Anybody here ever bought old farmhouse and fixed it up?
- Thread starter Dargo
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MarkV
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Sorry Cowboy and Dargo, I was the one that was wrong and thought that MIL no longer had a financial interest in the home.
MarkV
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That's valuable info that I must have missed. No wonder the MIL wants you to stay in this hunt.
The aunt/uncle to your wife... Are they your MIL's brother/sister or on your FIL's side?
CurlyDave
Elite Member
Dargo:
This land adjoins yours, right?
Think about this for a minute and then tell us all just why you want to have your scumbag BIL living next door to you into the indefinite future? I smell nothing but trouble there.
In your position, I would think long and hard about buying the house, selling off the interior fixtures, and renovating it as little as possible to rent it out. The renovations could go real slow so BIL doesn't move in next door and just suddenly get finished when a renter who wants a long term lease appears. Of course the purchase price of the house and the land would have to be adjusted downward to make up for the condition of the house.
I would not be very concerned about the floor joists. Take the heating duct out and spend a couple of days under the house with a hydraulic jack sistering to the old joists. Replace the old duct with the flexible kind that Eddie mentions and you have improved the value of the house tremendously.
This land adjoins yours, right?
Think about this for a minute and then tell us all just why you want to have your scumbag BIL living next door to you into the indefinite future? I smell nothing but trouble there.
In your position, I would think long and hard about buying the house, selling off the interior fixtures, and renovating it as little as possible to rent it out. The renovations could go real slow so BIL doesn't move in next door and just suddenly get finished when a renter who wants a long term lease appears. Of course the purchase price of the house and the land would have to be adjusted downward to make up for the condition of the house.
I would not be very concerned about the floor joists. Take the heating duct out and spend a couple of days under the house with a hydraulic jack sistering to the old joists. Replace the old duct with the flexible kind that Eddie mentions and you have improved the value of the house tremendously.
NP Mark , it does get a little confusing .
But Sounds like family owned to Me , allthough a very messy situation , I still stand by what I said about the QCD . It would be a much simpler way to clear it up to all parts with very little expense or paper work , Except of coarse the cash out of You pocket . I would at least suggest it to the attorney Or familly .
If their that unreasonable they wont consider it , I,d walk away from the whole deal & let them deal with their own mess . Bob
alchemysa
Veteran Member
10 years ago my Grandmother died and her house was left to her 4 elderly offspring including my mother. It was a fantastic location on the beachfront. The house was in the middle of a double block, had lots of character, and a 100 year family history, but basically it was a knock-down job. No-one in the family wanted to move back and live in it, and renting it out would have been too much hassle and pointless anyway. The new owners (mum etc) preferred the money to the hassle (fair enough) so it was decided regrettably that it would be sold. Now the sensible thing would have been for us grandkids to buy it at a bargain price (from our mums and dads), knock it down, subdivide the block, and build a couple of beachhouses to sell for a huge profit.
Trouble was, anyone in the family who knocked it down would have been forever hated by the aunts and uncles who had been raised in the house.
So it went on the market (at a bad time) and was eventually picked up dirt cheap by a local who promptly knocked it down and built a mansion. Its now worth a fortune.
We knew we had thrown away a golden opportunity but even with the benefit of hindsight I dont think we could have done any different. Even now my mum and aunts can't drive past the place without looking the other way. It breaks their hearts to know the old place is gone.
Perhaps the point of the story is that family and financially sensible real estate decisions just don't mix.
Trouble was, anyone in the family who knocked it down would have been forever hated by the aunts and uncles who had been raised in the house.
So it went on the market (at a bad time) and was eventually picked up dirt cheap by a local who promptly knocked it down and built a mansion. Its now worth a fortune.
We knew we had thrown away a golden opportunity but even with the benefit of hindsight I dont think we could have done any different. Even now my mum and aunts can't drive past the place without looking the other way. It breaks their hearts to know the old place is gone.
Perhaps the point of the story is that family and financially sensible real estate decisions just don't mix.
OP
Dargo
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Probably to nobody's surprise, I haven't done anything yet. The property of the old farmhouse sits on does adjoin property I own, but not the property where I live. I live on a 12 acre plot about 2 miles away. The farmhouse property actually adjoins the back side of a 6 acre lot I, well, my wife and I, own in an upscale subdivision (avg. home around 400 - 500k). I have a couple hundred acres about 20 miles from where I live, which isn't really close to anything except it's about 5 miles from the Toyota plant in Princeton, IN. I sort of hope the car business takes off again in the next 15-20 years and some Toyota executive wants to build a mansion on a relatively large piece of property.
Call it dumb luck or normal, but I've done relatively well on real estate transactions in the last 30 years but rather poorly in the stock market. I've owned my own business for almost 15 years now and my old 401K plan is worth about as much now as it was when I 'got quitted'
15 years ago. By no measure am I some real estate expert though. In the last thirty years I've turned less than ten pieces of property and/or homes. Where we live now is where I intend to live when they plant me. I realize the place will 'get really big' when my five kids are gone, but I hope to hear the patter of little feet again here someday in the form of grandchildren.
Curly Dave, you're right according to my good friend who is the contractor who discovered the floor problem in the one room. It apparently was an addition that was added on (in the 1930's?). Your description of the repair is spot on as to what my contractor said. Not particularly a fun job, but not an expensive job either. Fortunately the door that has been cut to fit the jamb to that room isn't one of the nice doors. It will obviously need to be replaced after the repair is made.
Another potential is to just to rent the home out with minimum repairs and then just tear it down in the future and have an option to divide up the two plots that adjoin or sell them as one larger sized lot. I just don't know. All I know is that I'm getting tired of the ordeal. Another "what if" that has gone through my mind is, what if I do buy it and then my MIL passes away before her rotten son can come up with any money to buy the place? I think that real possibility is why I'm not willing to write up an agreement right now, before I buy anything, that says that I'll sell it to him for any specific price. For that matter, to sell it to him for any price. Would that be wrong of me? You know, just tell him "sorry, I'm keeping it" if my MIL passes and I've already purchased it. It's really, really sad, but she is starting to fade and I'm sure this stress isn't helping her.
Gees, who was it that commented that my rear is going to get sore sitting on this fence?
Call it dumb luck or normal, but I've done relatively well on real estate transactions in the last 30 years but rather poorly in the stock market. I've owned my own business for almost 15 years now and my old 401K plan is worth about as much now as it was when I 'got quitted'
15 years ago. By no measure am I some real estate expert though. In the last thirty years I've turned less than ten pieces of property and/or homes. Where we live now is where I intend to live when they plant me. I realize the place will 'get really big' when my five kids are gone, but I hope to hear the patter of little feet again here someday in the form of grandchildren. Curly Dave, you're right according to my good friend who is the contractor who discovered the floor problem in the one room. It apparently was an addition that was added on (in the 1930's?). Your description of the repair is spot on as to what my contractor said. Not particularly a fun job, but not an expensive job either. Fortunately the door that has been cut to fit the jamb to that room isn't one of the nice doors. It will obviously need to be replaced after the repair is made.
Another potential is to just to rent the home out with minimum repairs and then just tear it down in the future and have an option to divide up the two plots that adjoin or sell them as one larger sized lot. I just don't know. All I know is that I'm getting tired of the ordeal. Another "what if" that has gone through my mind is, what if I do buy it and then my MIL passes away before her rotten son can come up with any money to buy the place? I think that real possibility is why I'm not willing to write up an agreement right now, before I buy anything, that says that I'll sell it to him for any specific price. For that matter, to sell it to him for any price. Would that be wrong of me? You know, just tell him "sorry, I'm keeping it" if my MIL passes and I've already purchased it. It's really, really sad, but she is starting to fade and I'm sure this stress isn't helping her.
Gees, who was it that commented that my rear is going to get sore sitting on this fence?
studor
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I once went through similar agony with a family member. My solution was to lay out my terms and the main proviso was that if the terms were not met I was free to walk away with no immediate or future obligations to the person involved. As usual the person thought I was not being serious and did not meet my terms - they received no sympathy or support from other family members since it was clear to everyone that the persons oft repeated behavioural flwas had once again come to the surface.
If you can decide a course of action to which you would not care if your BIL ended up with the house or not then you have the solution -- otherwise just find some foam for the fence and sit there until the others come to the conclusion that you really don't care what happens
If you can decide a course of action to which you would not care if your BIL ended up with the house or not then you have the solution -- otherwise just find some foam for the fence and sit there until the others come to the conclusion that you really don't care what happens
Kyle_in_Tex
Super Star Member
I wouldn't want to put myself in any position where I'd be looked upon as being the bad guy having to kick poor old BIL and his family out on the street if he can't finance the place....