Crazy talk?
OK, to make a long story short, we found this Victorian two-family on the Bed Stuy-Bushwick border that we LOVE. Has almost every original detail, including the original kitchens, baths, and a speaking tube. Beautiful proportions, light, closets, you name it. (Not as fancy as a Stuyvesant Heights brownstone, but we like it.) But then…
OK, to make a long story short, we found this Victorian two-family on the Bed Stuy-Bushwick border that we LOVE. Has almost every original detail, including the original kitchens, baths, and a speaking tube. Beautiful proportions, light, closets, you name it. (Not as fancy as a Stuyvesant Heights brownstone, but we like it.)
But then we had the inspection and found out it needs $80,000 of repairs. (Plumbing, electrical, structural, plaster. Has unknown amount of termite damage.)
We could only do it with a 301K FHA type loan.
Is this crazy talk? Altogether, it would cost about the same as buying an uglier house that did not need repairs.
(Um, except the mortgage rate would be 6.5 instead of 5 percent…)
Particularly interested to hear from anyone who has rehabbed an old house and Montrose Morris: Do all houses with original kitchens/baths — which we want — need this much work, especially plumbing, or should we keep looking?
When we turned on the water during the inspection, it started to rain. (Three fixtures sprung leaks.)
Are we getting in over our heads?
Case in point. Do as little as you can get away with. Donatella’s story makes a good reada, but you know what? if you’re strapped for money, stick a AAV on the vent and close it up. Not to code, but it works. If there’s one bad stair, patch it. DOn’t replace the whole staircase. Live with stuff if you can’t fix it. The house ain’t gonna fall down.
ahh, I’m tired of these horror stories. Reminds me of when we had the kid and *everyone* would tell us how horrible we were going to have it for the next 22 years. Well guess what, we had little of that. I think there’s a psychological need for the outliers to peddle their horrors as if they were the norm.
Good luck in your renovation. Don’t believe all this excess you read here.
Donatella,
I enjoyed reading your story. I could add a long one too but we’re off to brave the weather and have dinner.
Good luck Mr. Mopar!
Just remember, if it is possible…keep it simple. We didn’t heed that advice years ago and kind of wish we had.
Happy weekend Everyone!
I liked Slopefarm’s list. I concur with others that your list is generally underpriced. For example, my brownstone is in a landmarked area, which makes getting new windows more complicated, but for 8 double paned glass windows (two large parlor and 6 smaller provided by Air-Flo) plus new brick frames, it cost 11,000 dollars. That is highish but yours are very low. Also, I think that your time frame for this work is so off, so way way off, my God, you will be opening up walls and as Slopefarm points out, you must be prepared for surprises. For example, when ripping out the duplex kitchen and the old bathroom, I found the source of the stinky smell emanating from my former tenant’s place (we wracked our brains trying to figure out what a sewerish smell was…..) and we discovered that neither the sink in the bathroom or kitchen was vented – it was being vented into the apartment! We had to do a lot of structural work supporting floors and adding support beams to correct structural problems caused by bad work, that was all originally unexpected and never showed up on the inspectors report. Ripping up carpet on central staircase revealed that one false move could send someone through the steps, so I had to rebuild the staircase. The electrical was a mess and I did patchwork, which was a mistake, since I had to go back and open up walls later.
I redid 3 floors, rebuilt everystaircase, most of the electrical, doing structural repair, new kitchens, new bathrooms, sprinkler system, new floors, fixtures, doors, all new windows in front, basement repair, monster tree removal, patio in back, roof repair, new front doors, new hallway floors, refinishing banisters, replacing spindles to refurbish, new front doors, new floors in hallway. With a contractor who helped with some structural design ideas (but with little aesthetic sense in general, much less respect for historic detail) I had to watch them every step of the way and instruct them what to buy and watch installation and work daily. I learned my lesson. The minute I relaxed, they started making lots of mistakes or solving problems with out my input which generally meant having to do things over again. I was there everyday before work and after work (my day job). I designed things myself and told them what to do almost every step of the way. I made every purchasing decision, locating the stuff from tiles, to flooring, to moldings, doors, etc. so that was very time consuming.
I would say that you should go for it, but realize that this is a full time job and hope that you have the time to be involved to this extent. If you travel a lot or just want to hand over the keys to someone, forget it.
I got a lot of help from Brownstoner, since I had no experience whatsoever, just the recommendation of a basically honest, cheap and pretty good contractor. I had a number of experiences which had me out on the ledge — kitchen fiasco thanks to Home Depot (never, ever, ever buy anything more complicated than what you can get off the shelf from Home Depot) which I battled my way out of and several other mistakes due to my lack of knowledge and my contractors utter lack of aesthetic sense — if left to him, this brownstone would look like a ranch a la Home Depot. This all takes time.
Well, I have to say that for me, it was a learning process but now the house is in good shape 4 years later, with most of the work done within 2 years (I had to stagger due to tenants living in different apartments — I did one rental apartment first, lived in it while renovating the duplex which was for me). This year, I had 8,000 dollars of unplanned maintenance: 2,000 dollars for a squirrel attack (squirrel got into the duplex from a spot on the roof and was did more damage than Sid Viscious in a London Hotel), a cracked sewer pipe (one piece of pipe was 60 years old and not replaced cost me 3,000 dollars and electrical repairs to front of building for 3,000.
Anyway, if you have the time and inclination for all this, its a good idea. Good luck.
Inspector was independent. In fact (did I already post this? I’m forgetting) he’s a former GC who has rehabbed his own Brooklyn Victorian. (Not that we shouldn’t get estimates from a current GC.) It’s true there could be extensive structural damage we can’t see involving water and termites — and it scares me.
We’re not rich. We’re not ever going to have a spare $40,000 or $80,000 above what we already have now or borrow as part of the mortgage. (It’d be more like a spare $3,000 or $5,000 a year.)
And.. this is funny…if the estimates get much higher, they’ll exceed the value of this house, which is already very low.
And I don’t know if it makes any difference, but remember we’re not changing anything (except the electrical and we’d like to add two washing machines). We’re not remodeling the kitchen or the baths. We’re not moving any pipes. And they’re already outside the walls.
We can’t do much piecemeal. The ground floor needs to be usable immediately, because we have a home-based business. If it’s not up and running, one of us has no income.
Thinking about ranch houses on Long Island….
I agree that your prices sound really low. My general rule of thumb is to double the money and triple the time of the first estimate. That formula has come very close to actual cost for every construction project I’ve done. I’d buy detail over mechanics any day.
One thing nobody’s mentioned is that this is the inspector’s estimate–it’s going to be low because he is not allowed, before you buy, to take a real look at what’s going on underneath the hood, and he also doesn’t have x-ray vision. It might also be low because he might be the inspector your realtor suggested, I don’t know the particulars.
My story is germane: I was told by the inspector my realtor suggested that we had a good amount of cosmetic work to do, and that we would spend as much as we wanted, but had to do next to nothing in order to get started. And I got an idea of what the cosmetic work would cost, and his prices were quite low.
In reality, there was an astounding amount of structural damage that needed immediate attention, and that was covered in drywall, and the inspector can only talk about what he can see. And the prices he quoted for stuff like flooring was really low, I don’t even remember how low it was, I try to block it out of my mind because I don’t like being angry.
We dove into a project that, at this point, is more than 5x as expensive as we thought it would be. We are, technically, fine, because we are resourceful people. But my sister and brother in law taunt us mercilessly (it’s the holidays, I am mentally preparing myself), and my life is not one that I would suggest anyone else take on, and it won’t be for another five years.
So the first thing I would do is make sure if you are as naive as I was that your inspector is independent from your realtor. And then I would ask yourself if you could handle a worst-case scenario like mine. If you want it that badly, or are that resourceful, or are that much of an adrenaline junkie, then I would go for it.
Nothing is more cranky or anal than a consultant like cmu standing over handymen and expecting them to do the work of craftsmen at”
Nothing is more annoying than people who mis-read clear statements. I’m not anal, I like good work but don’t sweat the occasional bad grout line, and, thank you, have had a good relationship with almost all of my handymen. In fact, the only issues were with the one “reputable” company who went over budget, screwed up quite a bit and didn’t quite finish. Was not enough to take issue over.
People who want to spend 300k are welcome, I’m merely pointing out to OP that there’s another way.
Thank you so much, everyone. This is eye opening.
Sally, I live in Bushwick now and would love to talk to you. Could you please email me at qualitymartpa at hotmail?
Re the FHA loan, I expect to hear back from my mortgage broker soon and will let you know.
Dave, how much is a good window? These are about average size for a brownstone, nothing huge, they’re not to the floor. (I was estimating $450 per — I know that’s cheap.)
Montrose, I feel for you on the door snafu. That would kill me.
Thank you!!!
Whatever you think it will cost, double it. However long you think it will take, double it.
I just upgraded all the mechanicals in a brownstone, new heating with zones, AC, new plumbing, new electrical. Massive job.