S4 E15 - 9 Types of Houses NOT to Buy Part 2

In this episode, Brittany Faith Turner drops absolute fire, a real banger of an episode, as she goes over ways to increase the value of your home. And we continue with the nine types of homes not to buy.

All right, Brittany, we're back.

And we're back.

We're still doing it. We are cliffhanging pros like Sylvester Sloan of podcasting.

People hate it, but they listening.

You just crushed four out of the nine, five left. I'm begging you, please tell me, what are the other ones, the nine types of houses?

Number five we've got. Don't ever buy a two bedroom, one bath, ever. Don't do it.

What?

Don't do it.

Hold on.

People don't want it.

Two beds, one bath.

Don't do it. Yeah, obviously you can still, still sell it, but usually anything under a thousand square feet, people don't want it. People want a third bedroom. They don't like sharing that bathroom with their kids or their guests. They want to have their junk out. If you're gonna do a 2:1, then maybe rented. But even rentals like those houses. Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit. They just do. So the magic formula is three bedroom, two bath minimum. Yeah, three, two, three, two minimum. That is the thing. Now, when I've bought a two ones in the past, it's because they were.

Big enough to add one. Right.

To make some weird space into a bedroom.

Okay.

And. Or an additional bathroom. But if you cannot add it again, you're going to struggle.

And now when you buy, we talk about the two one. Did you. You didn't take a three bed, one bath, Right. You found a way to add both.

I mean, again, all things can be done, but you are going to have to heavily discount it and you're going to be the last one sold ever. So your house is going to sit, sit, even with the heavy discount, because people just are not interested in that mix.

Yeah, well, I mean, so tell me the one that you did that on to find that out, what was that?

Oh, gosh.

You bought a 2:1. I mean, that's all of these things. The do not.

Yeah, Paulie told me not to do that in the beginning. He said not to. So we bought one on Manor Avenue. And.

Again, just like the transition.

Listen, he said not to.

He said not to. We bought one on Manor Avenue. Again, they're always going to look like the best deals.

Yeah.

So it was $48,000 and it was a 2:1 and it had some weird second living room. And we were able to convert it, but we had to end up, knocking down, like five walls just to try to fit a master bath in there. And then the rest of the bedrooms and the living room all shared that second bath. So that was hard because it ended up when we ran our numbers, we just didn't account for how many walls we're gonna have to knock down to steal some space from this room and add this one to then do the plumbing. And it just ended up. We did it. It was possible. And I still have never bought one. I couldn't convert because I just know better. I've been trained better. And that's the power of mentoring. I mean, there's zero percent chance that I would be in this if it wasn't for having my mentors. Zero percent. I would have been knocked out of the game by buying these houses. Because when you're on the market, I'm like, wow, look at this great deal. This is amazing.

Yeah. I mean, $40,000 is true.

I know. It used to not be, though. It's crazy how much things have changed in Nashville, Tennessee. But I wish had the foresight to be able to hang on to them all. But that's what we're going to talk about in a future episode is like, when to hang on, when to sell, you know, because there's ways that you can keep the house and get your money out as well. So we're going to give you that tip that I wish I had had, because I'd be a gazillionaire right now. Every house that I have done is now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars more.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right, number six, hit me.

House in a flood zone. The reason is the flood insurance is a significant.

It's a huge deterrent. On average, it's between 350 to $650 more per month. And I just ran the numbers with somebody last week and said, okay, even with today's interest rates, you know, what is a $300 additional mortgage payment? If you could have bought a $300,000 house, then just because the flood insurance, the cost per month, you could have bought a $400,000 house. Now, is there a difference in a $300,000 house and a $400,000 house when it comes to quality and location and all those things? Yeah. People are going to pick the $400,000 house.

Okay.

If I'm making the same payment, might as well get the nicer house out of it.

Totally. Yeah. For sure.

Right? Yeah. So your house going to sit there Also, why put my stuff at risk and my Kids at risk and all this stuff. At risk of flooding and losing everything, all of our family memories. When I could just buy a nicer house for the same price.

Now, you might make fun of me. And that's fair. I expect it.

Yeah.

But I only have a few rules of real estate.

Yeah.

One of mine is always buy a house on a hill.

Yeah.

For that reason.

Yeah. Never down a hill.

Yeah. Now, when you're talking about. You make a joke about Nashville. I don't know what the joke is.

But every single area that's flat is a flood zone. It's not a joke in Nashville, Tennessee. If it is flat at all, it's flood zone.

Yeah.

That's just how hilly we are and how many rivers we have going through there, which is just interesting.

But, I mean, we have a relatively large fan base in Nashville, so that's a good pro tip for some people.

And honestly, you're a little house on a hill. That's just an intuitive thing. You may not even understood how wise that was because you picked a big hill.

Yeah.

You picked a big hill. This time you're not playing around.

Thanks.

But yeah. Never go downhill. It's not necessarily one of my nine, but in people's subconscious, they always want to be up high. They never want to go down into their house, even if it's a dang couple steps. It matters a lot to your subconscious. That house just sits. It sits. But not one of the nine. Not one of the nine.

Do you have an opinion on the steepness of driveways? Because my driveway is pretty steep.

It's a deterrent for sure. You probably got a good deal on it.

Oh, yeah, you did.

It's because that steep driveway, it matters more in places that freeze.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So if you're. I mean, you're knocking out elderly, you're knocking out people who have certain types of cars in places that freeze. Especially. Everybody's gonna say, dang, I'm gonna have to walk up and down that hill in the cold, and it's gonna be a problem. So. But again, you got a good deal. Why is this house available? Why is this so cheap? Because the hill is pretty steep.

Yeah, I like it. All right, hit me.

Number seven matters a little less in California.

Yeah. Or like Arizona.

Anywhere it doesn't freeze.

It doesn't freeze.

Yeah.

Amazing.

All right, number seven. Never buy a house less than a thousand square feet. Again, these are golden.

I've never heard of. I mean, I've heard of, obviously, like, train tracks, highway. Those are basic in the Sense of. I heard of them before, but this one's new to me, Britt.

Yeah, well, children are a factor. You know, people want to be able to get all the way. Now, everybody works from home, but this has been a timeless one. Never buy anything less than a thousand square feet. Is that again, can it eventually work? Yeah, but it's really just harder. And so again, it's gonna limit you on the three. You can't do three bedroom, two bath. A lot of times if your master is smaller than a 12 by 12, which is our next tip, you're screwed. Master bedroom has got to be bigger than 12 by 12 or that house is just gonna sit there. You're not gonna be able to get a closet.

I mean, I'm dumb. 12 by 12ft.

Yeah, 12 by 12ft.

Got it.

Yep. It's really hard to fit a king in there. People in the master, they want a king.

Yeah.

Can they settle for a queen? Yep. But they want a king, so they're going to go find a house that has a king.

These are golden, too. Now with the. Now, I know we're talking about flipping, but on number seven, don't buy a house less than 1,000 square feet.

Yeah.

If it's a rental, or let me rephrase, maybe a short term rental, Airbnb. Something that's quirky, kinky and fun. But that'd be okay though, right?

Maybe that's different. Again, we're in the flipping market right now. If you are trying to flip a house.

Got it.

All these rules are different if you're doing other things.

Yeah, totally. Okay, cool.

That was a great question, a great thing to point out.

All right, hit me with number eight.

But again, will you ever want to sell that? Airbnb?

Yeah.

And is the buyer guaranteed to be somebody who Airbnbs? No. So even then, it's hard. My little PSTP is still almost 1300 square feet. And I added a bedroom off the back, so I made it even bigger. I made it a three. Two.

Sure. Smart.

You know, thank you. I'm full of it. All right, next one. A house that doesn't have any comparables, which means it's a weird house. It's a funky shape. It's like the only mansion in the whole region. You know, you cannot have this one off because it's gonna be really hard to sell. People who buy mansions normally would be by other people that have mansions. You know, I know you're a mansion owner, which we're going to talk about, but are you surrounded by other mansions? Yeah, yeah. If you're the only mansion surrounded by trailers, would that have been a deterrent? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Of course. So if it's some weird house, like the only a frame or the only dome. Oh yeah, they're funky, they're cool. Airbnbs, but they are going to sit there on the market. They're harder to sell.

Now, the reason that Brittany throws out the mansion thing, you know, it was kind of funny, but I'll tell you guys the story. So at abundance I'm here talking about limiting beliefs. And I shared one of my limiting beliefs. It wasn't a limiting belief specifically, it was just something I was unaware that was a limiting belief. But essentially I had a friend tell me that I lived at a mansion and I kind of brushed it off. I was like, hahaha, pretty funny. Told my wife this joke that this guy told me and she's like, well, yeah, babe, we do live in a mansion. And I said to her, we do. I mean, because in my mind, a mansion, like the definition of a mansion was like the white house, right? Tons of bedrooms everywhere. The big white pillars, the long driveway, the circle driveway with the fountain. Right. The Buckingham Palace. That's what I thought a mansion was in my mind. And I Google it and turns out there's a definition for mansion. A mansion is. I know you know this, but for the ones who are listening, a mansion is any home that has five bedrooms or more and. Or 5,000 or more square feet. And I just kind of laughed. I was like, wow, I love an imagine.

Take the time to define things.

This is so you live in a mansion.

You do. Your house is massive. My goodness. Yeah, it's beautiful too.

It's super cool. But then Polly was like, I live in a mansion.

I was like, I live in a mansion. We live in mansion.

It was like a mansion. It was. It was just a cool like little love that, you know, a little thing. But anyway, thanks for the shout out. All right. And so no weird houses, no funky shapes. Got it. So last but not least.

That was it.

That was it.

That was nine.

Oh, okay.

That was all nine.

Got it. Yeah, I only wrote down eight, so I missed one somewhere. I have to go back.

Bedroom, 12 by 12.

Oh, that was it.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it.

That was the next one.

So do not buy a house that does not have a 12 by 12 master bed.

A minimum of 12 by 12. Ideally bigger than that.

But because they want a king, you.

Can'T fit a king in. You can. But there's like 4 inches on each side, so it's just a nightmare.

Yeah. Those are an amazing list of tips that's gonna be extremely helpful for anyone who's flipping a house. You still think people should flip houses in this market right now?

Of course, if the numbers work right, there's always deals. There's always deals. And real estate is always hard. So it's either hard because the market is tanking and there's a million houses on the market, and your house is gonna sit there, too, and it's just taking longer to sell and. But there's a million contractors available and nobody has work. It's just. Or it's hard because you can't find any deals. And everybody's houses are flying off the market. They want too much for it, and there's no contractors available. So it just pendulum swings from difficulty to difficulty.

And both of those things happen in the last two years, the ones you just mentioned.

Yeah. And it's just different. I used to be able to find, like a million people to bid on one house. Now it's just hard to find anybody to bid on anything. But again, it'll come back. It'll come back that way. It'll come back that way. But you just have to be really good. You have to know your numbers, you have to find a mentor, or you can lose a lot. I'm not telling you it's the only way, but I'm telling you that is a much safer way. And to hear the stories I've heard and to watch incredible people who have great hearts get knocked right out of the game and lose everything. Their family's money or their friends money or their grandma's money. Believing they got a good deal when they did not, and they didn't know how to handle the contractors, they got walked all over. It's just. It is not for the weak, but it can be done. And you will learn. And you can save a lot of pain by having a mentor.

I feel like, and this is just my opinion, tell them if I'm wrong or right, the one thing that is probably the most difficult or the one that's going to really get you is probably the whole contracting piece. Right. Working with the contractors, knowing those rehab budgets you mentioned, not getting walked on because I'm a soft guy. I'll just roll over. I'll just get walked right on top.

I'm just a woman, too. And they're gonna assume. Not to say that in a demeaning way, ladies, but it's going to be harder for you because they haven't seen a lot of people who look like us crush it in this field or even try in this field. But you're a softy, huh?

Oh, yeah.

How'd that go?

Yeah, just get walked right over. Svet's amazing at it. She'll go in there and tell them what to do.

God, she's an eight.

Paint the tub. She loves painting. She paints everything. Her solution to any flip is like, oh, just paint it.

Paint it.

Yeah.

A lot of money in painting.

Yeah. We've painted all the things. But I feel like the contracting is probably the most important piece to nail. Would you agree?

Or buying it. Right. Is number one most important thing always.

Yep. That one for sure.

Because that's the thing you can't change.

Right.

And then after that, it's learning how to manage that contractor. Absolutely. So I've made my own contracts. They are rock solid, airtight, all sponsored by pain. They are both sided. They're on the contractor side and my side. And it's just all about how do we have a dummy proof, super clear agreement so that we can remain working together in peace? And there's a document for everything. So my contract is probably the best thing I have. It's the way in which you even decide to work together.

Do you sit down with a contractor and kind of go over that contract with them?

Nobody reads anything. So I go through it with them and make sure, hey, this is how we're gonna deal with changes, delays, all the stuff. I never just send anything off. If you want people to understand things, like go through it with them.

Do you sell those contracts?

No. But I did just start coaching in real estate. I mean, I've had people beg me for decades, but I've had so many of my own projects. It's just never been something I felt convicted to lead. And I didn't wanna get trapped in the corner of being the real estate girl, even though that was my path to wealth. But lately, I have felt convicted. I'm like, I'm teaching everybody to be a force for good. That's the most important thing to me. And real estate is not for everybody.

Right.

But all successful people invest in real estate and stocks and own businesses. Who am I to block these decades of information and pain that I know so much about from people? So I just opened that up, literally, like, in the last couple weeks that I am now coaching real estate. But it's. It's only been people who've come through the island that I've even Told about it. So. Yeah, thanks for asking.

Yeah. I mean, well, either way, I think that's a very valuable piece of information. Something that's gonna be extremely helpful. It's scalable. Yeah, right. I mean, I'm all about extra streams of income.

Well, one tip can make or save you $100,000.

So, Brick, question. We have the lists. It's gold you're talking about. One tip can save $100,000. But I feel like you got some more tips to hit me with when you're doing these flips. What are something, maybe items or, I don't know, other bonus things that you could add to a home that probably don't cost any extra money or a lot of extra money. We talked about decks. Strong deck game, Strong deck game. What else can people do in the home that doesn't really cost that much?

Oh, man. I've got a list.

Okay.

Well, everybody knows that the kitchens and the bathrooms are, like. Those are not, like, these fresh ideas I'm about to give you. But it's important, guys, if you didn't know to invest the money in the kitchens and the bathrooms, because that's what people say yes to. But this is what people definitely double say yes to.

Okay.

This is the difference between your house moving fast, your house sitting there on the market, people falling in love, people paying. What you're asking, I think the best way to explain it is to give them this, like, dream life that they have a bunch of people, their friends coming over to enjoy and play games at their house.

Yeah.

So what does that look like? That looks like a really fun backyard. How do you make a fun backyard? Inexpensively, you get those restaurant lights, they're $60 from Costco, one box, and you hang them up, and people gravitate to those like a moth to a flame. They're like, wow, it's a play area. And I think that there's just like, a lot of bars and restaurants that have those exact lights, and people just associate that to, like, this is fun, and it lights up your space. Hanging those lights is the least expensive, fastest way to get a house that's not moving. To sell, get those nighttime pictures, and to really show off your backyard. Number two is a fire pit. Outdoor fire pit.

Outdoor fire pit.

Outdoor fire pit. Yeah. If you have a really high end home, you probably want to put in a gas line and have a gas fire pit. If not, go to Walmart, Lowe's, Home Depot, get on Amazon and get one of those little wood burning fire pits. People love it. And then before you sell the house. House, have a stack of wood ready to go at the house. And your pictures, you've got to have pictures of that thing. Lights on at night, wood burning, cute couches. It's a big deal, this little dream backyard. People have. We talked about 100% return on your deck game in the neighborhoods that have any kind of view and. Or if you're toeing the line with a war zone. I love rooftop decks because it's your dream outdoors, but in a safe spot because nobody can shoot you down, shoot you up there. I love the rooftop decks.

I think all your houses have those.

Yeah, you know, I got the idea from Charleston. We had really tight building guidelines in Nashville on width, depth, all those things. And so it was really hard to get these awesome decks that we talked about. And so I would study historic houses that were cute. So I wasn't stuck with those tall, skinny, ugly things that people were building. So those rooftop decks, I'm going to make up a number because every house size is a little different. But let's say they cost an extra $25,000 to build. You'll get $100,000 out of those. The house will go for another hundred thousand dollars because of a rooftop deck. People freaking love rooftop decks, especially when they've got lights and a fire pit. Now, if you're really smart, when you're framing the house, you will make sure that it is able to hold a hot tub. And then you tell people that they can. They can crane a hot tub up there. And they love that, especially if it's going to be an Airbnb for them. A hot tub on the roof is the difference between your Airbnb crushing it at life or just being another house on the market? But we're going to get into Airbnb tips later. All right, you want two more?

Yeah, I do.

Two more.

Two more people.

All right, so number one is adding a dadu, which is an acronym for detached accessory dwelling unit. Anytime you can add more space. Those things cost like ten grand to bring in. You can buy these. There's so many cool options online of pre built units. And if you can make it a bedroom, that's huge. Now if you can make it an office, that's huge. If it's extra storage or recording studio, depending on your market, I've got both. I've got an extra bedroom and a recording studio on one of my houses. 20 grand made the house worth another $150,000.

Wild.

Which is awesome. And I've had this tested by Several of my students, and they're like, it was the difference between me selling my house and not because they bought a 2:1.

So. All right, last one. Pro tip of a lifetime is call it a bedroom. Anytime you can make something qualify as a bedroom, it's the smartest thing you can do. I made the game room in my new house I'm building in Nashville. Just have a little closet in it. Just added a closet. It's got the right window size and you can leave it. Got a Murphy bed in there. It's still the game room, but baguette. You can call it a bedroom. Even with this little dinky closet we use to hold games, it's a bedroom. And so if the next buyer wants to say it's a six bedroom, five bathroom house, five and a half bathroom house, or whatever they can.

Is that the requirement for a bedroom is the closet.

It's got to have a closet and it needs to have. Yeah. You cannot legally call it a bedroom if it doesn't have a closet. And if you can't get out the window through your body for fire reasons, if your body can't get out if the window's too small or if it has no windows, you cannot call it a bedroom.

Okay, got it. So window to escape and closet, you can call it a bedroom.

Yep.

Whoa.

Yeah.

These last three episodes, I feel like were just bangers.

Fire.

I bet you got some more.

Do we have any more in us? Let's find out.

See you there.

Foreign.

We've got lots of requests for coaching. If you want to be coached by myself or J. Money Newsome in real estate, in stocks in how to live fulfilling, abundant, purpose filled lives. Go to broketowoke.com and click Sign me up.