Part I: The Purchase - Bringing a 70's condo into the modern world

Part 1 – The Purchase | Part 2: The Design | Part 3: The Reveal

This is the first part of the series to transform a 1970’s condo into a timeless yet modern beauty. I’m so excited to share the journey with you. Please subscribe to keep up to date on our progress! This is a 2 bed/1ba single story condo in a 55+ community in San Diego. 

We weren’t really in the market to buy another investment property especially since we had purchased our ‘dream’ home less than a year ago. But we had set up Redfin notifications (we’re always watching) to keep up to date on our local market conditions and to look out for potential properties that our friends and family may be interested in. So we kept seeing this condo popping up. It was sitting on the market for almost 2 months. We thought maybe our parents would be interested so we went to check it out, not thinking too much about it.

First thing, this home did not show well, even though the walls were newly painted and there was new carpeting. The cabinets were original from the 1970s but they decided to paint them white and add new knobs to brighten the space. For photos, the cabinets looked ok and I’m sure brought people into the property. But when you walked in and checked them out you could easily see that the entire kitchen had never been updated and the cosmetic changes couldn’t hide that the property was in dire need of a makeover!

There was no curb appeal because of the super old artificial turf in the front patio.

There was also the original wall heater unit from the 70’s. We didn’t even know how it worked because we kept pressing buttons and nothing happened.

The doors and windows were all original single pane

The bathroom walls were discolored and uneven due to many layers of improper paint jobs.  

Because this property is in a age restricted (55+) neighborhood, it furthered limited potential buyers. But personally, I don’t think 55 yrs old is that old. Probably because I’m closer to that age than away from it 🙂 I thought there could be plenty of empty nesters that are looking for a quiet, well maintained property with great amenities and community spirit. 

So we decided to go forward – Even though my parents weren’t ready to buy at the time, we crunched the numbers and if we got it at a good price and rented it out at fair market value we would have around 4% cash on cash (even budgeting for a remodel) OR we could FLIP IT. Interest rates were also super low and we were able to secure a 2.75% 30 yr fixed rate with no points. We really had nothing to lose and we had negotiation leverage due to the time the home had been on the market. The home was single level (no stairs!), had a front and back patio, low maintenance. The neighborhood was safe and quiet, easily accessible to lots of shopping, the freeway, and entertainment. In fact, the famous Rancho Bernarno Inn (featured as one of the top 25 spas the USA by Conde Naste) is right across the street! The schools are good too (9’s), ensuring property values will be maintained.

The property was listed with a range of $359K – $389K. I never understand these ranges because obviously a buyer would always go for the lower spectrum. But anyway, we saw that the property had been sitting for awhile and there were also no close comparable comps in that neighborhood for the last 2 years. No one had sold a unit so they really didn’t know how to price it. We submitted an offer at $310K (I know super low ball!) and after some negotiation, accepted $355K as the final sale price. HOWEVER, here is where the story gets interesting….

The seller had accepted our offer and we were in the contingency period when another unit with the same specs in the same neighborhood popped up on the market, for $385k. It was a bit more remodeled and we used this unit as additional leverage as we thought the seller wouldn’t want to compete with another home. We went back to the seller and asked for a PRICE REDUCTION even though we had already agreed on $355K. This was a shot in the dark and a risk because the seller could have walked away and waited for more offers. We reduced our offer to $330K and eventually settled on $340K.  

Purchase Specifications

Now that the home was purchased, it was time to start the remodeling process…the FUN CREATIVE part! Can’t wait to share more with you. Please subscribe to read on!

Part 1 – The Purchase | Part 2: The Design | Part 3: The Reveal