How We Came To Buy Our House Part 2: The Why

Many people have asked us why we're flipping a house.  It's a fair question because I think, generally speaking, young families don't flip houses that often.  You see, Will grew up on a couple of acres on a dirt road outside a small town.  He also spent portions of each summer exploring the Upper Penninsula wilderness and swimming the extensive solitary stretches of Lake Superior beach at his family's cabin near Paradise, MI (yes, there really is such a place and it's wonderful).  Side story:  The first time we went swimming at Lake Michigan after we got married Will was confused, dare I say annoyed, by having to pay for parking and deal with all the other beach goers. 

I grew up on a busy highway, but we were in a small country town and were far enough outside the city limits that you could look out your windows without looking into the windows of your neighbor's house. 

While dating, Will and I discovered a shared dream of living on a few acres out in the country someday.  We rented a couple places our first year of marriage that fit the "country" part of our dream, but when we decided to buy our own home we realized our budget wouldn't allow us to purchase our "dream" home yet.  That was fine, we aren't always able to get exactly what we want when we want it, which is an important life lesson to learn.  So we bought a house we could afford and we loved that house.  I cried a good ugly cry when I left for the last time in June.  

Anyway, fast forward 5 years, 2 cats, and 2 kids later and we were starting to feel a little cramped in our small house.  We still weren't financially able to move into a "dream" home, especially since the market had rebounded and it was now a seller's market.  We talked about ways we could eventually finance a move out into the country.  We recalled how we had enjoyed remodeling parts of our old house, and designing and adding a fourth bedroom and 2nd full bathroom so the idea of flipping a house to gain equity seemed reasonable.  We thought that if we could find a cheap house that didn't need extensive work we might be able to flip it relatively easily and earn some equity to put towards a house in the country.  So that is, in a nutshell, why we decided to flip a house!