flipper

Well I'm sure by now they've already sold quickly for top dollar....

zing.

Someone wants to drive from Kansas for the Toilet!

Hey Folks,

I have some stuff from a 50s house we redid. They would be great if you are doing a period remodel.

Pink Toilet, Pink Sink, Pink Bathtub and a White Sink.

I put them up on Craigslist.

Pink Toilet

Pink Bathtub

Pink Sink

White Sink

And no, these were not in a MOD that we remuddled

Flipper

I've refreshed the list a little bit, there hasn't been a lot of changes, a couple of new ones in Meyerland, I've got a great new one in Westbury, a few have sold. Here is the latest updated batch.:

Over $250,000

mods under $250,000

Does the car come with the Warm Springs house Robert?

I doubt it is an investor. It would be hard to justify that much framing on a flip.

What neighborhood is this in?

Hi all,

I was waiting until the magazine was actually published to tell everyone because I didn

Thanks for the input, and I agree on your thoughts.

What are your styles of rehab? Depending on the condition of the home, do you guys do the basic or extreme rehabs? I'm just trying to learn so sorry for the questions...

Hey,

I posted a few pictures of some of our houses in this thread: http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/i...?showtopic=5159

flipper

What is the price/sq ft in the Westbury 1 area, or is it the same throughout the other Westbury sections? I 'm a newbie to real estate properties, but I think Westbury 1 is more desireable.

Also, when I purchased my home on Torchlight, the foundation was done, along with updating the electrical system/recessed lighting. There's 2 boxes currently used, and the previous owner added GCFI's and 3 prong outlets throughout. However, he left the remaining 2 prongs outlets also, so theres quite a few outlets. The AC was changed a couple of years ago. I went in a repainted the entire home, tiled the "wet areas", tiled the countertops, and changed out the plumbing fixtures, water heater etc.. We resurfaced the woodfloors. Total move in condition... What is the difference in $$/sq ft for a ready move-in home and minor fixer upper in Westbury?

I totally agree on the need to beautifying S. Post Oak. When I tell people I live near S. Post Oak, they cringe.. Annie do make decent burgers...

Tough question.

There's so many ways to "update" a house. Fixtures range from $20-$500. Tile Ranges from home depot ceramic to travertine, trim ranges from barely existant, to well done, shower doors range from $150-$1500 etc...

It's hard to say what it will sell for without actually "seeing" the updates.

I just bought a house on Benning on Friday. It's in section 5. I paid about 61 dollars a square foot. It is in pretty original condition. Carpet over hardwoods, original baths, wood panelling... the whole 9.

We plan to resell it for about 103 a square foot after rehab.

We sold one in section 1 of westbury last july for 106 a foot. We paid $58 a foot for it.

flipper

http://www.wilsonart.com/corporate/history...use_history.asp

Go here and do the slide show for more info on that tile. Houston Mod did a tour here last year. I couldn't go, unfortunately, but the person who restored this house went and was inspired by the wilsonart house enough to use the same tile. The small black tiles are intricate and detailed. It's almost an alternative to terrazo, but not quite. Mods are pretty picky about their flooring, wouldn't you agree? This house has a couple of different color carpets, and hardwoods as well. The best flooring for me was the original mosaic tile in the bathrooms.

http://www.har.com/search/engine/indexdeta...=0&backButton=Y

Looking around made me realize that it will probably be hard for the people (sohomod for example) who want to find their mod house in a "good neighborhood" for under $250K. At least on our side of town, most of the mods are in neighborhoods where $250K means you've got a lot of work to do.

To me that says that Westbury and Willowbend should continue to be on the rise, as people realize that they can get good homes cheaper there and work together to make those neighborhoods (schools, retail, beauty, noise) better (or is this wishful thinking?)

Jason

Hey Jason, I see more pictures of that flooring, but I can't tell what it really is. Is it White Ceramic with black grout? Is it Laminate flooring on the slab?

Thanks!

flipper

My wife and I went by there today to the open house and it was very nice. The pastel kitchen looked better in person than in the pictures. It was definitely obvious that this house was renovated with the (picky) mod buyer in mind. That's awesome! Someone's going to get a very cute and lovingly restored house!

Jason

The white floor tiles are HUGE. What are they made of?

When kids aren't part of the picture (or if we have them they'll come to the private school where I teach) you tend to forget those little details! Does the $135 a foot mean completely - it's a move-in ready modern electrical, recently done foundation, new roof, perfect house?

I'm sure Willowbend will continue to be Meyerland's step-child forever, ha ha, but I think Willowbend is overlooked and underrated (for now). Hopefully the secret gets let out how nice it is over here and things start changing a bit... In my opinion, all we need is for S. Post Oak to be beautified. They can start by tearing down the billboards and big neon signs (ie the furniture one that shines all night across the street from me).

Jason

135/foot for completely updated. Of course that is subjective. If a roof still has life in it (3+ years), a rehabber probably isn't going to change it. We put 200amp electrical services in our houses, but we leave the 2 prong outlets (we don't rewire the entire house). We typically gut both bathrooms and kitchen and rebuild. But yes, definetly, move in ready, modernized house.

I ate at annies hamburgers for lunch and was reminded of the crappy retail we have along S. Post Oak

If I'm not too busy, I might go to the open house just to see it in person.

I think the outside is pretty average and probably blends into the neighborhood, but I like the theme of the ideas inside, and I like it more each time I look back at it. I think the purple and pink drawers go a little too far and it makes me glad I didn't paint our bathroom drawers the colors of the tile (though I thought about it). I'm curious as to what that white flooring is? Not too hot on the Asian style stuff, but you never know what a person has inherited or decides to keep for reasons only known to them.

Overall, I think it shows that you can do some good mod design in a house even if it's not extra-mod on the outside. It's definitely 50's from the outside and inside.

Holy cow, I just looked at the price $325K? Is that what that neighborhood gets for 2000 sq ft? It's only a mile away from me!

Jason

It's all in the name Jason... Willowbend vs. Meyerland

Oh yeah, and it's Bellaire High School Districted

We are currently shooting for $135 a foot in Willowbend

Pay close attention to termite inspection reports and foundation reports on this house and others like it in the Maplewood/Westbury/Meyerland area.

You mean watch out for termites and foundation problems in all of the greater houston area?

flipper

http://www.har.com/search/engine/indexdeta...=0&backButton=Y

Looks like it was renovated in the last year.

Was it FSBO recently?

flipper

???

i was wondering if anyone have seen 5802 warm spring house? i was outbid, i would have offered higher but didn't care too much for the neighborhood. that is my one regret that we didn't get that house. it had a japanese screen and everything was so nice, don't get me wrong it needed some work. the new owner changed some stuff and now it's more like eurway decor.

Was it FSBO recently?

flipper

This place was an eyesore. Personally, I'm glad it's gone.

I'm somewhat of a 50's purist when it comes to these houses, but I do like your pics. The look is nice & clean, without resorting to the standard 'all-white' theme that has been done to death in rehabs.

Some suggestions for rehabbing a midcentury house would be:

1) use pale, cool interior paint colors (blues & greens, even superpale yellow) wherever possible to evoke the retro feel, and if you have to paint the trim a contrasting color, don't use white. Use an eggshell 'bone white' (hints of pink and grey in this) as the trim neutral.

2) kitchen cabinets - forget any flared/fluted trim or carved doors if replacing. Simple and clean works best. But original cabinets can look great with a quality surface prep and good smooth paint, plus new hinges and pulls. Also - think about painting a color other than white.

3) Use sleek chrome faucets, not the brushed nickel farmhouse type that EVERYONE is buying now. The old PriceFister single handle units come to mind, and they're cheap.

4) Use forest-tone exterior main paint colors (Spruce or Forest green, barn red, even saddle brown can work well) and if the brick is in good shape, DON'T paint it. Instead, use the paint colors to bring it out -even orangey brick looks good when set off with a cool graygreen paint color. And if the house has an interesting roofline, use another color to accent the eavelines and soffits.

5) one word for bathtile - MOSAICS. The little shiny glass ones. They're not cheap, but even if used just for accent inserts (maybe against simple black or white subway tiles), they again evoke the MCM feel.

6) light fixtures - check out rejuvenation.com for very cool 50's fixtures, inside and out. And there are some simple, inexpensive choices at the home improvement stores that will work, too.

I'm sure there are more ideas out there ...

If you end up rehabbing another midcentury house, please post pics of your work- I think everyone would like to see how it turns out.

Great Tips GoAtomic,

I'll bookmark this post in case I do find a MOD.

Of all the houses I've done, ALL of them have been mid-centuries and I'm sure all the rest will be to. However, we do mostly "traditional" work. We tried to go as "plain" as we could on the last one, the one I posted the pics of. It's amazing how hard it is to find plain mouldings without much of a profile.

We ended up fabricating our own baseboard and door casings out of 1x4 MDF with a rectangle routed out of one edge to give it one more "profile". We also took some froo froo cabinet lip mould and ripped as much of the profile off as we could to get a clean look.

I like your idea of the grey/green against orange brick. As a matter of fact, My own house is in this scheme:

I also like your idea of mosaic tile. I've researched them alot.

Here's a cool website I found:

Mosaics

we've actually used some marble mosaic in a few houses.

Here's one example where we used it as a countertop and accent in a shower in the same bath:

Thanks again for your insights,

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.