Home Owners turned Renters:
Part 2
Virginia Beach, Virginia
In Part 1 of Home Owners Turned Renters, I took one last look at the old house, Project Home Base. It really is probably one of the last times I’ll really delve into the details of our first (and maybe only) live in flip.
In this post, we’ll talk about how we acquired our new rental home, why we decided to sell our Home Base House and what the renovation process has been like in this next home for us.
It’s really important for this section to talk about our new rental home’s previous owners. Rick, if you remember was our original neighbor when we first moved here to Virginia Beach. If you read Rick’s Condo, you remember that Rick and Sean first sat together on Halloween of 2019 passing out candy and swapping life stories. Not even a year later, Rick passed away unexpectedly. A few short months before his passing, Rick approached Sean and asked if he wanted to buy his condo not too far from us. Unbeknownst to us, this flip project would become one of our most profitable projects to date.
Just before Rick’s passing, he sold this house to his granddaughter and she, her husband, and son, moved in and become our new neighbors (and friends). We had no idea that this new family would only be staying in their new house a short time.
Sean and my original plan was to live in the Project Home Base House for 5+ years while we built up the business and saved for a larger and more spacious home. About a month ago, our neighbors approached us and let us know that they would be moving to Florida and trying to rent their house full time for a while. They wanted us to keep an eye out for anyone interested since the new renters would be our new neighbors.
Sean and I sat down and immediately thought about the prospect of US becoming the renters. Sean crunched numbers and realized that:
1. The market is extremely hot right now and our current live in flip is probably at the height of what we could sell it for and…
2. Renting isn’t a bad option for saving money, getting back our equity in our home that we own and investing that money back into our business while we wait for the market to cool. So that’s what we decided to do.
We decided that selling our live in flip house at the height of the market and taking the profits + equity and investing it back into our business would fast track our plans of saving and buying our forever home. Our neighbors loved the idea of us becoming their full time renters and thus the deal began.
We did sell our Project Home Base house for SO much more than we ever thought. It’s amazing looking bad and thinking about the ARV (after repair value) of that house 2 years ago verses now. It was most definitely the right time to sell.
As for our neighbors and the move, not only did they say YES to us becoming their renters, they ALSO asked us to renovate the home BEFORE we moved in. Sean and I couldn’t even believe that they trusted us to renovate their grandfathers original 1980s home and then live in it for a few years. We couldn’t say no.
Everything about the house was completely original. The entire house was painted, a new roof was added, new windows installed, new gorgeous blue siding put on, and new kitchen and bathroom renovations took place. It still hits us humbly how incredibly blessed we are to have such an amazing rental. Not a lot of people can say that.
The neighbors didn’t have too many opinions about the design options and they trusted me with most of the decisions. For paint, we chose Sherwin William’s Drift of Mist for the entire house and Nebulous White for the bathrooms. The laminate is the only aspect of the house that remains original but it doesn’t bother me. The floors are in great shape and the color is neutral enough. There’s something magical about these floors and the many years of memories they hold.
One of the first projects I personally tackled was the fireplace. It needed some lovin’ so I painted it ultra white to contrast the light greige on the walls and added Ikea Idanas Wardrobes to the sides for a non-built-in renter friendly storage option.
We still have our Halloween decor up and I’m in the process of decorating early for Christmas so more pictures of the fireplace reno to come.
We wanted to keep most of our house the same in terms of furniture in order to make the transition easier for the kids and us. Because the move was literally across the lawn into the neighbors house, we figured the transition for the kids would be smooth and it definitely has been.
One of my favorite details in the new house so far is the double gallery photo ledge! You can see here in our old house’s living room that Sean built me a single photo ledge and, well, I loved it so much I needed two this time :D
I wanted to make sure I give enough attention to the kitchen and bathrooms so I will make sure to have individual posts for those. On Instagram, I posted this morning a sneak peak of the main bathroom! Stay tuned for more of this new rental homes renovation process. Thank you for all your support on this journey of ours. We can’t wait to see 1. how long we stay here 2. what projects we tackle while living in our new house 3. how our buisness will grow with these new oportunities ahead 4. and what the next adventure will look like!
Ann | DESIGN