Cheap Old Houses: Buying Fixer-Upper Homes for Just $100K!

Episode #954
Would you buy a house for $100K? That’s right, just twenty-five percent of the median home price in America. Well, we found a couple who does just that, finding fixer-upper properties that often cost less than six figures and turning them into eye-catching, head-turning homes. They even argue that these cheap old homes are BETTER than the newer-built house flips that so many investors are targeting today. So, how do you find your next $100K home, and where do you start looking?
Elizabeth and Ethan Finkelstein, the brains behind HGTV’s “Cheap Old Houses” and the social media account by the same name with millions of followers, join us on today’s show. Elizabeth and Ethan love cheap old houses, but not for the reason you think. Most investors purely look at the numbers or the profit potential, but Elizabeth and Ethan see beyond that, fixing up old houses to not only collect the significant equity gain but restore communities and bring back long-forgotten styles, materials, and looks.
They’ve bought houses for as cheap as $27,000 and turned them into homes anyone would dream of having. If you’re an investor without much capital and can get a little handy, these old houses could explode your portfolio. But who SHOULD be buying these cheap old houses? Stick around as Elizabeth and Ethan give their expert advice on what to DIY vs. hire out, which old pieces to keep, the best way for beginners to get started with little money, and the decades that built the BEST houses!
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Building Wealth with OLD Homes and How to Keep Tenants for Longer:
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Book: www.amazon.com/Cheap-Old-Hous...
Instagram: @cheapoldhouses or / cheapoldhouses
Who's Afraid of a Cheap Old House?: www.hgtv.com/shows/whos-afrai...
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Show notes at: link.chtbl.com/BPRE
00:00 Intro
01:24 Why Cheap Old Houses?
05:16 $150K Houses!?
07:17 Rehabbing New vs. Old Houses
19:03 Who Should Do These Rehabs?
20:11 Best Ways to Get Started
23:38 DIY vs. Hiring it Out
27:47 Connect with Ethan and Elizabeth!

[@robertbush8777]

This is fantastic! Thank you very much for creating this content. I actually have five houses that I bought for $25,000 or less. This is exactly the kind of stuff that I love doing and I live for.

[@mpatrick8673]

So glad to see the Finklestein's on this show! Been following their IG account this past year, and some of those houses are soooo amazing! That's my future dream to restore old homes because they are so much more unique and beautiful.

[@javierarroyo9765]

Old neighborhoods have more character too. Mom & Pop corner stores, restaurants, and businesses, diverse architecture, and you can tell the neighborhoods grew organicly. Allies, attics, basements. Now all I see is housing tracks where wvery 4th house is the same house and strip malls between housing tracts. Thank got I didn't grow up in a place like that!

[@asiv70]

I love these older homes. The problem I find, at least in Florida, is the insurance cost on these older homes are outrageous. Especially if they are in historic neighborhoods.

[@rogergrubb]

Yup. Had one of my houses double insurance in one year. Appreciation can't even make that deal float. Now selling and moving to another market.

[@eljayholdings1424]

I love your cheap old houses website/Mail subscription

[@RyanIrwinIAC]

Great episode. I own an old home built in 1890, and I can relate to this. Even though I had the seller address some issues, I always plan/budget for extra.

[@LASFVEGASHOUSTON]

As builder I love old homes but there are many drawbacks that makes rehabbing them more expensive. If you start opening walls you will need to bring items up to code. You also have asbestos, lead paint, energy inefficiency issues. Electrical might not be able to handle our current way of life. Trades that specialize in bringing back old homes like those 100 yrs old is not cheap. You might buy cheap but total rehab cost might make the project not feasible.

[@LarossaConstruction]

This is Great. I think the best money is in making crappy houses less crappy. Also it's a huge need for some of these neighborhoods.

[@bimepurge]

To ME....OLD is anything earlier than 1900 or so. I love older Victorian homes....

[@frogdog3600]

Oh my God, did you know you can also buy an old used car for $10,000 in 2024?