It’s become very expensive to buy a home in the U.S. over the last couple of years. The average American home price is all the way up to almost $350,000.
If you would like to purchase a home without paying that kind of money, you might want to consider going with a run-down house. Although they might not look very nice, run-down houses will often sell for a lot less than homes that are in better condition.
Before you decide to buy a run-down house, though, you should learn about the pros and cons of doing it. It’ll help you decide if buying a run-down house would really be the best decision for you.
Check out the pros and cons of buying run-down houses below.
Pro: Run-Down Houses Will Usually Be Very Cheap
If you want to buy a home without breaking the bank, looking around at the different run-down houses that are available will typically be the right move to make. You should be able to find at least a few that will cost next to nothing to buy.
Buying a run-down house is going to be the most cost-effective way to get your hands on a home. You might be surprised to see just how cheap some of them will be once you begin shopping around for one. It’s one of the biggest run-down house benefits of all.
Con: Run-Down Houses Will Require Costly Renovations
Buying run-down houses will be relatively inexpensive on the front end. But you will need to be prepared to pour plenty of money into them once you obtain one.
Generally speaking, just about every single aspect of a run-down house will need to be renovated, and this could ultimately cost you a pretty penny. You’ll need to make sure that you will have the cash on hand to make the necessary renovations to a run-down house.
Pro: Run-Down Houses Can Be Turned Into Whatever You Want
Unless you’re literally building a house from scratch, you aren’t going to love everything about a home when you buy it. There will always be at least one or two things that you wish you could change about a home.
When you buy a run-down house, you’ll get the opportunity to customize a home to meet your specific needs. You can tear everything out of a run-down home and build it back up with everything that you would like inside of it.
You’ll almost feel like you built a house from scratch when you take this approach to purchase a home. You’ll love every single aspect of your new home when it’s finished.
Con: Run-Down Houses Can Frustrate You to No End
Not everyone is built for the home renovation process. There are going to be so many unexpected surprises that you’ll find as you start to tear a home apart so that you can put it back together.
If you aren’t 100% committed to renovating a home, you will inevitably find yourself feeling frustrated at times. You might even want to call it quits and put a run-down house back up on the market just to get rid of it and be done with it forever.
You will need to think long and hard about whether or not renovating a home is something that you’re ready for. If you have tons of other things going on in your life, you might want to steer clear of adding a home renovation to the mix.
Pro: Run-Down Houses Might Prove to Be Great Investments
As we alluded to earlier, you are going to need to dump your fair share of money into a run-down house. You may need to spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on it to bring it back to life.
But when you’re all finished, a run-down house might be worth way more than you paid for it. This will be especially true if this home is located in an up-and-coming real estate market like the one seen here.
In the end, the fact that you’ll be able to make so much money on a run-down house might make the frustration associated with buying it well worth it to you. It could turn out to be one of the very best investments you ever make.
Con: Run-Down Houses Might Not Be Ready to Live In for a Long Time
If you plan on renovating a run-down house and then moving into it, you might not be able to do this for quite some time. Rebuilding a run-down house can take months and sometimes even years in certain cases.
You will need to be patient after buying a run-down house as you work on renovating it. If you don’t feel as though you can wait patiently for a run-down house to be ready, you might want to avoid buying it in the first place.
Should You Invest in Run-Down Houses? Only You Can Decide
As you can see, there is so much to consider before you pull the trigger on buying run-down houses. You should keep all the pros and cons of purchasing a run-down house in mind as you think about doing it.
They’ll help you come to a final decision on buying a run-down house. They’ll also help you to stay motivated throughout the renovation process if you decide to buy a run-down house when everything is all said and done.
Look for additional home-buying tips and tricks in some of the other real estate articles that have been posted on our blog.
