When Madison Hirtle and Thomas Crossman decided to buy a house together two years ago, they learned that purchasing a “fixer-upper” they could invest their sweat equity in might take longer and require more sacrifice than they expected.
“It’s a definitely a scary time — exciting and scary at the same time. But you can’t just sit around and wait for the market to miraculously get better because you really don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Hirtle. “Something that we always have to keep in mind from a consumer perspective is that regardless of price points, regardless of anything, people need a place to live,” Stephens said. “So, the market is going to go up, it’s going to go down. It’s going to do whatever it’s going to do.”
“If you are looking for a $300,000 home that needs no work, maybe buy that $240,000 home that needs some sweat equity, some cosmetic work and build that in,” Sparkes said.