I Bought A Neglected House!

[triton100]

A year ago my industry was in complete shambles, so if the job didn't work out I was probably going to switch industries anyway. The place was only $90k so if I needed to turn around and sell it I could, especially with the housing marking going insane. With the two rooms rented out my net cost is around $350 a month, so even at half my salary it would be pretty easy to handle the costs. So overall it was fairly low risk.

Looking at comps in the area, places that looked fairly similar but with half the land and no detached garage were selling for $120k-ish. Similar places but in nice condition, half the land, and no garage were selling for $250k-ish. I think with everything finished the place will easily be worth $350-ish.

what a great business venture you undertook and this can only make you look even more of an asset to your boss who told you about his grandmas house, as you've shown initiative, saviness and business acumen to name just a few traits

 

[dannyyankou]

Tim Reynolds is such an underrated guitarist

 

[asleep]

Not a bad idea, I think we're closer to a top in commodity prices. Not that they'll go all the way back down, but over the next few months external contributing factors should lessen notably. Trickle down to local pricing will be delayed a bit.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

That's better!

It'll be nice when the actual purchase price comes down:

 

[asleep]

That's better! It'll be nice when the actual purchase price comes down:

Suggest you shop, as there will be a number of sellers who delay price drops to rake more profits.

The chart tells me prices might level out around these levels (under 1000 today) for a bit.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

Yeah, I'm trying to do some free/cheap projects right now.

I really want to out a sub floor back into Bedroom 3 and start framing it though.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

The video this week. The stuff in the attic sucked, but I hope to finish it this week. Hopefully it actually helps!

 

[mk313]

Interesting article today in the Wall Street Journal about wood prices & how they are starting to drop: https://www.wsj.com/articles/lumber...ast-turning-hoarders-into-sellers-11623749401

 

[mk313]

This was one of my favorite episodes. Interesting to see how much driveway you were able to reclaim. Also crazy to see how much water was coming through that creek. I'll be interested to hear if the insulation helps keep the house cooler. Seems like there's a good chance that it makes a difference.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

I think I have a chainsaw lined up for this weekend, I should be able to reclaim a LOT more driveway. Like, a shocking amount.

I was surprised about the creek, as well as the yard. The neighbors had told me about the yard flooding like that, but hadn't seen it yet. Yesterday they told me that it has been worse before. I'm curious if my little ditch will help next time.

I REALLY hope the insulation helps. I'm not a big fan of hot and humid places, you'll see more about that in the next video.

 

[JohnR]

So I'm hoping to get my attic filled with more insulation...looking at having shredded paper or whatever it is sprayed up there. I hate insulation myself.

That runoff going under your drive way...that to me is VERY concerning if it's not going through a drain pipe. That will erode the dirt under your driveway, which is not good.

that ozone thing you put in your garage, how did that turn out?

Landscaping around the house will help increase value too. I wanted to jump through the video and help rip out those weeds and such growing around there.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

After I finish the two bedrooms upstairs I'll blow in a ton of insulation. In the meantime, crawling up there sucks, but it goes a little quicker than I thought it would. I still need to finish it up.

The section upstream that is underground is in a concrete pipe, so I'm not too worried about that. This weekend I'll work on cleaning up the creek some. I got some advice from a guy on another forum who is a civil engineer that specializes in water issues. The good news is, the creek is probably not actually a creek, it's probably just a drainage ditch. The city/county probably don't know it even exists, so I should be fine to reroute it when it comes time to do major work on the driveway.

The ozone generator is helping, but not as well as it did in my car. I'm curious if the ozone is rising enough to get into the ceiling joists, so I'm going to put it in the loft over the weekend and see if that makes a difference.

I'm borrowing a chainsaw this weekend, so I can cut up the logs and expose more driveway. I'll probably cut into the stuff on the side of the house as well.

 

[Apple fanboy]

The video this week. The stuff in the attic sucked, but I hope to finish it this week. Hopefully it actually helps!

We spent a lot of time looking into the flood risk at the property we bought. I’d make sure the build up of silt is kept to a minimum. Should help the water to flow better. Keep up the good work.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

It's kinda funny, part of the property is actually in a FEMA flood zone, but the house itself isn't, my mortgage doesn't require flood insurance. The old man across the street who has been there since the 70's said that it hasn't flooded since the early 80's when the city did some work on the nearby lake.

Last night we had a couple thunder storms roll through and the creek rose enough to move some of the bricks I used to block the overflow.

I started cutting back the driveway overgrowth today, I spent hours on it and only got about 15 feet done. Cutting back that kind of vegetation is a lot of work!

 

[mk313]

Oh wow. Can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s done. Might be tricky to do but it would be cool to see a before shot in your next video too.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

This idiot just found a mouse in the house, caught it, took it to the living room to play with, then lost it down that heater duct...

 

[asleep]

Man, that looked like a lot of water rolling over whatever it was in the next door lots down towards yours. Does that just run by the side of the garage and down to lower levels behind & off your property? Hard to see slope in the videos. Might have to approach the neighbors about joining in on a common solution.

I hate working with insulation. Nothing fun about it. Hot, cramped, ugh. But yeah, hot & humid is worse. Got plenty of that in Houston.

Is that your 🐈 or a tenant's? The 🐭 I know is yours. 😀

 

[asleep]

Cat & mouse, a big A/C unit, more driveway reclamation with a powersaw and pulleys and mechanical advantage, creek update and more this week.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

Thanks for posting! I haven't had much chance to get online today.

I meant to do a little talking head at the beginning but forget until it was about halfway through rendering.

It's raining right now and it looks like my changes are effective, the water isn't slowing down much, and isn't gushing up the side of the creek wall now. I need to do something similar down by the garage.

 

[R.T.J.]

You are such a hard worker and very brave.

 

[mk313]

Congrats on all the hard work since the last video. It's crazy to me how much space you reclaimed in the driveway. A lot of sweat equity, but it's nice that you can see the difference so starkly.

How did the A/C unit work out? Did it make a noticeable difference?

 

[LumbermanSVO]

The new A/C has been GREAT! It's been hot lately and it really made the whole house more comfortable. In the winter I added the heater to the other side of the room and it had the same effect on the whole house as well. It's amusing how controlling the temperature in this one room can effect the whole house.

Also, I started collecting data from various rooms with some DIY ESPHome devices, I'll show some of that in the next video. They have high enough resolution that you can see the A/C units cycle on and off. Last night I turned the gable fan on for 20-ish minutes and it was neat to see it dramatically lower the temperature in some places, while slightly raising it in others.

 

[asleep]

When you said ‘battery powered saw’ I didn’t think you’d get much out of it. Did better than I expected, but still I was feeling for ya with that unit.

Also, I started collecting data from various rooms with some DIY ESPHome devices, I'll show some of that in the next video. They have high enough resolution that you can see the A/C units cycle on and off.

Interested to see that, great idea.

 

[T Coma]

I once spent a summer helping a friend do residential repipes, removing galvanized and replacing it with copper. I know what the inside of old galvanized plumbing looks like, it's BAD. So I was pretty happy to see that this house has copper plumbing.

There is some non-copper piping, but it is all gas lines. It does slightly concern me that there are some copper gas lines.

Had to rerun some kitchen plumbing from the top floor of our 1916 2-flat when I redid the 1st floor kitchen. Now this is bad. I can't imagine how water actually drained through this.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

I have no idea how water got through that either!

I spent some time doing residential repipes and saw a LOT of nasty stuff. I was pretty happy when I saw that my house had copper instead of galvanized.