Does HGTV's Unsellable Houses Work In Wichita Kansas

What Is Unsellable Houses?

If you've ever seen HGTV then you probably already know. Unsellable Houses is a show where two sisters that are real estate agents find houses that are not selling. They've been on the market for a long time and have gotten no bites. The sisters come in, set a base value for the property and then find the cost they believe it will take to revamp the house and turn it from flab to fab. After the house is remodeled and sold they split the profit with the home owner starting at the base and recouping their invested money. On the show they increase the house value by anywhere from 50K to 150K and take home a sizable chunk of cash. We wanted to find out if the math worked out and if it was really possible. So we found some unsellable houses in Wichita and did it. 

Finding The Properties

Luckily for us we work with a realtor that is top of his league in Wichita and had one house on hand that was a prime candidate for the project. All we had to do was sit down with the home owner and go over the numbers with them, and they agreed! The second house took a little more convincing. The agent hadn't put it up on the market yet and we were looking to get the renovations done before it was. It was a rental property and the owner needed to know that the numbers would work out in the end better than just putting it on the market. They both ended up agreeing to the idea and signed contracts to let us get to work. By the way, both of these properties were well outdated and had some damage done to them that needed work on. 

The Progress On The Properties

For both of the properties we didn't want to spend too much money fixing them up and then not get enough return so we decided to integrate what the house already had that benefited it into the remodel and keep our costs down. On both houses we kept the hardwood flooring the same and replaced the carpet to keep it looking new and fresh. We also painted the walls a light grey and the trim and simple white. After the basics were out of the way we went into the kitchen to make a big shift. We installed a nice countertop that was cost friendly and replaced the backsplash to something more modern. All the cabinets stayed the same and we just painted them white like the trim. In the first house we turned one of the old living spaces into a bedroom and the second house we didn't. The reasoning for doing it on one and not the other was based on the layout of the house. After everything was said and done both of the houses ended up being relatively similar with a few minor design changes in the bathrooms and kitchen. The last thing to do was put it up for sale and see how the math worked out. 

The Math

Firstly I'd like to say that if you decide to do this for yourself the most important part is negotiating the base value for the house from the start. Think of it as the "purchase price" of the house. In the first house we got the house at a base of 90K and put in 15K. We really knocked the kitchen out of the park and got a whopping 155K for the sale price. This brought in 50K total in profit or 25K for each party, meaning the seller went home with 115K. Which to be honest, was a lot more than I thought it would be going into it. The second house we did wasn't as much of a success. We got the base in at 65K and put in 15K as well. It ended up selling on the market for 110K. This means the amount to split was 30K, a little less than the last house. We both went home with 15K each extra and 80K total for the seller. 

Is It Worth It?

I believe that this can be a good pathway for those that don't want to sell their house to a flipper and aren't having much luck selling it on the open market. It gives an opportunity for both parties to walk away with a little bit more than if the deal didn't happen. I wouldn't say it's a home run and can have some issues if the owner is still living in it. Lucky ours were not. The cost to do the job was relatively low making the risk not very much for us which was nice. If you decide to try this out for yourself, make sure to do the math before hand and keep the deadline tight.