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H2H Renovations

Houses to Homes

  • LAKE HOUSE RENTAL
  • Projects
  • About
  • Let Us Help
  • Blog

It Gets Real

In 2012, we sold our house in Johnson City (arranging to rent it for a few months while we figured things out) having no idea where we would be going next. Terry had two job possibilities in the Tri-Cities, two in Knoxville, and one in Etowah. One by one these were eliminated because he either didn’t get the offer or the offers were too low to practically consider. So we decided that now was the time for Terry to try his hand at flipping houses full time. We felt that Knoxville was a better area to do that, so we decided to move there.

We considered renting a place, but it really went against our frugal nature to rent a place when we already owned a flip house in progress. It was close to finished - enough so that we could live in it while Terry finished it up. Our plan was to live in it until it sold.

It sold so quickly that this time in our lives went by like a blur. But living in an older house in a gentrified part of town was an eye-opening experience for all of us. It was a shared trauma of sorts as while living there we witnessed a drug bust, a naked inebriated man walking down the street, and a homeless man coming into our dining room during breakfast and asking for a dollar.

But we also had sweet times sitting on the front porch and getting to know our neighbors. I also had always wanted to live in an older home. Now I have!

We also found out that Terry was pretty good at this house flipping thing! This property sold at asking price to the first person who looked at it.

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Saturday 08.15.15
Posted by Susan Seaman
Comments: 1
 

Our First Project

In 2011, Terry was looking for a renovation project.  He was still trying to get his engineering consulting business going, but he was considering getting involved with flipping houses as either a side business or a full career.  He had the opportunity to buy an old home near downtown Knoxville, and it seemed like a good project to start on.  We've always wanted to give our kids practical work experience, so as soon as he closed on the property, he packed the kids up for a long weekend down in Knoxville where they worked on demolition, cleaning, and repeated trips to the dump.  At the time our kids had no idea (and this is probably a good thing) that they would be moving to Knoxville in a year and actually living in this house for a short time. 

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Tuesday 07.21.15
Posted by Susan Seaman
 

Purpose of This Blog

In this blog I hope to chronicle some of our adventures with house flipping.  This is where you can see the BEFORE photos that really make you appreciate the AFTER a lot more.  

We have renovated over twenty properties since 2011.  It has been a real adventure and has afforded many more opportunities to trust God with our day-to-day decisions and finances than we ever had when Terry was working as a corporate engineer.  

There are tons of house-flipping shows on television right now.  They paint a somewhat unrealistic view of this business.  It is harder to find good properties to flip than those shows would make you think (especially since we don't live in California).  And it's harder to get things completed in just one month without a fairly large crew.  But it is true that it can be very satisfying work - taking something ugly and making it beautiful.  

Tuesday 07.21.15
Posted by Susan Seaman
 

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