- Fixer-uppers are a common way to on the property ladder cheaper.
- Millennials who bought four run-down historic homes and renovated them share how they did it.
- One homeowner said it's "an excellent investment if you can deal with the headache of doing it."
The dream of home ownership is far more remote for millennials than for their parents. Millennials are turning to more creative and affordable ways of getting on the property ladder, such as buying a fixer-upper. Business Insider spoke to six homeowners who bought historic houses that needed serious renovation for cheap.
They shared what they bought and what they had to do to rescue crumbling structures.
A millennial bought a 130-year-old house in Wheeling, West Virginia, for $18,000 and turned it into her dream home
Betsy Sweeny, an architectural historian, moved to a rented apartment in Wheeling, West Virginia, in 2019. One day, while out walking, she noticed a beautiful, old house that "seemed empty and looked a wreck."
Despite not looking to buy at the time, she discovered the house was for sale and toured it.
Sweeny researched how much the renovation would cost and enlisted a local banker to help explore funding options. She doubted a larger bank would agree to a loan. She told BI, "Local businesses understand projects on an individual level."
The property was appraised at $16,500, and she bought it in cash for $18,000, using savings and a small loan.
She hired local craftspeople to fix the roof and attach gutters to the front of the house.
She and her partner also had to repoint the whole house. It took six months, though she estimated that doing this themselves saved them $30,000. "The work wasn't hard, but it was time-consuming," she said.
Sweeny spent $160,000 on renovations but said the house would easily sell for $245,000 as it stands.
"In these kinds of postindustrial cities with historic homes, rehabilitating property is an excellent investment if you can deal with the headache of doing it."
A couple bought a 19th-century manor house in Ohio they saw in the Cheap Old Houses newsletter
Kayli Angeleaux and her partner Connor resolved to stay in their Utah apartment until they could buy a house. But nothing in the state was in their price range.
In May 2022, the Cheap Old Houses newsletter advertised an 1800s manor house in the small village of Higginsport, Ohio. It was on the market for just under $250,000.
They hadn't previously considered Ohio, but Kayli Angeleaux contacted the listing agent. They viewed the house via a "blurry FaceTime" with an agent walking them through the property.
The couple bought it for $162,000 — the discount was partly because of the scale of work needed. They had to get a specialized loan from the Federal Housing Association to afford the house and renovation costs.
The couple initially moved in with Connor Angeleaux's mother in Colombus while finalizing the sale.
Last January, Kayli Angeleaux said they were planning to move into the home later that month, though "We're essentially going to be camping for the next six months while construction is going on."
Angeleaux said renovations on the 215-year-old property could take the rest of her life.
2 friends bought a crumbling Victorian house in London aged 25 and increased the value by £200,000
Olamide Soyemi and Cullen Farleigh wanted to buy property in 2019, but, as Soyemi told BI, "It's almost impossible to buy a house in London if you're just a normal 25-year-old."
Soyemi and Farleigh realized the only way they could afford a house was by buying a fixer-upper together and renovating it themselves.
The friends were freelance advertising creatives who had been saving since university. They had £65,000 for a deposit and secured a time-limited mortgage worth £500,000. They found a Victorian house in East London for £452,000 and bought it.
When the pair bought the house, they only noticed damp and outdated decor as drawbacks. However, upon moving in, they found penetrative dampness, asbestos, missing supports in the loft, dry rot, woodworm, and poorly installed joints.
Over the next year, they filmed their restoration for social media. At one point, Cullen fell through the kitchen floor, which turned out to be rotten wood, not concrete as the pair had believed.
"We had no idea the house would feed us disaster content in the way it did," Soyemi said.
They resumed freelancing in March 2021 and stopped in August 2022 because they earned enough money through TikTok brand deals from filming their restoration.
In 2022, the house was valued at £650,000 still under renovation — nearly £200,000 more than the original price. The pair said they hoped it would be even higher once all the work was finished.
A Swedish millennial turned one of Japan's famously cheap abandoned houses into a luxury Airbnb
Anton Wormann began buying cheap, neglected properties in the Shibuya and Sangenjaya districts of west Tokyo after moving to Japan in 2019. Wormann flips the homes and rents them out for extra income. He learned the necessary DIY skills from watching his father flip homes in their native Sweden.
In March 2022, Wormann bought the 100-year-old Sangenjaya House — his most ambitious project to date. It hadn't been lived in for 10 years. While Wormann didn't share the price he paid, akiya — old, vacant homes in Japan — are typically sold for between $10,000 and $100,000, according to a listing site. There are around 8 million of these homes in Japan, which has no restrictions on foreign buyers.
During the renovation, Wormann handled a termite infestation in the beams, disposing of mountains of trash, and firing unreliable contractors.
He estimates that he put in about 1,500 hours of labor on the house and spent some $50,000 on materials and laborers. The rebuild took a year to complete, with Wormann working on-site while not traveling for modeling jobs.
The Sangenjaya house was completed last March, and Wormann told BI he had booked his first Airbnb guests within a month. Wormann is looking for his next akiya to flip.