For those of you that have been around for awhile, you’ll recall we embarked on a new journey last September. We purchased a bunch of wood that had been nailed together on top of a concrete foundation. (A framed up structure). Well, since then I’ve pretty much been spending every weekend out at the place working on it. (Which explains the more limited posting on the blog) A friend of mine who actually knows what he is doing has been helping me. (I’m paying him to help). Well, progress continues. We purchased the place at a discount and have been doing all the work ourselves so we are building significant equity. The goal will be to finish it by about Sept of this year and then we’ll enjoy it for a few years. I’m slowly booking a little more value to our net worth as we complete it. Within 5 years I’m estimating that the value of the property, minus the little bit we owe on it, will give us enough equity that we could sell it and pay off our primary home mortgage. Being under 40 with no mortgage would be outstanding. Who knows if we’ll actually sell our lake house by then, but it will be a freeing thought to know we can. Alternatively, we could sell our primary home, invest the money and then live in our lake house without a mortgage. We could probably live on just investment income by the time we hit our early forties, but it would be a relatively scaled back lifestyle. Basically, it’s all about options. It’s comforting to be growing our assets so that as we hit our late forties and early fifties, we can really make some drastically different decisions. I just need to make sure I don’t blow it all during a midlife crisis……….
Here’s a shot of the lake house from when we bought it and a current snapshot. Plumbing is just about complete, wiring is at about 70% and all the framing is done. You can see that the outside is nearly complete. We just need to do some finishing work on the deck etc.
I actually bought this from a friend of mine. He had intended on finishing it but ran in to some hurdles and got frustrated. He decided to sell it so I bought it from him. I had originally planned to buy the lot before he did, but then changed my mind and told him about it. Of course, after he bought it, I regretted my decision, which is why I bought it partially finished. He made a nice profit by buying the land and getting the building framed up. By buying it incomplete I’m building a lot more equity and will also make a pretty decent profit when I decide to sell it someday.
Looks great!
What were the previous owner’s circumstances that required them to see a half-finished construction job?