Wow... You rob a bank or somethin'?
Figuratively speaking, YES!
My mother-in-law who recently began living with us inherited a large sum of money and out of state property that I spent all last summer and fall renovating for her to be able to sell, and then I found a buyer and handled that sale which took place on February 1st. Since Cathy and I had been renting for the past 5 years, we all figured the most sound investment that we (
or anyone) could ever possibly make was to buy a home and then "invest" in the renovations and upgrades for said home...
The house that we bought is 12 years old, and by all standards is classified as a luxury home in an upper middle class neighborhood. With the real estate market being a "buyers market" at the moment, we were able to get the place for $14k5 and have added another $50k into renovations and furnishings. The appraisel was $190k, so we're right on par, though since we're having friends that are in the respective businesses (HVAC, carpentry, electrical, roofing, granite, etc.[/i]) do all of the work we're saving a ton off what we would otherwise be paying to have all of this done. Once everything is complete, we'll have increased the appraised property value by nearly another $100k in 2 months time.
Being that weve paid ca$h for everything (
home included), we don't have a dimes worth of interest to have to contend with, so anyone can do the math and figure out the amount of savings in that regard. The biggest factor for the roof is that as new home buyers we get the $8k home buyers incentive rebate and are able to simply roll that over since the new roof is going to cost us $8k... It would ordinarily be close to double that, but a friend that is a top notch roofer that hasn't had a lot of work lately is'nt making a dime for the materials over and above his cost. He's working strictly on a reduced labor rate. This is how all of our friends have been doing everything for us, so it's made a huge difference in determining what all we can or cannot do at the moment. Another aspect of all of this is that we're hoping to be able to showcase our new home in the local/regional "Parade of Homes" magazine, and everyone working on a part of it is pretty eager to have their names attached to it for business and marketing purposes.
Sounds like you're in it for the long haul, looking forward to this one
I've been in it for the "long haul" for many years now, and while this new system is huge, I'm actually down sizing from (4) separate systems totaling just over 1400 gallons that were strewn throughout our last house.
-Tim