In our post around the holidays, I talked a little bit about how we took a trip down to Charleston, and I stopped by our old house! I was so curious about how they’re living there now after all of the work we did to it, but unfortunately, I chickened out and didn’t knock on the door or anything.
WELL, my dreams just came true. Thanks to our old neighbor and friend (hi Jess!) who alerted us that our house was up for sale again! I also ended up getting a “listing report” email from Zillow, as I’m still the “claimed owner” for that address, as in, I can go in there and make changes to the details of the property. I have no idea why the new owners haven’t claimed it yet. Oh well, more of a scoop for me 🙂
To give you a little bit of background, my job was moving us down to South Carolina in 2013, and we were looking for a bit of a project house. We were pretty sure at the time that we weren’t going to stay there long term, so we figured why not buy a project house, get some more renovation experience under our belts, and maybe make some money while we were at it. The cost of living in SC is a bit lower than DE, so we decided to look really low on our budget. We wanted to buy a house that we could put a 20% down payment on, to make life a bit easier.
Well, we ended up with this beauty?
It had been in not so great condition, if I may say so. The owner had been divorced, and his wife had moved out awhile ago. He lived there with his teenage son and cats. A bachelor pad and cats is not a good combination for cleanliness, if you’re wondering. But, it was a nice neighborhood, and the house had a lot of opportunity. There was nothing structural that needed work, it was pretty much all cosmetic, which was a great start for us.
If you want to see all of the before and afters for this house that we did, check out our home tour page for our South Carolina Home. 🙂 There are some pretty terrible wallpapers, popcorn ceilings, and stained carpet that makes appearances in the before pictures. Here’s an example:
So, we bought that house (1500 sqft and 0.14 acres) for an easy $164,000. Not too bad for 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths, right? We roughly estimated that we probably put about $25-30K and hundreds of hours of our own work into it. The biggest expense was replacing the roof, but we did pretty much all of the work ourselves. The only jobs that we hired out were the roof (of course!), the granite counter tops, and the small concrete patio out back.
But, you’re all probably wondering how much we sold it for. We listed it on the market I think on a Wednesday morning, and had our first offer on Wednesday night. We figured it was a good sign. It wasn’t quite what we wanted though, so we waited over the weekend for the open house to happen, and we got 2 full price offers. We sold it for $226,000, with $1000 in closing cost help.
So it was definitely a successful investment for us. If you’re too lazy to do the math, that’s about a $35-$40K profit. Now, was I prepared for the new list price? Well, I knew the market was doing pretty well down there… eeeeeeeveryone wants to move to Charleston. But, it had only been two years, and there wasn’t really anything to be done to the house. But they’ve listed it for $259,900!! WTF? I guess we should have stayed down there two more years and got more of a profit!
At this point, I jumped right into the pictures to see what they’ve changed. Surely some improvements with that price jump?? Nope. See below! (Be prepared for the picture overload because I LOVE THIS STUFF!) Also, the pictures on the left our from when we sold it, the right are the new owner’s listing pictures.
Front
Not much has changed. I was excited to see that they kept my yellow front door 🙂 We took the swing with us when we moved because it was one of my anniversary gifts to David. I’m not sure the baby blue swing that they have going there quite goes with the yellow door, but oh well, not my house. They’re definitely less decorative than we were; no potted plant, no flag. And it also looks like they let all of my fresh landscaping die :(.
Look at that sad landscaping. And I guess they didn’t like our black mulch. One big thing that stands out to me in a lot of the outdoor pictures is the lack of upkeep on the house. Before we listed it, it was important to us to have it all power washed. So we got the house, the fence, and the driveway all power washed and it really made it all look so fresh and so clean, clean.
Back
When we moved, we knew that the gazebo wasn’t going to fit on our new deck, so we left it. I loved that thing, and it even had mosquito netting and was lined with lights. I guess they didn’t like it. Our composting system was still there. Who knows if they used it though, because THEY TORE OUT OUR GARDEN!@$#!$ We put so much work into that raised bed garden, I am so sad.
By the way, if you want to sell your house, try to do it in a non-winter season so you can get the most lush green pictures possible!
Living Room?
This one really surprised me. They put their dining room where we had our living room. It seems so unnecessarily large for just a dining room table. They only thing I could think of was that the room is pretty awkward when it comes to the placement of a TV, so they nixed it.
But they kept my beautiful navy blue fireplace 😀
You see in the above pictures here, on the wall going up the stairs? Our house had a painting above the banister which concealed a built in box David built for our projector. We had a screen mounted on the overhang above the fireplace which we would lower when we wanted to watch something. If you see on the picture on the right, you can see the white box on the wall that looks like it’s filled with tchotchkies. Guess they weren’t into our projector setup.
Dining Room?
This room just looks super weird to me now. I mean, it’s definitely a nice blank wall to hang a TV on, but the room just looks tiny and the furniture placement is awkward.
Kitchen
Not really much has changed here at all. Still all the same appliances, layout, and colors. Side note, its amazing how much my personal style changes over the years. I absolutely LOVED this kitchen, so far it has been my favorite of all 3 of our homes (that layout!), but man, I cringe now when I see that counter top. I originally wanted a grayish/white marble look, but didn’t want to spring for the price of marble (or the upkeep) so I found the closest thing in granite. I liked it then, but I think it’s just SO busy with that back-splash now. Oh well. That was what this house was for… practice!
We took that big, basket weave light fixture over the table with us, because I love it so much. It’s been in all 3 of our homes now. That’s quite the fixture they have now.
This corner is a little crazy to me. We took these curtains with us, because sometimes it’s just hard to find long curtains like this. I wish I just left them, because I’m trying to sell them now since they aren’t really my style anymore. Any takers? 😀
Their bold patterns along with those chairs is a little much for me, but hey, again, not my house.
Porch
This was such an awkward little porch to us. We never really sat out here, there was never enough room. I love those chairs though, they were my favorite Target find, so of course they came with us. Looks like they kept the string of lights and laterns up that we left behind!
Powder Room
Not much change here. Looks like they added an oar for decoration on the wall. If you look into the mirror, it looks like they added a beach painting too. Wonder if it was one of those sip and paint paintings like ours haha!
Laundry Room
Nothing here has really changed. I noticed in the listing that they’re taking the washer and dryer with them. We bought that set here in DE (tax free shopping!!) before we moved down and had the movers move them down. I friggin loved that set, but we left them behind because it seemed pretty uncommon in Delaware for people to take their washer and dryer with them. Well BIGGEST REGRET EVER. I wish we took them with us, because our washer here absolutely sucks and jumps all over the room every load we do, no matter how much leveling we do on it. harumph.
Master Bedroom
Again same colors and layout here! They have a king sized bed that looks like it’s a bit awkward to get into since it’s pushed up against the window.
Vanity in the same spot and all.
Master Bathroom
Same, same, same 🙂
Guest Bathroom
Same, same, same 🙂 Although I’m a bit surprised they hadn’t changed out that sink top. I found that sink top at a Habitat for Humanity Restore and it wasn’t in the best of condition, but it was $5 and I couldn’t pass it up haha.
Guest Bedroom 1
Probably the only room with significant change. They changed all of the paint and turned it into a nursery 🙂 If we stayed there longer, that’s probably the room I would have chose for Connor’s room, too.
Guest Bedroom 2
And no change here, either!
I mean, it makes me pretty happy that someone loved our house and design that much to live there and not really change anything. It tells us that we had good design choices and that all of our hard work was worth it.
But I just can’t believe that they’ve listed it for about $35K higher than what they bought it for after 2 years!? I’ll be watching this listing pretty closely to see what they get for it!! (It’s currently listed as having a pending offer!!)
What do you think? Did the Hams or these people wear it better? hahaha!