Page 6 - RVO Home Lawn & Garden March 2017

6VV SUNDAY, MARCH 26, 2017
HOME, LAWN & GARDEN • RIVER VALLEY & OZARK EDITION OF THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRATGAZETTE
When preparing to fix up a home to be sold, not everything in the home has to be redone. Sometimes accents, such as cabinet handles or a fresh coat of paint, can add visual interest to the home without a lot of work.
FIX AND FLIP
HOW TO TRANSFORM A FIXER-UPPER
The real estate market will always have its ups and downs, but real estate is an often-profitable investment. Real estate investors do their investing for various reasons. Some see a house as a place to hang their hats for years and years, while others look at properties as nothing more than inv- estments. Buying a home with the intent to fix it up and resell it is called a “fix and flip.”
In such situations, investors buy homes at below-market prices before refurbishing the homes with the goal of recouping their ini- tial investment — and then some — when the homes are ultimately put back on the market. Flipping has become popular for both expert remodelers and novice inves- tors. RealtyTrac, a source for comprehensive housing data, noted in its Year-End and Q4 2015 U.S. Home Flipping report that 5.5 percent of all single-family home and condo sales during the year were flipped properties.
This marked an increase from the same time the previous year. Investing in a fixer- upper requires a leap of faith and a vision of what the home can look like in the future.
Turning a real estate lemon into lemon- ade requires certain skills and a good mea- sure of patience. The following are some guidelines to get anyone started.
➤ Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Make an honest assessment of your abil- ities and which renovations, if any, you can handle. If you are unskilled or inexperienced working with your hands, then it can be easy for an investment property to quickly become a money pit. Before purchasing a property, hire a trained home inspector to tour the home with you and point out all of the areas that will need renovation. With this list, begin getting estimates on how much money the work will entail. Determine if this fits with your budget. You do not want to invest so much that it exceeds what you could feasibly
recoup when it comes time to sell.
Mike Milner, First Security Bank senior vice president of mortgage lending, said if a property owner bites off more than he or she can chew, the project can quickly turn
into a nightmare.