House in our neighborhood for sale

[iris lilies]

I was just thinking about the stoves we bought during our frugal years. Our stoves were so cheap they didn’t even have a light in the oven. Ha, but I didn’t care. I was perfectly fine with that.

so now I buy expensive stoves ($5,000 ish) for their color, not performance. But I think of Aga stoves that start at what, $30,000? And go up from there. Compared to that my stoves are still reasonable in price.

[iris lilies]

For income property, an easy rule of thumb is 1% percent to 2%. Here’s what that means:

You should be able to get a monthly rent that is 1% of the total purchase price.

The people over at Mr. Money Mustache say that properties in the 2% range are practically impossible to find anymore. 1% properties can be found. I like this rule and I look at it often when I’m looking at real estate, not that I ever want to be a landlord because I don’t, but I think it’s a great rule of thumb to weed out most properties that will not cash flow for income.

Another bit of wisdom is that in flyover country, you’re not going to make money on appreciation, so you better make money on monthly cash flow. But on the coasts you may not make money in monthly rent, but appreciation might be where the value lies.

[catherine]

I was going to say that back in 2007, I think the cost to renovate my MILs kitchen when she moved to NJ was about 20-25k. I went to Home Depot and used their designer to lay it out, and purchased the factory cabinets through them and hired our own carpenter to install them. We bought mid-grade appliances. Quartz countertops. My "splurge" was bamboo flooring and Susan Jablon backsplash tiles. Of course I would expect that my costs would have inflated to the 30-35k range by now.

[chrisgermany]

Sorry wrong post.

[chrisgermany]

Wow, I had family in your town and have so many happy memories.
But the fence is so close to the windows. Is there a garden at all?

[pinkytoe]

Five years ago, our kitchen was around $12,000. New wood floors, some electrical upgrades, RTA cabinets, sink and hardware and stone counters. We did the painting, cabinet and backsplash tile installation ourselves. DIY saved us a lot of labor costs.

[jp1]

Yeah, if we were going the income property route we'd probably just replace the bathroom vanity and kitchen counter. Maybe $10k including having them installed. If we were going to try to flip it we'd do full renos on the bath and kitchen, closer to $100k. But neither make sense financially so instead we'll hope that someone buys to live in it and spends the money to up grade the bath and kitchen nicely and then perhaps sells a few years down the road profitably, providing a nice comp over $800k, which is currently the highest price anyone's ever gotten in our development.

Regarding the yard, yes it's small. Other than the small astroturf section it's all deck area. If one wants they can use the HOA space beyond the fence for gardening. That's what we do. This place doesn't have a gate because the fence is actually a retaining wall (we have a gate out of our backyard) so they would have to build a staircase to get out of the backyard (or climb the fence...)

[jp1]

Five years ago, our kitchen was around $12,000. New wood floors, some electrical upgrades, RTA cabinets, sink and hardware and stone counters. We did the painting, cabinet and backsplash tile installation ourselves. DIY saved us a lot of labor costs.

Yeah, labor is probably 2/3 of the cost of a renovation, at least in my experience. I'm ok with that since really the last thing I want to do is spend months of evenings doing projects and living with a mess the whole time. Plus our contractor does an amazing job of just making everything look great where if we did it ourselves we'd struggle to make it look at least competent because we just don't have the skills.

[rosarugosa]

If another data point is helpful, our kitchen cost just a hair under $47K when all is said and done. That included: gutting (then the surprise that subfloor needed to be removed to the joists and rebuilt), hardwood floor installation (we had the flooring material already from a prior project), blueboard, plaster and painting, complete electrical rewiring and installation of recessed lights, garbage disposal and range hood, tile backsplash, granite countertops, cabinetry and installation, new stove, fridge, range hood, sink, faucet, disposal, replacement of radiator, replacement of 2 solid wooden doors.
The first two contractor quotes I got were for $40K and $48K, and did not include cabinetry, appliances, fixtures, radiator, nor of course the subfloor surprise.

[iris lilies]

If another data point is helpful, our kitchen cost just a hair under $47K when all is said and done. That included: gutting (then the surprise that subfloor needed to be removed to the joists and rebuilt), hardwood floor installation (we had the flooring material already from a prior project), blueboard, plaster and painting, complete electrical rewiring and installation of recessed lights, garbage disposal and range hood, tile backsplash, granite countertops, cabinetry and installation, new stove, fridge, range hood, sink, faucet, disposal, replacement of radiator, replacement of 2 solid wooden doors.
The first two contractor quotes I got were for $40K and $48K, and did not include cabinetry, appliances, fixtures, radiator, nor of course the subfloor surprise.

I didn’t include the building, cost of electric, plumbing, drywall, and flooring, in our Hermann house, because all of that was happening throughout the entire house.