$23,000 house

[Dawn Anastasi]

On the Bigger Pockets Podcast Show 29, I spoke about very low-priced houses that I'm buying in Milwaukee. In the show, Josh made the comment, "my neighbor just built a garage for $25,000" Other people have commented that $25,000 will buy you a nice car or SUV.

Can you really get a house for about that amount?

I just purchased a 2-bedroom single-family home on September 6. The house was originally available back in April/May 2013 as a short sale, then went to foreclosure. It was listed at $25,000 and I made an offer for $23,000 and the offer was accepted.

Okay, well what kind of condition house can you buy for $23,000?

Surprisingly, this house was in livable condition right off the bat. It had some cosmetic issues that I needed to address. Here are some pictures from before renovation:

I had a professional inspection done on the house and the inspector gave me the thumbs up. The house came with some nice features:

- Furnace was a newer high-efficiency (about 7 years old)

- Stove and refrigerator included

- Master bedroom had skylight and vaulted ceiling

- A significant portion of the plumbing in the house had already been replaced/upgraded

- Vinyl windows throughout

- 2.5 car garage with opener

Work that I did to rehab it:

- Painted the living room, hallway, second bedroom, and kitchen

- Replaced the kitchen floor with ceramic tile

- Replaced the basement windows with glass block

- Re-sided the garage

- Put a new door on the garage

And some other cosmetic fixes.

The tenants just moved in this past weekend and they love the house so far. The best feature is that it's very energy efficient. They were living in an 80 year old house where they had to crank the heat up to 90 and still had to run space heaters. The heat was only at 60 degrees and it was more than warm enough. They had asked their landlord to upgrade the windows and the landlord would not do it.

What does a $23,000 house rent for?

I'm getting $825 per month with the tenants paying gas/electric and taking care of the lawn care.

Overall, it's a great deal, but it did come up at a bad time as I was trying to rent out both units in a duplex and I still have another single-family home waiting in the wings for me to rehab. So I've been crazy busy getting this one up and running with everything else I've been doing. (And working a full-time job where I'm crazy busy there too!) But I would definitely do it again.