My wife and I bought our first home in West Seattle in 1991. $106,500, just at the end of quick run up in prices (we had no idea then). 700 sft, plus a basement.

New paint, linoleum, complete lawn workover, and we sold it 2 yrs later for $127K.

Zillow says it’s worth $450K, and states it has 1,600 sft. Both figures are laughable.

The interest rate was 8.5%, and the payment was about 20% of our combined income. Seemed like a stretch then.

And Rhonda, you can work on my house anytime! Love the picture!

Kim and I saw one in Lochmoor in 2006 for $499,000 like this. It was a fabuous floor plan. Lots of square footage. It just screamed and smelled old, but needed no major systems and was perfectly maintained outside. The woman’s children would send a painter every year to caulk and paint the outside. But our clients couldn’t get past “the old people smell”.

There was another one that “jack” bought from my “Dragnet” post. The owner turned out to be a fairly young guy who collected old stuff. Baseball cards and such. The “old” smell was from his collections and the original carpet. The 25 year old fireplace had never been used…like new. Brand new top of the line heater and roof. Still, sold at a substantial discount to other homes on market in much worse condition. They are great buys in any market.

Old people houses are usually very well maintained and just in need of paint and all the things that will make the new owner happier. A good rule of thumb is make yourself happy with the least amount of money. Those things that make you happy, will likely make others happy too.

It’s a big topic for a comment It’s much, much easier to increase the value of an old crappy house than it is to increase the value of a big expensive one.

When we bought our home, we were planning on keeping it for 5 years at that time. I’m the one who panicked and thought we needed to sell and buy our “move up” home in that market.

Ardell, how do home buyers know which improvements may make the most gain? I do think that we were lucky with our first home. I admit we did paint the exterior based on what I had read/heard had the best resale color at that time (soft creamy yellow with white trim). We didn’t have time to improve the interior since we were just there 1 year (and really didn’t have intentions of re-selling so soon).

I’m very proud of my efforts helping people buy filthy junkers They are happy and they improve the neighborhood. I like the idea of everyone leaving a place better than they found it.

I know someone now who bought a new house and put tons of money into upgrades now crying the blues because she’ll never get that money back. But the people who bought filthy junkers and put in a lot of sweat equity and some new windows are happy.

Rhonda, you remember my client “Adrianna” who commented here often. She bought a 1,000sf rambler in North Seattle and I was so happy when she had her first barbecue. Her cute family turned the place into a cute home just by being in it!