Today I’m sharing how we flipped our house to pay off our student loans.
About two months ago I shared our exciting news,  we sold our beloved auction house! Yes, the house that we bought just a short year and a half ago and poured our blood, sweat, and tears into. Although we loved it and thought we would stay there a long time, we decided to make the sacrifice so that we could pay off our student loans.
Since selling the auction house, we’ve been busy at work with our current project, the “Retro Ranch Reno“. Before everyone has completely forgotten about the auction house though, I wanted to share:Â How we Flipped our House to Pay off our Student Loans.
When we bought the auction house it needed quite a bit of updating and TLC. Here are our “Before & Afters”, along with what we did in each space.
EXTERIOR
We started out with some major yard cleanup followed by even more yard progress. After getting the yard under control we got busy with a dark and moody paint update. Along with these changes we updated the house numbers and mailbox, and swapped out the front door and storm door.
KITCHEN
We did SO much work in the kitchen and turned it into a total showstopper. We started by making our DIY cage pendant lights. Then we built open shelving above the existing cabinets. After that we painted the cabinets white and painted our two tone kitchen island. We also updated all of our appliances and built a pantry in the space next to the refrigerator.
Installing the farmhouse Sink was a splurge that was definitely worth it. Our kitchen updates also included installing a butcher block wood island as well as quartz counters and a backsplash. We finished the kitchen off with butcher block open shelving
DINING SPACE
This house didn’t have a dining room, or even a dining space, so I had to get creative and make a dining space. In the end I revealed our makeshift dining space which was almost as good as any eat in kitchen!
LIVING ROOM
In the living room we started by opening up the wall between the kitchen and living room. Then we just painted and laid new laminate flooring. I finished it all off by hanging my DIY no sew pinch pleat curtains.
MASTER BEDROOM
Along with laying laminate flooring throughout the house, the master bedroom was mainly taken care of with new windows and some paint. I did build the DIY affordable barn door hardware, as well as hang a vintage copycat industrial light.
BOYS ROOM
I did the Vintage Modern Boys Room Reveal near the end our of time in this house. It included a vintage inspired kid’s book shelf and a DIY vintage metal cage light. I absolutely loved the charm and character in the boys room.
Girl Room
When we bought this house we had to do a lot of work to straighten out the funky closet construction in this room. After that it was just paint and decor that made this room so adorable.
Hall
Replacing all of the flooring transformed this hallway, but then we added our shoe storage solution to add function.
MASTER BATHROOM
I started out planning a mood board for the modern industrial bathroom. Then I shared our bathroom progress, our black and planked bathroom walls. Then I shared it all in the Industrial Modern Bathroom Reveal post. Even though this bathroom was tiny I loved every inch of it.
HALL BATH
In the hall bath I just did a few affordable vintage updates to our builder basic bathroom. I also built our DIY Industrial Floating Shelves with Faux Rivets.
When I look back at all the details and all of our hard work, I can’t help but feel a twinge of missing it. But… I know that we’ll be able to make something just as great out of our Retro Ranch. All of that regret also went away instantly when I got this e-mail, saying we no longer had any student loans! It made the entire flip totally worth it.
If you want to see all of the projects from this house check out the project gallery, otherwise if you’d like to see the first house that we flipped you can see the home tour here!
Can i ask what you spent on the renovations and how much profit you made? I’m considering doing the same thing to pay off my student loans but I don’t know what reasonable profit margin is for all the work.
We’ve done it three times now, we broke even, made money, and lost money. Overall we’re ahead, but not by a ton. If we hadn’t have lived in the homes while flipping them we wouldn’t be ahead. I don’t think we’re good enough at it to consider it a good money making venture.
Were you able to pay off a good amount of your loans?
Yes we were able to completely pay them off! It was a lot of work, but totally worth it to us!
I would also like to know a round-about amount that you spent. Since I know each house was probably diferent. I’m not looking to make money, maybe save money buying and fixing up a home.
I can’t remember exactly, but I think we spent around $40,000 on updates. We’ve done three flips and the first one we spent under $10,000, the second was the most expensive, and the third I think we spent around $20,000. It can be a great way to save some money!
Wow, this is so close to my heart. My husband and I really want to do this to pay off our crippling student loan debt. This gives me hope. Navient has my loans too. How do you get money to renovate the house when you have student loan debt? That’s always my question. Like who would loan us money when we already have so much debt?! So glad to see you were successful. This is #goals for me and it makes me feel better that you have kids too and you still made it work! Gives me hope!!!
I’m so glad that I can be an encouragement. While we were living there we used every extra penny that we had for the renovations. By paying cash for each project, we were able to build a ton of equity fast. Once it was all done it was hard to part with, but knocking out our huge debts made it worth it. Good luck to you! I hope I can continue to inspire!