Tours
Friends buy dumpy house with popcorn ceilings & dated maroon carpets. Flip it into home everyone loves
The renovation is just stunning.
D.G. Sciortino
10.15.20

Without remodeling and upgrades, our homes can be stuck in the past.

Decades in the past.

But with a decent budget, you can bring your home back into the present.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

The Austin Flipsters were up for the challenge and had two weeks and $20,000 to bring a house from the 1980s into modern times.

The Austin Flipsters are two friends from college Lauren and Lincoln who flip houses in the Austin Texas area and have a YouTube channel showing people how to do it.

The house they were working with was pretty dumping looking. The house was long, plain, and yellowish on the houses with massive unsightly solar panels across their entire roof.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

The inside wasn’t much better.

There were popcorn ceilings, wood panels EVERYWHERE, fluorescent lights, terrible wallpaper, and lots of taxidermy fish displayed all around the house.

The kitchen was largely atrocious.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

It had a light-colored Formica countertop and dark black cabinets with a multi muted color backsplash.

The refrigerator was just a mini-fridge

The living room is filled with horribly outdated furniture and drapery. There was a fireplace but there was a TV embedded in it.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

The family also had a large closet which was probably used as a gun room.

The lot is absolutely enormous.

The two-bedroom, 2 bathroom, 930 square foot house rests on two acres of land.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

There’s also a separate underground cellar that can be used for storage

That underground unit also has a shooting range.

But they didn’t end up buying that house. They went for another that also needed to be taken out of the 80s.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

The house they bought was $150,000 and had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and was 930 square feet.

It was built in 1984.

It mostly needs just cosmetic fixes because the foundation is level, there’s a new HVAC system, the roof is in good shape, and there’s a new water heater.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

Apparently, the inside smelled like the 80s.

As soon as you walked into the home there’s an outdated maroon colored carpet.

This house also had the popcorn ceilings which would have to be scraped off in the renovation.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

They planned to only do some cosmetic upgrades since the house would be used as a rental and wouldn’t be sold.

The galley kitchen was in good shape. They just needed to paint the cabinets and change out the hardware

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

The big overhead fluorescent light also had to go.

There was also some pretty gross carpeting that needed to be removed along with yellow trim, referred to as a “Smoker’s Yellow.”

Their goal was to do the remodel in about two weeks.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

There were no walls that needed to be taken down, the footprint of the home was staying as is.

The plan was to insert new durable vinyl flooring.

The inside and the outside of the house would all get a brand new paint job.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

The exterior of the house was painted in a white and grey color scheme.

The outside would also get a nice pressure washing and cleaned up landscaping.

The interior of the home was repainted white. Both bedrooms got accent walls.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

One was done with a white board and batten and dark green accent wall.

The other with a navy accent wall.

The cabinets were all sanded down and painted white on the interior the cabinets were repainted in a sage green color and given new hardware.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

The countertop was also replaced along with the sink and faucet.

Every single light fixture in the home was replaced creating an easy and inexpensive way to modernize and stylize the home.

The total investment on this home including the remodeling and purchase cost was $171,000. They got an offer to sell the house at $230,000 which would earn them $49,800 after the $9,200 in closing costs. They instead decided to keep it as a rental.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

Since the market value of the home is $230,000 and they can get a loan for 75 percent of the property value with a market interest rate of 4 percent for 30 years they can get a loan for $172,500 which mean they would have $0 cash remaining in the property with $1,600 leftover.

YouTube Screenshot
Source:
YouTube Screenshot

If they can rent it out for $1,600 a month they would end up making a $200 profit each month on top of their mortgage payment and taxes as well as putting aside about $300 for vacancy and maintenance.

Get more details on this flip in the video below.

Please SHARE this with your friends and family.

Article Sources:
To learn more read our Editorial Standards.
Advertisement