The old advice is to plan and plan, put together a budget, then double it. There are just so many unknowns with an old house (most of my work is on old houses I'm not trying to talk you out of it!)

Will you be living there during the process, or just working on it in your free time?

Regarding the walls you want to remove, if you have any contractor friends you could ask them to come over and bribe them with dinner/ drink for an hour of their time. Otherwise you will need to find a contractor and offer to pay them for their time consulting on the project since they won't be doing any of the actual labor .

Thank you, Hallett & Co. No one is in the house at this time. So working on it in our free time. We have in the past painted and replaced flooring, but that’s about it. There is a current plumbing issue we’re working on now. I think most of the work is going to be knocking down walls and renovating the kitchen. Also renovating that first bathroom. Both rooms are so tiny and old. I’ll have photos later today when we go to the house.

We have a buyer who wants the house pretty badly. He’s a real estate agent, so we’re finding he’s wanting to renovate and flip it. So we kinda decided we might want to look into doing that ourselves. However, our mortgage co is only giving us under $49 to renovate and I feel that’s not enough. So we’re looking into the coat before making the next decision.

Sounds as though you may have a nice project on your hands but if you don't know how to verify a load bearing wall or are prepared to deal with the unknown's you could find yourself over your heads, in deep you know what, and with unexpected $$ issues. A Contractor who can come in and walk the property with you can check the structure and verify what is load and what isn't. You could develop a relationship with him to work together (him as a consultant and back up) if you get into trouble. Hallett has given you some decent advice - the last thing you want to do is loose money and then have to sell if for less in order to get out from under.

I'd start first on asking a professional who has a good reputation (call his past clients and make sure there are no negative posts on line).

So first find out from your bank if they will lend money on a DIY renovation. Then get a structural engineer to find out which walls are loadbearing and I would not be doing any work until you have a loan, an engineer and a plan . No point in doing plumbing until you know where it will go.We have renovated a few old houses one much older than that one and never have we come in on budget . So many surprises along the way. We always start with a solid plan , it helps that I am a designer, but the bones need to be right before all the pretty stuff and that is often where the surprises come in. I will tell you access to bedrooms from the LR is never good for a start. First step talk to your bank.

Patricia, we have talked to our mortgage company so far about refinance and doing renovations. The market value (looked it up yesterday) is $97,000, but Zillow is est at $113,000 to $157,000. After the mortgage co crunched some numbers it’s only leaving us less than $42,000 to renovate based on $120,000 for 15 years. Plus, the mortgage pmt will increase $200 or so over what were already paying now. I think the hubby is going to check one one option to refinance then we’ll make a final decision.

KR Kitchen, yeah I’m aware about load bearing walls. So the plan was to get someone to come in and take a look.

Here are more pict’s I was able to take yesterday. Looks like a whole lotta trouble to me. Lol

Living Room and kitchen.

Kitchen, entrance to room next to kitchen and laundry room.

All photos not posting. Other side of laundry room. Other side of back room. Hall between two front bedrooms. Front bathroom between bedrooms.

You cannot renovate this entire home for $42k. Even if you do it yourselves. Especially if you do it yourselves (and you are not experienced). ROI is dropping given the higher costs of materials and labor. So even experienced renovators are seeing tighter margins. There is no room for mistakes and given your experience level, you will make them.

Other side of front bath. Honestly, this was at least 1/2 decent before we got renters in it. Besides that awful kitchen and the front bathroom. That living floor was new and the renters destroyed it.

So I’m assuming this is a total renovation. Gutting the whole thing. Or just renovate and get new tenants in here? Or sell. These are the decisions to be made.

A 1930’s house is pretty simple to tell what’s what. If you can’t tell if a wall is load bearing, there aren’t enough DIY skills on board to flip or remodel either one. You’ll need to hire labor. You’re already at a financial loss before you‘ve even started, if you’re going to flip. And you’re relying on Zillow, which is notoriously unreliable for home values.

Flipping isn’t remodeling with a new kitchen and removing walls as a scope of work, unless it’s all in house and the cheapest possible site built cabinets. Built by you. With the walls torn down and headers created with new post footings done. By you. Because you have that structural assessment skill. You need to be a contractor, not someone who purchases contractor labor. If you need to make money on this house, and you have to buy anything, including labor, you have to get rid of those ambitions now.

Remodeling is for personal benefit, and will lose you money. Do whatever you want to do if you’ll be moving into the house. Because it’s not about a 100K expense on a 100K house then. It’s about making it the house you prefer. And thst has zero place in assessing the financial return of a flip.

Above I meant to say...or just remodel and get tenants back in there.

Kristin, that was my feeling too. Even though we didn’t plan to go super fancy on that kitchen we still need to tear walls down and make it bigger. Then that front bathroom needs to be tore out and made a little bigger too.

I’m not even sure what’s going through the mind of the Real Estate agent either. I mean he’s willing to give us pretty close the the current market value. I just don’t get it. He’s even seen the inside of the house. I’m scratching my head on this. We did have mineral rights on the property (everyone in the neighborhood does), but haven’t gotten any funds on it in a year or so.

I"d run from that and sell to the person who made the offer - You'll sleep a lot better at night.

Live_wire_oak, We know which wall is load bearing. I also never indicated we had structural assessment skills either. We also know we’ll need to hire some labor. My hubby and his dad have building experience and we have a cousin who is a home builder. We have two cabinet choices we can go with, so no issues there and it won’t break the bank and it’ll look beautiful. We haven’t decided yet on if it will become a flip, or if we just want to remodel and keep tenants in it or sell. We even have a tenant who lives next door who wants to move into this house and remodel it herself. This was my hubbys grandparents house and we’ve had it for 14 years now. Lots of memories there. The interested REA is obviously going to rent it out or flip it himself. So he already knows if it’s a money looser or not and I’m guessing not as he is wanting it. I just know it cannot continue looking like this if we’re keeping it. It has to be made livable. I’m just simply taking it upon myself to ask questions so I can bounce ideas off of others for information and experience by others in this. The hubby doesn’t care what we do, so I have to make the final decision as I don’t personally have experience with this. Also, I’m not relying on Zillow or whatever site that was referred to, the mortgage company did which I thought was weird.

Thanks everyone. I think it’s great to be able to bounce ideas off others before important decisions are made. In the end, well probably end up selling (and focus on our own house), but looking into options before making that final decision.