Buying Our First Investment Property

Lately life feels like it has been moving at warp speed but also in slow motion. How is that possible? 

We’ve been so busy this summer and I’ve loved every moment of it, but there are also so many things in the near future that I’m looking forward to and want time to pass quickly for. 

My to-do list is never even remotely close to being finished and everything takes three times as long as I’d like it to, yet I just keep adding things to the list. 

The biggest item on it right now: a new fixer-upper project. 

In April, Johnny and I closed on a 100-year-old house in the Catskill Mountains. Buying a vacation property in the Catskills has been a goal of mine for years, and now it’s finally a reality.

Getting to this point was no small feat. We’ve been searching and saving for years. We made offers on four or five different places, but we just kept getting beat by people going way over the asking price, paying cash, waving the inspection and so on in this crazy market.

Finally, about a year ago, we went under contract on a house we loved. This was it! we thought. We dreamed of how we’d decorate and started making plans to rent it out during ski season. 

We completed the necessary inspections, finished the mountains of mortgage paperwork and were a few weeks out from closing. And then, with no warning, the seller backed out of the deal. It was heartbreaking. We never even found out the reason.

By this spring, we were ready to throw in the towel on our search and revisit it again in a couple years, but I convinced Johnny to try one more time, one more house. Somehow, this time everything came together. Now we’re the very proud owners of our own little place in the mountains. 

Projects! 

The house we bought is a bit of a diamond in the rough. That’s the nice way of saying it needs some work. And of course, we’re doing it all on a budget.

The house has a great layout for vacation renters, but the prior owners weren’t so great about upkeep. The kitchen and bathrooms are from the 70s, maybe earlier, and the house is outfitted top to bottom in varying shades of beige, brown and green.

Consider these the ‘before’ shots:

There are about a hundred projects we’d like to do, but right now our main goal is getting the major, can’t-live-without-it things done so it’s rentable in time for this year’s busy season.

A few of those things are:

Clutter cleanup. When we got the keys to the house, it wasn’t quite a Hoarders situation, but it was close. It was filled with decades worth of the previous owners’ possessions–some hidden gems, but mostly a lot of junk. There were stacks of ratty linens, mattresses shoved into closets, furniture with legs falling off. Our first step was to sort through it all and either salvage, donate or trash it. 

Window replacement. The area gets below-freezing temperatures for weeks at a time, and when I first toured the place there was an icy draft coming in around every one of the wooden, single-pane windows. Replacing them is a necessity to make it comfortable during the depths of the busy ski season. This is where the bulk of our repair budget is going. 

Paint. I know beige is back in home decor, but not like this. A fresh coat of paint on the walls and some of the floors will give the space new life. 

Bathroom facelift. I can live with dated fixtures if they’re still functional, but the upstairs bathroom is particularly depressing in terms of just feeling “icky”. While we don’t have the budget for a total remodel, we’re doing a few cosmetic updates to make it more cheerful.

And that’s the bulk of it. Someday down the road I would love to gut renovate the kitchen and bathrooms, and the deck outside could use some TLC before next summer. 

My dream project is to finish the [currently very creepy] basement and turn it into an awesome hangout space. We’ll get there one day, hopefully.

For now we’re doing what we can, when we can, as fast as we can, which is basically a theme for the rest of my life right now, as well. 

I can’t wait to share some progress pics soon!