This. House. Was. The. Worst.
We fought. Lawd how we fought. It fought me, I fought back. I went through entire periods of time where I disliked this house very much. Do you hear me, Magnolia House? (name is based solely after its street address, no affiliation to my besties Chip and Jo) I’m looking at you. I DISLIKED YOU VERY MUCH. There were times even that I wanted to hang up my brand new flipping hat and say peace out to this endeavor. Just strike a match and throw it over my shoulder and cut my losses. There were challenges big and small. Nothing- I mean NOTHING- went right or smoothly.
ONLINE AUCTION
The exterior of the house looked fine, cute even, with a big pretty tree in the front yard and all the shiny potential in the world. I saw no issues; no red flags arose to my optimistic and eager (blind) eye.
The windows didn’t offer great visibility inside the house, so I really and truly was going to have to bid on the house with the interior SIGHT UNSEEN if I wanted it.
But I was eager. I had gotten a taste for house flipping and I wanted more. I was hungry. I was fiending. I needed a fix.
So, on my cell phone, at a pho restaurant at lunchtime, with my kids in tow, over bowls of noodle soup and arguments over who touched whom with a chopstick, I bid. And I was promptly outbid. And so, never to be outdone, I bid again and again and again and again, and finally: I won. I was elated. Have you ever won an eBay auction item and your competitive nature comes out and you want to scream at your computer screen “YEAH! IN YOUR FACE! SUCK IT! I WIN!” Come on, that can’t just be me. You’re all big fat liars. Anyway, winning this house was a lot like that, and the victory tasted amazing.
I got it for a good price, and after comparing comps and establishing a fair asking price after repairs and renovations, I felt sure that I could do great things with this house and make a wonderful profit at that. It was going to be easy as pie. I can’t believe everyone doesn’t do this. Babies can flip houses in their sleep. And if they choose not to it’s only because they’re lazy. Lazy, lazy babies.
COME INSIDE WON’T YOU?
Things looked… not the greatest. I couldn’t put my finger on any one thing, but there was a smell, to begin with. (Feces? Human remains? Petrified Broccoli?)
Then I brought in people. And that’s when I really started to frown.People walked through and told me rude things.
Things like “not only does the roof needs to be replaced, but also the entire roof decking.”
Frown.
And, “plumbing leaks. Lots of plumbing leaks and water damage.”
Frown.
And, “see all of those black spots on the ceiling around the vents?”
Yes I see them, duh, but stop looking so closely at them. Someone obviously spilled something on the ceiling. All of the ceilings, and only where the vents are, and paint can cover that. Look away! You’re killing my buzz and I don’t like you.
“The furnace has at one time been on fire.”
Stahhhhhhhhp. Frown.
“Total furnace replacement.”
OMGeeeeeee FROWN. Grimace. Glower. Can my frown get any more down turned? I’m glowering at you now and I hope that it hurts you the way that you’re hurting me.
Dollar sign, dollar sign, dollar sign, all the dollar signs.
All the budget. So many things were WRONG with this house that my entire budget was having to be redirected toward UGLY THINGS. Like furnaces and roofs. I DON’T LIKE THOSE THINGS. I only want to buy pretty things! This isn’t how house flipping is supposed to go. I’ve seen the shows. I paint the things and pick out cute tile and make the things pretty and then I sell the house and become rich and buy myself a diamond grill and some chains and put spinners on my minivan, and that is all, that is the end. This is the way these things go. WHY ARE PEOPLE TRYING TO TELL ME OTHERWISE?
WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE?
Add to the budget issues the fact that I couldn’t get workers to show up. That had all gone so smoothly with my first flip- which I completed in 5.5 weeks from beginning to end. This house, which was considerably smaller, took over 8 weeks to complete. So, basically all of eternity and half of a second eternity. My workers that I had used on my first flip had received a large increase in business and were struggling to keep up with their workload. Growing pains. There were many days where the house just sat with no one working. I would call. I would beg. All to no avail. And multiple times different trades would show up on the same day unexpectedly and they would leave because they were in each other’s way. [Steam comes out of ears]
When I did get workers to show up on the right days they sometimes… messed things up. Critical budget saving things. For example, the plumber ripped out the hall bath vanity that I planned to salvage. That I NEEDED to salvage. I also planned to keep the existing kitchen countertops which weren’t my favorite, by far, but were an inoffensive wood looking laminate that was so dated and out of style that it had come marginally back into style, or at least would be passable for “stylish” when I layered all my other kitchen goodness in there. They were damaged beyond repair when the backsplash was removed by workers. [Eye twitches] And then the plumber busted a line under the kitchen sink and the kitchen flooded AFTER flooring had been laid, so all of the kitchen flooring had to be ripped up and replaced. [Loses all semblance of remaining cool. Flips table, breaks a mirror, punches wall.]
HOLY BUDGET NIGHTMARE.
So, we were indeed in a sad state, myself and this house. The relationship was tumultuous at best.
In a money saving endeavor I bought a wall oven off of Facebook Marketplace and drove all the way to Henryetta, Oklahoma to pick it up after having multiple conversations regarding the precise dimensions of this particular unit. Three hours later I got it back to the house, and the promised dimensions were incorrect, and the oven did not fit. So I had to buy ANOTHER wall oven- bleeding my budget twice. [Eye twitches]
And then there was the unfortunate incident involving a worker backing into a neighbor’s car and fleeing the scene, and the neighbor coming to me threatening deportation of what she very wrongly assumed to be an illegal immigrant worker (full disclosure: I have zero bit of patience for this ignorant and assumptive attitude. I am rolling my eyeballs all the way up to my brain cells as I even recall and type this story out. I think I actually sprained my eye). I investigated and solved the mystery (Call me, First 48!) and lo and behold the culprit was in fact a legal Caucasian male. There was no deportation of innocents, but it was just ONE MORE THING with this monster house. [Eye twitch returns]
At this point was I even going to make a profit on this house when all was said and done, or was my second flip going to be a flop? Out of the ashes (because I wanted to burn the stupid house to the ground) would something new and living and pretty come… or just nah??? I was trying to prove to the world and myself that I could do this, but I was completely defeated.
It has been said that I lack self-confidence. Perhaps this observation should have left me feeling exposed, shaken, and seen. But instead it felt as banal and obvious a noticing as a description of the color of my eyes or hair. My lack of self-confidence is as much a part of me as my love for guacamole.
I have lived most most of my life feeling like the Man Behind the Curtain in Oz. When will I be exposed for the fraud that I am? In Chiropractic school I looked around most days and thought “I am not smart enough to be here; I am not skilled enough to be here.” Most days in practice I spent wondering why any patient would ever take me seriously and listen to my advice. I have worked out at the same gym for the past 8 years, but every day that I enter I think “today is the day that someone points out that I have no business being here.”
This new house flipping endeavor fell happily in line with my comfortable, organized, and well-practiced pattern of self-doubt. “I have no business doing this, and everyone knows that. I got lucky the first time around, but I’m so out of place in this world. I am a joke.”
Every obstacle that this house presented me, big or small, felt like an assignment to climb Everest handcuffed and with a broken foot. Every challenge only served to drive the point home that I was not good enough, that I would not succeed. Each challenge preyed on the ever present host of insecurities and self-doubt that I tote around with me in my little self-doubt backpack. The sum of all of the attacks that this house threw at me felt like a warning: “Get out now. Leave. YOU CANNOT DO THIS, but you already knew that about yourself.”
But here’s the funny thing: where I am lacking in confidence and any real skill, I was ironically “gifted” with determination. It’s an absurd and confusing pairing of personality traits. I can’t give up; I will dig in my heels and I will not give up. In fact, it became the butt of an exasperated, joking one-liner spoken to be my my mom throughout the course of my teenage years. When I would dig in my heels, in a fit of teenage girl angst, and lash out at her with my words, she would answer back, “YOU JUST DON’T KNOW WHEN TO QUIT, DO YOU?” And it’s true: I could challenge the Hulk to an arm wrestling competition, and I would snap my ever loving arm off, Lego-style, trying to win. It’s irrational and, at times, humiliating. Whatever horribly unattainable thing that I begin I cannot walk away from. I am my own personal Mean Girl and will berate myself the entire time, telling myself that this thing will not end well, and that I cannot do this thing, that I am not good enough. I will even ask God to let me give up, BUT FOR SOME REASON I CANNOT AND DO NOT GIVE UP.
But the house did not know this about me. It thought it could best me.
So, like I said- the house and I fought. We went round after round after round. It fought me hard.
But I fought back.
I found coupons. I scraped around for things on sale. I got bids and rebids and price compared and ran numbers, and then I did it all over again. I called workers daily, stayed on top of trades. This house consumed me, but IT WOULD NOT DEFEAT ME.
Eventually, after round and round of punches the house and I came to some sort of mutual agreement that we wouldn’t ever love each other, but we would respect each other.
It took 3,782 years to flip this wretched house, or 8 weeks if you want to get technical- whatever- and it came in at MAX budget, but it was complete. Praise Jesus, it was complete. And it was even pretty cute. She said begrudgingly and with a mountain of a chip on her shoulder.
Stay tuned later this week for the afters on the Magnolia Flip. We’ve earned them, dammit.