Photograph by Mariaelena Caputi
It sounds like a clickbait headline but it’s true: You don’t always need money, or a lot of it, to buy a house. You don’t even need to be a number-crunching wizard; I flunked high school math, and financial formulas (which some colleagues compute to spitball whether a property investment is solid) still look like hieroglyphics to me. What I do rely on in buying real estate is gut instinct and efforts to connect with people personally.
My first Cincinnati investment was a hot mess in Northside. I’d become social and active in the neighborhood, and heard the owner was eager to sell before starting a new job out of town. The bachelor pad was dated, and a dog had trashed the basement. Still, Northside was desirable, so, even in rough shape, the house was worth more than the mid-five figures I thought I could scrape together. Thanks to the county auditor’s website, I knew my offer was just above what the owner had originally paid for the place. That small profit for him, plus the fact that I was local and my promise to buy “as is,” sealed the deal. To fund it, I cobbled together cash advances from credit cards.
The chasm between what I want and what I can afford has led to some precarious but ultimately exhilarating transactions. Once, I met a woman who was retiring to France and wanted to offload her four-plex in Spring Grove Village. We bonded over our love of French culture. I negotiated $10,000 off her multi-unit asking price by offering a cash deal. I didn’t actually have the money, and I fessed up right before signing the purchase contract. By then we had become Francophile BFFs, and she was one foot across the Atlantic Ocean. I regaled her with my plans for improving the property, and saw in her eyes the hopes of what she herself wanted to do with the place but never got around to. She wanted to sell to someone who had a similar vision and emotional investment in the place. “Oui,” she agreed, and she sold it to me on a land contract.
Once I was priced out of Northside, I fell for Spring Grove Village, whose housing prices and hipster quotient make it like Northside 10 years ago. I rescued a fixer-upper there that had languished on the market for so long the owners were ready to practically give it away. I was on site daily in overalls, “helping” the contractors. The next-door neighbor would stroll over and chat.
She wanted to sell her cottage, but worried about her tenant being displaced. I promised to renew the lease without raising the rent if she sold to me, again offering “cash” which, once again, I didn’t yet have. The house cost just $18,000—the same as the new Louis Vuitton x Pharrell Williams Lobster purse. I hit up a boyfriend to lend me the money.
Now that I’m tiptoeing into retirement, I’m endeavoring to return the trust and discounts that were so generously offered to me. I’ve sold two of my properties to a tenant and a handyman, respectively, in handshake agreements. They are both first-time homebuyers who work hard and deserve a break.
Could I have gotten more money for those properties on the open market? Certainly. But much more importantly, it just felt right in my gut.
Facebook Comments