The difficult part is choosing the house to buy and getting it for the right price. What you want is a rundown house in a good street, at the price of a rundown house in a bad area.

After purchase, everything else can be project-managed but if it is the wrong house or bought too expensively, you start off wrong.

in the u.s. i presume.? If you buy a house, fix it and also live in it for two years then your profit is TAX FREE. so if you find one thats real bad, stay in your current home till it’s livable, then move in and finish the detail work. make it your permenant legal address for two years then sell and move on again. It has to look like you are living there. voter registration, drivers license etc. Its the best way to keep more of your profits.

Do you have food stamps?, because let me tell you, down here in Miami is only misery and violence august 2006

I am currently in the process of buying a house off the tax rolls. I have gotten a list from the local taxing authority and have pre-toured to determine which properties are workable. I attended an auction and hoped that no one else would bid on the property. The end result is I’ll be making a $50.00 bid and will probably win the property and can begin the work to fix the place up.
I like you have extensive experience in maintenance and look forward to re-working the entire house over. I plan on doing the wiring, plumbing, and having coax, phone, and ethernet routed to each room from a central point for ease of maintenance.

Keep in touch and we can see how we both do in our endeavors.

If you live in a burb.Contact City hall ask about urban renewal programs.I live in Aurora IL USA.If you rehab an abandon house.You buy it cheap and the City gives you 20,000 to fix it.They also have interest free loan programs that you pay back when you sell the house.If you live in the Chicago area try URB.They finance,you work.Finance is the key.If your credit is bad you’ll need URB or similar financing.DON’T BUY BALLOON FRAME HOUSES(wall studs and floor joists usually rot where they touch,so wall is not attached to floor).Also make sure foundation is at least mortared stone but preferably sound(no cracks)concrete.Avoid flat stone and sandstone foundations

find a house to buy, do most of the work yourself, and then try to sell it yourself

Check with the county tax collector’s office and see what’s up at the Sheriff’s auction. Many good fixer-upper’s are sold for back taxes and foreclosures.

I have been interested in this too for a long time… you need capital to purchase a property and perform modernistations with… the way i see it you can raise this capital in several ways…

Borrow, Beg or Steal… (that’s the basic ones)

Convince a bank of the worthiness of it as a business and get a business loan or equivalent…

Mortgages - take one out, increase the one you have or take outn a second…

Investers - find someone with the money who would be willing to invest it for a resonable share of your business, I am guessing they wouldn’t want anything less than a 20% stake in the business and for large sums maybe more, perhaps 40%, remember 51% gives them control and they may ask for this if they are not 110% convinced of your abilities and that you will make them money, remeber they will be business people too and they are only concerned about making money…

Once you have the house of course don’t live in it, and ABOVE all else do not decorate it how YOU would like it if you were to be its inhabitants, try to think of who your target market is… young professional, young couple looking for first home, young family, big older family, old couple of retirement age etc…

I am no financial adviser (yet; i am working on it) but I hope this helps you a little…

In my experience, I made a small place habitable, then listed and costed everything I wanted to do and tried to take one area of the property at a time.

If you want to make it a proper business don’t live in the property, get surveyed by an independent surveyor, cost it and pull up timing plan, and find reliable tradesmen to carry out the re-modelling, and don’t forget, white ceilings and magnolia walls.