The 9 Most Common Questions We Get Asked About Rehabbing a Detroit Home
Interested in having a home needing renovation or fixer-upper of your own? Get ready for lots of highs and lows.
After being in this rehab process for about 6 months now, Brandon and I have received lots of questions from neighbors, friends, family, and total internet strangers. I figured that maybe it would be time to answer some of our most commonly asked questions:
1. What made you decide to take a project like this on?
Frustration mostly. After deciding that we were tired of renting in the suburbs and wanted to move into Detroit, we began our search by attending open houses. We spent most weekends of Spring last year going to open houses, searching online on Zillow, talking to friends who lived in various neighborhoods, and then riding through them (usually on our mopeds). After looking at so many flipped homes, it became clear to us that we were looking for a house with 5 major things…
- Well-preserved and unique details
- Good design choices made
- Superior craft/quality
- Affordability
- Strong, engaged, and friendly Community
Finding a home with all of these attributes we realized would be next to impossible in a move-in ready home. You could have 3, maybe even 4 of these attributes, but not all 5. Most of the move-in ready homes were either too expensive, were repaired poorly, had bad design decisions made by the person who flipped them, or the location was inconvenient for our commutes. Lots of move-in ready homes that we liked would still have 2 or 3 major things that we would want to change about them, things like major layout changes, quality of materials (especially in the kitchens/bathrooms), or a lack of features we wanted.
After we found the University District and discovered its wonderful community, we decided that the only way we’d be especially happy with taking the plunge of home buying in Detroit is if we got to make all our own decisions. That meant being willing to take on a project. We didn’t seek out a project/rehab home from the start, but it became our best option after failing to find something that met our needs that was move-in ready.
2. Why in the City of Detroit? Why not go to a more stable place in the suburbs like Troy or Royal Oak?
Because Detroit is awesome! Since I moved here 3 years ago, Brandon and I have quickly fallen in love with this city. It’s got grit, creativity, history, potential, and the community in this city is like no other I’ve ever seen. You know your neighborhood, you say hi to your neighbors, you look out for each other, and you can always count on a Detroiter to tell you about the coolest place you’ve never heard of to check out.
The Detroit suburbs can be nice, I’ve been living in a bungalow in Royal Oak for the past 3 years. But the suburbs aren’t the place for us personally. We spend most of our time in the city limits, we like being able to moped around town for everything from groceries to the Belle Isle beach, and we like having a commute that’s about 20 min or less. We also knew that getting a unique, beautiful, and quality home in a fun and convenient location for a good deal meant that Detroit was the absolute best spot for us! We love this city, and we want to be a part of the action, not watch it from the sidelines.
I’ve lived in Columbus, San Francisco, Baltimore, Chicago, and Cincinnati, but I’ve never felt the way about where I live like I do about Detroit. It has felt like home since the first time I hopped on my moped and explored.
You can read more about how we got to know Detroit in one of our first posts.
3. What’s been the hardest part of the rehab process?
We’ve had to make a lot of decisions with only 75% of the information we needed and had to just cross our fingers and hope for the best. Time isn’t always on your side with big projects like these and that means making some fast-paced decisions and then moving on quickly.
Sometimes we’ve gotten lucky, like when we used spray foam and angled boards to support the curved ceiling of our dining room while we tore out a wall. But other times you get bit, like when we put money and work into a part of our failing steam heat system and found out that the problem was actually being caused by something totally different. The time we then wasted chasing the wrong issue led to additional water damage to some of the floors in our Living Room.
4. How’s that heating bill?
Holy cow did we feel a punch in the gut when we got our first heating bill! We bought our home in November, and we quickly learned how much it costs to heat a 3,400-ish sqft, 90-year-old home with broken windows, rooms down to studs, holes in the floors and ceilings, and doors that wont stay shut in the winter. Our first December heating bill was over $650. After that we started to get much more careful with just how high we kept the heat and for how long, but it’s a delicate balance in a house that’s suffered excessive damage from burst plumbing. In subsequent winter months we got our bill to drop into the $400s.
Since Winter has ended, our bills have become much more bearable. Once we get some basics like drywall, some insulation, and patching of holes completed, I think our bills next year will be much more reasonable.
5. What has been the least expected/anticipated aspect of your rehab?
Other than discovering that we needed to gut our master bathroom a few years before we intended, I’d say the least expected aspect so far has been how incredible our neighbors and neighborhood have been to us. We haven’t even moved in and it seems like every time we are over at the house to do work we meet at least one new neighbor, usually two or three.
We’ve gotten so much emotional support from our neighbors, it just makes us feel that much more confident that we have made the right choice to move here. We can’t wait to meet the rest of our new hood and get more involved!
6. What have you learned?
Brandon and I have definitely been forced to put our relationship to the test through this process. Through the triumphs and disasters, I’ve taken away a few things so far:
- Have patience
Everything will take about 25% more time and 25% more money than you think it will. You have to be able to stay the course, not panic, and weather the storm. - Learn to be decisive
A new day means a new decision to be made. From layout of space, to surprise disasters, to micro decisions, to material and color choices, there are SO MANY things to be considered, planned for, and reacted to. - Compromise
While Brandon and I consider ourselves to be very similar people, a project like this will absolutely shine a light on your differences. You have to learn to work together, challenge each other appropriately, and carry the torch when the other is overwhelmed. - Quality work is worth the time/money
We’ve spoken to and visited many other rehabbers and homeowners in Detroit who have struggled with finding good quality work from contractors. It can feel easy to take the cheapest route, but more often than not, you’ll regret it later.
7. When are you moving in?
Soon? I don’t know, it seems like we’ve been telling people “2 months from now” for the last 2 months.
Things certainly take longer than you expect or are promised, and there’s always a new problem to discover. It’s best to just sit back, and enjoy the ride of uncertainty sometimes.
So, I guess my answer is “In about 2 months?”
8. When are you having all the children necessary to fill all of these rooms?
It certainly is more space than two people need! We’ve always been the type of couple who enjoy having company, entertaining guests and family, and having an active busy house. On a recent vacation we took to Iceland, we spent two weeks driving the whole country and each night we stayed with a different Icelandic family in their homes. It’s a wonderful experience to get to know a place through the eyes of the people who know it best.
One of my best friends and her significant other are planning on moving into the house with us once it’s ready and living on the 3rd floor. We also like the idea of using our house as an AirBnB to host those who are visiting the city. We enjoy being ambassadors to Detroit, and having a big enough home to have people come and visit us seemed like the best way to spread our love of this city to others both family and stranger alike!
9. I want to do this, where do I start? How do I know it’s right for me?
Great! Well, if you’re in Detroit, there are a few things I recommend to start:
- Check out Brick + Beam
It’s an awesome community and resources for you to learn more about rehabbing Detroit homes! You can do everything from go to an open mic where rehabbers are sharing their stories, to taking a free class on how to do masonry! Make sure you listen to the horror stories as well as the happy ones, you never know which one your project might turn out to be! Make sure you follow their Facebook Page! - Read Detroit Hustle
A wonderful book that started us on our journey! - Walk and bike, don’t drive around the Detroit neighborhoods you’re interested in making home.
It’s easy to zip through Boston-Edison or EEV in your car, but you won’t get a feeling for the neighborhood till you really take it in. Walk around, say hi to people and have some conversations! You never know who you might meet and what you may discover. Check out the nearby shops, restaurants, and even the grocery store! - Don’t move to Detroit if you expect privacy
That’s what the suburbs are for! Detroit is a much smaller, more well-connected community than people realize. Get involved, don’t be afraid to say hello, and don’t be a shut-in! - Find good, honest, and fair work
Don’t take the cheapest way out. Ask neighbors for recommendations, look at pictures of their previous work, I’d even ask for references and check out work in person! The last thing you want to do is spend money on work that is sub-par. We love our contractors, Calvin and Christian! We can’t imagine doing this project without a team we can trust as much as we trust and rely on them. - Make sure your finances are ready
Expect to spend at least 25% more time and money than what you think or are told. You’ll always have more things you want to add or change about your home along the way, so be sure that you have the resources to make it the way you want! Get your ducks in order and make sure you can take the project all the way before you dive in a buy! - Follow local news and social media groups on your neighborhood/city
From Curbed, to Facebook groups and pages like Historical Detroit Area Architecture, Detroit SOUP, Detroit Live6, Preservation Detroit, Motor City Muckracker, and many more, there are so many ways to stay up-to-date on what’s going on in your city. “Follow” and “See First” these pages so that you’re always informed of what’s happening in your area. I also recommend setting up smart Google Alerts to notify you when news is happening in your desired area.
We hope some of these answers are helpful and interesting to those who have been keeping track of us. If there are any other questions you’d like us to answer, please leave them in a comment below!
Our Journey isn’t over! We’ve been working hard since we purchased the home in November 2016 and are writing updates on our progress roughly every week. Make sure to check out our latest updates on our homepage or follow us on Facebook!
