new one, except without the huge costs involved. Additionally, there are often elements of a new home that are state of the art, brand new, and wildly costly. Builders tell buyers that these elements are of high quality, everybody has them, and that they’re lucky to have them.

By being told these things you are less inclined to change them if you don’t like them. In an older home that you can change at will, you aren’t tied to the materials as closely as you would be with a new one. This means that you’ll be more comfortable tearing out that handrail and replacing it with one of your choices.

You won’t be taken by the granite countertops, so you’ll have the option of asking your neighbor the artist to design one for you. In essence, it’s all about personalization with fixer-uppers, and if that strikes your fancy you should consider finding one.

4. You Don’t Have to Do it Alone

While the image of home renovations typically involves you, alone, in overalls, you can actually hire out others to do any work that you don’t know how to do yourself. Pile that onto the fact that there are endless home renovation guides online, and you’ve got yourself a pretty easy path to a wonderful home.

If you’re having difficulty finding a home, this website would be a great start to finding some help identifying your dream house.

Need Some Help?

If you’re someone interested in selling or buying a fixer-upper, there’s probably a lot that you don’t know about the process. That’s fine because nobody knows everything.

That being said, we have all the information you need information about buying and selling homes the right way.