15 Expensive Lessons Learned When Buying A House That Needs Repairs

I’ve bought 6 houses in my adult life so far and all have needed extensive work. When buying a house that needs repairs there’s always been a hard lesson learned along the way. 

If you’re looking at buying a house that needs a lot of work, check out these 17 tips I’ve combined that could help you! This list is comprehensive of all the hard, expensive lessons I’ve learned over the last 7 years. Hope you can glean some wisdom and have fun with your next project.

This post is all about buying a house that needs repairs.

15 Tips When Buying A House That Needs Repairs

1. Get an inspection

Now this is a no brainer for 99% of the people out there buying a house. The first couple houses I bought I never did a professional inspection! My dad is a contractor and so he, along with my husband, would take a look at everything and we would forego spending the $550 on a professional inspector. By doing this, I lost my negotiating authority in those first transactions by not having professional documentation of items to request for repair.

2. Get more inspections

Always take a look at what your inspection report calls out and if it’s big enough, get a specific inspector out there to estimate the cost of repair. When you have a specific budget needed to make a repair, this will make it easy for you to send the seller and request for the repair to be done or to apply the dollars to your closing costs.

3. Double the renovation budget

Whatever I have thought my renovation budget would be, it’s always more. Double the budget and double the timeline too! Now this is usually due to project creep where the scope of work expands as projects get rolling but it’s also due to unforeseen issues that will arise as you go down the rabbit hole of house projects.

4. Do the critical things first

The critical fixes like plumbing and electrical are never the most fun but are foundational to well functioning home. The most recent house I bought is the house I currently live in and it’s a total fixer upper. We are saving to be able to do the repairs we want to do but our first wave of repairs was for critical fixes.

We spent $5,000 on tree removal, $2,000 on concrete repair and $7,000 on new windows for half the house. The next set of repairs will be electrical ($6,000), new sprinklers ($1,500) and the other half of the windows ($7,000). Not the most impactful items to fix from a visual perspective but all essential safety items for running a well functioning house.

5. Tile is expensive

Oh boy, tile is ridiculously expensive! Do not look at pinterest for bathroom renovation ideas because I promise you, you will be heart broken when the hand thrown tiles are $50 per square foot. Now, there’s some budgets that can totally handle that and I freaking love that for them! But it’s never been mine story. This is usually where I get thrifty and find nice options that are cost effective but still make an impact.

6. It’s really hard to change a floor plan

As much as I love moving walls, it’s usually not without a slew of headaches, permits and expense. Sometimes just making a case opening slightly wider will have that same effect as tearing the wall out completely.

7. Most of the time it’s worse than you think

Yep, unfortunately so. And there’s so much they can’t tell about a home in an inspection during escrow so just watch out. Once you open walls and see what’s really going on, it’s usually bad. That’s why it takes more time and money to renovate a house than you might think.

8. Paint changes so much

Paint is the single most impactful addition to any tired space. If you take an old house and just give it a fresh coat of paint, it immediately goes from drab to fab. You don’t need to replace those yellow or red oak cabinets, just paint them a pretty dark green and you will be shook by the dramatic impact it makes to the space.

Looking for tips on how to finance a renovation? Check out this article!

9. Lighting can transform a space

Lighting, done correctly, can just make you feel better in any home. Adding can lights is getting easier and takes the dingy out of any space instantly. You can also swap or add new lights for next to nothing and make a huge impact on the style of a space.

10. Landscaping is expensive

Sprinklers are worth their weight in gold but they are not cheap. Neither are plants or trees or grass. I’ve learned that having to trim and manicure an overgrown space is so much better than adding to a space. You can move small plants around to save time and money and slowly take away any big items that you don’t want.

11. Always negotiate your bids

Every contractor bid you get should come with an itemized scope of work. Look at that in-depth, get multiple bids and then negotiate. I tend to shy away in scenarios like this because I know so little about this but my husband shines and gets after it. Even if you’re like me and know little about the work that needs to be done, make sure you interview your contractors and ask lots of questions to get an understanding of the type of work that will be done.

12. Be realistic about DIY

DIY is just so glorified on the internet. It’s a great option if you have the time, space and patience to figure it out but can be insanely frustrating if you don’t. I have 3 little kids and am a historic DIYer but now I’m learning that my time is super valuable compared to how I did prior to having my kids. If it can be hired out for a good price, we tend to hire out. Gets done faster and better usually.

13. Permits and inspections

Permits and inspection always take more time and money than originally planned on. The municipality will be frustrating to work with and they will have delays/questions/pushback on what you’re trying to do. You need to be super clear on what you’re trying to do and help them get the questions answered about their projects so things can move along at a good pace.

The municipality can be difficult to deal with during a project but once it’s done and signed off on, you will most likely never hear from them again.

14. Taking out concrete is hard

Omg, I had no idea how annoying and expensive it is to take out concrete. We took out a bunch of old concrete on first remodel and it was so hard first of all and then we got hit with an “extra weight” bill at the dump. This is one of those things that’s easier to put in rather than take out.

15. Demo is the easy part

Demo day is the most fun for a reason. You get to tear it up and not worry too much about putting everything back together just yet!

What was the best lesson you learned when buying a house with repairs? I’d love to know in the comments!

This post was all about buying a house that needs repairs.