Shak and Jill » Is it Condition Or Location?

I’ve been following the experiences of Dan STEVE over at Brip Blap as he’s moved his family to Florida for the nice weather. He posed an interesting question about a couple of homes that are under consideration for buying. One has been completely renovated … beautiful on the inside, but a little farther from the ocean. The other one is a hot mess with pet stains and other grossness to consider.

Which will he pick? It comes down to condition or location. This is where I apply the 80:10:10 rule. It’s cliche, but still works for people hoping to buy. If you love 80 percent of the home, hate 10 percent but can CHANGE it, and don’t like 10 percent but can LIVE WITH IT then it’s probably a home that you should consider.

Depending on how handy I am, I’d probably buy the home with the great location. He says,

The second is in a nicer neighborhood, with a huge screened pool and so close to the ocean you can hears waves from beyond the tree – but the house is a mess.

I can clean. I can put in new carpet. I can paint. I’d buy the second one where I could almost pay cash and listen to the waves.

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Comments

Kathy – thanks for mentioning my article (it’s Steve, not Dan, btw, the blog name’s right)!

As always, when you spend some additional time researching houses you discover things that weren’t obvious at first. It turns out the fixer-upper, while physically closer to the beach was actually completely non-beach accessible. The closest access was either to the north or south about a mile, making a car more or less necessary.

The nicer house, on the other hand, was a little bit further away as the crow flies, but had direct, private access to a public beach within walking distance. So even though it’s a little further away (again, as the crow flies) you’d actually be able to walk and get to the beach that way.

All of that, of course, wasn’t obvious the first time we checked out the houses – and since then, enough little bits and pieces came out to make it obvious that the fixer-upper was not a great investment unless we were prepared to endure months and months of serious renovations, even replacing walls, etc. So we are going after the nicer house.

Thanks for the post!