Utterly clueless determining repair costs....

[Wes Peters]

Im 35 years old, I'm interested in purchasing a fixer upper SFH for my first property and I'm clueless about repair cost. The property I'm currently looking into is listed for 115K. The listing agent has put this in the description. (Needs some renovations but is priced accordingly). I'm assuming the agent put that in the listing so that people would no low ball him. Anyways, The surrounding homes are in the 160-170k range. I can't tell if the house needs 20k, 30k or 90k worth of repairs.

I understand having a home inspection is a must when putting in an offer, but home inspections are expensive and I'm working with a tight budget. I could stand losing that money once or twice, but what happens if i look at 5 or 6 properties and now I'm down 3k just in home inspections?  Are you folks hiring a home inspector on every possible deal you see?