Low Ceiling In Living Room...What To Do?
How difficult is it to sell a completed rehab w/ a low ceiling in the living room? This is the only room in the house that has this drawback, and considering what I am paying for the property, I figured the extra time that it takes to sell b/c of the low ceilings would be accounted for.
I am buying it for 15k w/ approx. 25k in fix up work. ARV will be in the range of 80k-85k.
So again, has anyone had any bad experiences regarding holding periods when it comes to selling houses w/ low ceilings??
Thanks All
God Bless.
[addsig]
Advertise for midgets!
Please define "low"...
--Jeff
Approx. 7' in height.
All houses have draw backs of some sort. At a rate of return based on your numbers coming in at 100%, I would buy every house with a low ceiling you can find and cry all the way to the bank.
you say you feel you will have extra holding because of the l/c. it may be in your best interest to lower the price. ........km
kenmax
essentially, lowering the price would have already been taken into account if I list it at 80k-85k. I say this b/c my agent suggested that it should sale in the high 80's and he is always conservative on his resale values-sometimes a little too much.
So I am assuming no one has attempted to alter the ceiling joists on low-ceiling houses in order to increase the height. At the price that I am getting it for, I should be able to ride out the waiting period and eat the holding costs. Then again, it may sell a lot faster than I am pessimistically assuming.
Is your house the only one in the neighborhood with low ceilings? If this is not uncommon I wouldn't lower the asking price.
This isn't a drop ceiling by any chance, is it? Do you know the reason for such a low ceiling? It's strange that only one room in the whole downstairs to have a different height than the rest of the floor... Is the floor raised? Is there anything you can do to correct the flaw? I think you got a good deal, even with the low ceiling... 7 ft is low, but it's not like 98% of the people can't fit comfortable in the room without hunching over...
Good Luck!
[addsig]
I am with Mattfish on this. Find out why it is low. It may be that there are heating duct work running in there. You may be able to just box in the duct work (might only be in one corner of the room) and open up the rest of it.
This is common in the lower level of split level homes...a strip of 7' ceiling containing the duct work is no big deal if the rest of the room is open.
Matt
You're exactly right. Maybe I should have mentioned it in my original post. The small room w/ the low ceiling is raised. And after just visiting it again, it's not really a living room b/c the living room is the room that you step down into from this "low-ceiling" room. If you were to come in the front of the house walking straight back, you would walk directly thru the living, 2 steps up, and then you are in the low ceiling area. If you were to continue walking straight you would end up in the kitchen. Which leads me to my second dilemna: The kitchen has this low ceiling drawback as well being that it is on the same level as the 2-step walk up.
Is it worth trying to take out this walk up and put everything on one level w/o comprimising the structural integrity of what's already being supported on the 2nd story of the house? I know these are loaded questions being that none of you have seen the house. But has it or can it be done??