I Bought An Abandoned House For $16,500 — And Completely Transformed It | Unlocked

from the time I was a little girl I always wanted to live in a big old house these older homes especially if they've been able to retain their historic character over the years you can recognize every material that they're made of you know my floors are wood my fireplace is Stone my windows are glass they're real materials it's not plastic it's all recognizable and repairable and I think that being able to buy into that at a much lower cost is so much more rewarding and grounds you in a way that a cookie cutter home just can't my name is Betsy Sweeney I'm 30 years old I live in Wheeling West Virginia and my house costs 16 500. good I moved to Wheeling to work here Wheeling is about an hour from Pittsburgh two hours from Columbus I work in historic preservation I generally help people figure out what to do with a historic building that they either own or are considering purchasing I kind of did a double take at this house and I said oh that's pretty and it kind of looks abandoned and I wonder if it's available and then next thing you know I was touring the property my house was built in 1892 and then it had many different owners over the years and from the 1970s through the 2010s the property was completely vacant [Music] the first time I saw this house it was not livable there's been a lot of brick degradation and um it'll probably need to be rebuilt from about there up to the roof line but you know even despite the condition you could immediately see how much historic fabric was still here and how unique it was and how beautiful it could be it was a relatively painless process I initially budgeted for about eight months of construction so what was supposed to be eight months turned into about 18 months and I was able to move in right around the holidays in 2021 the house is about 3 200 square feet it's got three bedrooms one and a half baths and separate living dining kitchen welcome to my home this is the main entrance of the home this is what I saw for the first time when I toured the space and I pretty instantly fell in love with the staircase one feature that everyone loves myself included are the pocket doors I'm very lucky that they still work they're in really great condition they're really happy this is the living room one of my favorite things about this space is these big windows so right off the living room we've got the dining room then at the back of the house which is pretty common for a house at this age we've got the kitchen now the kitchen was one of the worse off rooms when I purchased this property I always think about all the people that have walked up and down these stairs over the years it's just kind of an important thing to remember that while I live in the house now I'm not the only one that called this place home this is the primary bedroom I have this very large space and historically this little space off to the side may have been used as a sewing room a nursery a sitting area this is the full bath in the home this was originally built for a bathroom it was just a little bit smaller behind the primary bedroom is what will be a very beautiful guest Suite but right now it kind of looks like the house did when I first bought it so this is where I store things where I make things you can see there's lots of house bits and parts um and that's because when you're renovating a whole house you kind of need to work somewhere and it's nice to be able to do it in here instead of you know outside down the stairs around the corner and so on so this will probably actually be the last space that gets finished but until then it's kind of cool to see where we started so just watch your step as we go up this way there's board on top of this box and that is because there's a bat in the Box it flew in it tripped my alarm sensor all the bells and whistles were going off and I had to quickly just kind of trap it and so we will safely remove it after all this is over so this is one of the three rooms on the third floor of the attic I use them interchangeably um it's a mess but again this is what the house looked like when I bought it this is the backyard space immediately behind the house it's messy this is where all the house Parts go to die or wait to be called upon [Music] I have no intention of selling this house to turn a profit it's my home and I do see myself here for the foreseeable future I think the hardest part about this project is the idea of finishing it I would do it all again tomorrow I think that there is something so romantic and exciting about when I walked into this space at first and all you could see was potential why preserve these old buildings so in addition to being beautiful and cost effective and you know providing the ability to have something that aesthetically you just simply can't find today I think that these historic properties are so important for not just like the communities that they're situated in but also helping people achieve access to acquiring real estate it is not realistic for most of this country to buy a house that is several hundreds of thousands of dollars but a home in a smaller town or small city that is maybe under a hundred thousand dollars is possible and it's not just your house in a vacuum it's your neighbor's house and your neighbor's property value and the perception of the street and of the neighborhood and of the city and so there's a ripple effect in purchasing and renovating these properties that just simply cannot be achieved in new construction and I think it's really important as we move forward to think more as a collective and less as individuals yeah you think that's really cool huh

Channel: CNBC Make It

Views: 367,060

Keywords: CNBC, CNBC Make It, Unlocked, real estate, economy, living, renovation, renovating, fixer upper, Fairport Harbor, home, living space, money, money management, property, buying, selling, homes, abandoned, abandoned house, DIY, flip, renovations, West Virginia, Victorian House

Id: gc9_BfqmQ9I

Length: 7min 53sec (473 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 23 2023