Make money by fixing up a house & selling it

If you have been paying attention at all to the finance world, you know that it is important to have a diversified portfolio.

You do not want to have all of your eggs in one basket – such as having a majority of your money invested into a single stock.

Well, I believe that I have a well-diversified portfolio through a variety of mutual funds.  The issue is that all of these investments are impacted by global/world/regional events that may or may not have anything to do with the mutual funds I own.

This is why I own a house.  It is an investment that helps my financial portfolio become more diversified.

I have owned quite a few homes, but the home I now own is the first older home I have purchased.  This house was in some dire need of structural improvements AND decorative updates.

However, I bought this house at a discount because of all of the issues with it.  It was NOT move-in ready.

Here is a list of problems that it has/had:

• Dog pee all over the carpets
• Dog damage from climbing on window sills, digging up the yard
• Rotten floor
• Leaking roof – several spots
• Sagging roof
• Old appliances
• Wood paneling with horrible wallpaper all over it
• Leak damage on the walls/ceilings

Now, I am the son of a home builder.  I know a little bit about working on houses.  I will tell you that this is my first attempt at updating a house myself. As a result of this project, I have developed a short tip list for you should you consider doing this.

Tips

• If you have no clue about updating houses – do NOT do it unless you have a pile of green portraits of Ben Franklin that you want to donate to others.
• Have a contigency fund for the problems you will discover as you fix other known problems
• Get help when you get in over your head
• Don't move in to the house until you have fixed the structural issues.  It is so much easier to complete a major project when you are not living there!
• Develop a budget for the projects and HOLD TO IT!  Be realistic on estimated costs!
• Cry when you need to.  It lets some of the frustration and anger out.

In the end, you will have a nice house for a good price and have some good ole sweat equity built up!