Flippers: Open up those walls!

[Cal C.]

I've recently bought a couple of early 1990s houses with very little access through the dining/kitchen/living room areas.  In fact to go from the kitchen to the dining room you had to go through the den, into the foyer, and then into the dining room.  I know it must have been in style back in the day, but now it certainly doesn't sell houses. However currently buyers are looking for houses with an open feel to them.  In fact one of the first things I look for when I walk into a potential flip is to see how open it feels. 

In both of the houses there was also another room probably used as a living room which accessed only through the dining room.  They were definitely poorly designed.   In both cases we closed off the "living room" and made it into a fourth bedroom.  We also put in an opening in the wall separating the den and the dining room near the kitchen.  This cut off about 3/4 of the walk between the kitchen and the dining room.

For both houses we literally sold both to the first people who saw each once they were listed.  We had a few people come and look at the houses while they were being rehabbed.  In fact the people who bought one of the houses had initially came to look at the house next door, which was bigger, substantially cheaper  and  had been on the market for a couple of months.  I don't think they opened up the walls...

I wish I had the before pictures of these houses, but unfortunately I don't.

@Todd Whiddon posted yesterday about opening up the walls in his house from the 1980s and it made a HUGE difference. He has some excellent video in his thread.  Video Diary of a Quick Flip Involving Minor Structural Mods

Bottomline- As long as their are no structural issues, (check with an engineer if you are unsure), opening up a house is a great way to substantially increase the wow! value of a house for fairly cheap price.  There are a lot of houses from the 70s to the 90s where this would likely be a huge selling point.