flipper

What's "over the top"? Ha ha. I wonder if my house might be over the top...

Anyway, I find this very interesting. The word you put in quotes "correctly" is really the word to emphasize here. Like RPS said, there is so much variance in "correctly" and how far you want to take it. When we started our house (done totally through a contractor who wasn't knowledgable about mod before, but he knows a lot more about it now) I learned the difference between renovation and restoration. It's a thin and important line. Unfortunately, I have a hard time being completely happy until I feel like my house is RESTORED. In other words, I tolerate my 1990's renovated kitchen because it's functional and I already spent so much on the rest of the house. But honestly, I wish the original kitchen was there. Someday...

I feel that a true restoration could never really see a big profit. There's just too much labor involved. If we were to sell our house today after one year of restoration, I don't know that we'd make our money back, though some say we would. Of course we didn't do the work ourselves and we spent more money because we wanted the house our way. It's not for sale anyway.

There's a part of me that cringes at the thought of flippers getting ahold of mods, because the intent is profit and so it just seems like corners are cut there. Look at my neighbor's house who had a flipper who didn't care a few years back. But there's a part of me that hopes you take on the challenge of a mod because these houses deserve to be repaired/restored and loved. These houses have a lot of personality. I feel like my house has a life of its own. I wish it could talk to me. I really wish the architect were still alive!

My advice would be to get some kind of a consultant - RPS would be a good one, others at Houston Mod would be good too. Some would do it for a fee some would just answer/debate questions for free like on this board or Lotta Living.

Good luck and let us know if you're going forward.

Jason

Great Post Jason,

I'm familiar with your house. I bought a house last year from the agent who had your house listed. She wanted to sell me yours before she put it on the market, but I wasn't ready to tackle 2 at once at that time.

I understand what you are saying about having mixed feelings about having a flipper get ahold of a MCM. I can find one where I can make an acceptable profit I'd love to give it a shot. My potential buyer would be someone like the people on this forum so I'd definetly try to do as much "restoring" as possible and as little "renovating" as I could. But like you said, I can feel your fear about a flipper coming in and gutting all the unique features of the home in the interest of making it "better".

I'll be on the lookout for the right house.

flipper

Have you used GHBA as a resource?

Find a GHBA Registered Builder

flipper

I understand what you are saying.

I'd be leaning more toward the latter of your scenarios. The last house we sold was a brick 1950s non modern house that we put a bit of a contemporary feel into (I think).

If I could find a MCM with the right numbers I'd love to give one a try. I obviously have enough consultants right here!

Here are a couple pics of the last house we did.

It probably won't appeal to most MCM fans, but none the less:

flipper

ps. sorry about the huge pics

I did that for a while but concluded that it didn't really save much time--if any. If you hit the red light on Willowbend at Stella Link, you can end up waiting there for a looooooooooong time.

Edit: Upon first exiting, you also have to sit through several light changes at Buffalo Speedway and Main.

If they do turn South Post Oak into a tollway, I'll bet there will still be backups at the exit for West Bellfort and at the exit they'll have to build for Willowbend.

You are right, those are all snafu's with that route also. Luckily I'm usually staying off the freeways and navigating through smaller streets.

Re S. Post Oak:

That's what I want to know too! Where are all these people going? I know - they're going home, but why do they take this route? I take the first left onto Willowbend, but sometimes I just want to follow the traffic out to wherever it is going.

I think alot of people use S. Post oak as a cut through down to either Main, or the Beltway. There are also alot of apartments and neighborhoods down south on S. Post Oak.

You can also cut across on Willow off of S. Post Oak to get to some of the southern sections of Westbury.

I'm to the point where I exit Main off of 610 at any "busy" part of day and come down Willowbend to my Neighborhood.

flipper

Hey Folks,

I've enjoyed browsing the topics here for the last hour or so.

I'm a big fan of "modern" design and houses. I like MCM's but some are a bit over the top for me.

I'm a full time real estate investor (rehabber, flipper) etc... I've done a half dozen or so houses in the three years I've been doing this, although none have been MCM's.

My question is... Is there enough of a market for MCM's that I could feel confident rehabbing one "correctly" and have a decent pool of buyers?

Any opinions?

Thanks,

flipper

p.s. Feel free to bash flippers. Most of them do garbage work. Go see 4810 Briarbend for a prime example.