The question “Why?” has come up often and understandably so. Why would two young guns like us, with three kids, a full-time job, a kinda part time job, a handful of chickens, and lots of other irons in the fire, buy a second home to restore and then sell?
The short answer? We don’t know.
The longer and maybe more responsible answer? We like projects. For some reason the idea of restoring an old home for someone else to buy and then love and live well in, speaks to us.
We may seek professional help after this.
But in all seriousness we have a few different reasons why we just jumped in on this idea. I thought it was high time I shared the crazy with all of you.
- Future dreams. We’ve got some bigger goals than just Donna. Bigger than our little house just a block over. While my husband is excellent at buckling down and budgeting out to achieve these goals, my instincts take me more to the opportunity, entrepreneurial, investment side. I can’t help it. I was raised by two business owners and my family is full of self employed, freelance, entrepreneurs. So while we are still moving forward and coming closer day by day to our long term goals and dreams, Donna seemed like an opportunity to push things forward a bit. A risk yes. But we are praying for a reward in that risk.
- Old Homes. We love our hometown and it’s old homes. Many times in today’s market Old=Bad. That is SO not true. When an older home pops up on the market nobody wants to touch it with a 10 foot pole. So it either sits and continues to crumble into ruins. Or someone…who doesn’t want to take care of it moves in and it continues to crumble into ruins. Or it becomes another crappy rental-sorry, but somebody had to say it. Each of these scenarios leave our neighborhoods and communities worse off than before. For the love of everything, it DOESN’T have to be this way. We desire to create home owners. Who have pride in their community and homes.
- Market. We noticed that people either don’t want to do the work, or don’t know how to fix up the proverbial “Fixer Upper.” We get that. It’s a lot of work and cash. But. That creates a market. (See that entreprentual spirit showing there?!) We’ve got the ability to provide a service for someone who can’t. All the while preserving a historic home and livening up a neighborhood. Thus, helping our community continue to thrive and survive.
- Create a home. We love our old home. Built in 1920, it’s wood work tells stories. I’ve heard stories from the previous owners of baking with their Grandma in our kitchen. It’s sound and sturdy. It’s provided shelter for families for 100 years. That resonates with us. Donna can be the same way. Built in 1900, still sturdy and standing today. We get excited about getting in there and seeing the good old stuff. To make it shine and stand out. Sure, we’ll make some changes to fit how we live today. But mainly we just want to help her sparkle so that some sweet souls can find HOME and HAVEN there.
- Potential. Both Jerrel and I see potential in things that most people have written off. Theres a story there about restoration and redemption that I can’t quite articulate yet. But it’s there. Donna is part of that story.
- Creativity. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that my husband literally listened to my imagination go wild late one night and just said “I’m in.” He likes a project too but he also supports me in whatever I do, 110%. I literally could not do anything I do without him. I am humbled by his faith in my ideas and praying that I didn’t drag him down with my risky behavior of buying a second home! This house is a huge creative and passion project for us.
So there you have it. Our reasons for buying this flip house and our heart behind it.
If you want to see more day-to-day content and progress on the flip house, follow along on Instagram!
Thanks for stopping by and reading along.
-Jess