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We bought our first AirBNB property!

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We finally bought an investment property. We have wanted a second property in a desirable locale for several years. We considered properties on the water, in the city and near the mountains. We looked at so many listings! I constantly scoured the real estate sites. We dodged bullets…made offers…got excited…just to be outbid…then would do it over again. Until one day we were at the right place at the right time!

What type of property did we buy?

We bought a house in the mountains. It’s only a few minutes from a popular ski resort. Being located near the base of a mountain, the drive up to the house is stunning with panoramic views of several neighboring mountains. From fall foliage to snow tipped trees it is beautiful year round.

Why did we buy this?

Our family’s use and enjoyment of this property is first and foremost. However, it has an additional apartment unit the previous owners rented. We fully intend to try our hand at renting as well.

How we “won” this property

The property was built in the 1980s. It’s a chalet style home. It was a hot real estate market when we bought. We offered $10,000 above listing, waived the inspection, and waived the financing contingency.

I saw the listing within an hour of it being posted which was on a Wednesday afternoon. I texted my real estate agent right away. We had an official offer in by noon Thursday. The offer was good for 24 hours until Friday at noon. The owners obviously liked our offer but asked if we would let it sit through the weekend which we would have been stupid to agree to. They countered with an additional $5k and we agreed!

Now, as lucky as we feel to have snagged a house in such an idyllic setting many people think we are nuts. Did I mention that the house interior is a total gut job? It was built in the 1980s and has remained in the 1980s. It hasn’t been touched since. No updates, no renovations and little cleaning had been done. But, we are able to see past all of that and have big plans for its revival. Stay tuned!

Christina

Our Initial Cost Projection for Building a Tiny Home is Only $12,500. Can We Do It?

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If you are new here, we are building a tiny house. More specifically, we are converting an unused shed into an off grid tiny house. Since the shell is already intact and in good shape we are hoping to keep total costs around $12,000.

We are in the first weeks of construction and have received our first supply order from Lowe’s. The cost to build now is considerably increased compared to a few years ago. Pricing for wood and other common construction materials have doubled or tripled in some cases. It’s not an ideal time for optional projects like this one but there’s never a perfect time so you just have to start.

Below is a rough breakdown of our cost estimates. These numbers are based on internet searches of items and materials. We have not acquired most of these things so these numbers are just rough ballpark figures. It’ll be interesting to see how we progress and how close the numbers will be in the end!

Table of estimated costs

I separated the two cost columns into “essential” meaning need right away and “future” meaning things we may not finish initially. Initially, the plan was to finish by Thanksgiving; however, we are about to embark on a new adventure that starts middle of October. Stay tuned for that!

Total Cost estimate: $12,271 rounded up to $12,500

Given our new hard deadline we decided to hold off on the off grid elements as well as the plumbing. If we are by some miracle way ahead of schedule we will proceed until 10/15 but it’s unlikely we will get to everything.

I plan on sharing progress updates of the various steps involved in completing this tiny house. The updates will include total number of hours spent on each task as well as the cost of the materials consumed during each step.

Thanks for stopping by!