As home prices stay high and rising mortgage rates shrink how much house buyers can afford, some have turned to the idea of buying cheaper, older fixer-uppers. The Instagram account Cheap Old Houses helps people indulge in this fantasy, posting listings for older homes that are relative steals at a time when the median monthly mortgage payment is nearly $3,000.<\/p>\n
Now the couple behind the account \u2014 which has garnered 2.4 million followers \u2014 is out with a new book that shares stories of people who\u2019ve bought and renovated older abodes. Published Oct. 10, \u201cCheap Old Houses: An Unconventional Guide to Loving and Restoring a Forgotten Home\u201d is part how-to guide and part inspiration board. Like the Instagram account, it provides a glimmer of hope to the many would-be buyers priced out of the housing market.<\/p>\n
Owning a house today \u201cfeels like a pipe dream\u201d for many, said Elizabeth Finkelstein, who runs Cheap Old Houses with her husband, Ethan. \u201cYou can have a good job. You can have done everything that you\u2019re told that you have to do, and you still can\u2019t afford a house. And I think that that\u2019s really frustrating for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
As former New Yorkers, the Finkelsteins know the struggle all too well. \u00a0\u201cEvery single one of our 10 years we were together [in the city], we never had a place over 600 square feet,\u201d Ethan Finkelstein said. They were constantly hunting for their next place to live, so they eventually moved north.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Having bought \u2014 and since sold \u2014 a $400,000 home built in the 1940s in upstate New York, they decided to go a different route, paying $71,000 for a 1700s-era\u00a0 fixer-upper further north, close to the Vermont border.<\/p>\n They initially thought of their Instagram account as a \u201cdumping ground\u201d to put listings of cheap and old homes, Elizabeth said, but it\u2019s attracted a strong, interested group of users who find the idea of buying one enticing.<\/p>\n \u201cCheap Old Houses: An Unconventional Guide to Loving and Restoring a Forgotten Home\u201d attempts to inspire people who are considering purchasing an older property that might need some TLC. The Finkelsteins are also hosting a forthcoming show on HGTV called \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of a Cheap Old House?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis book is a compilation of all these people that have done it,\u201d Elizabeth Finkelstein said. \u201cEspecially at a time when \u2026 we all feel so sort of left out of the conversation when it comes to housing, especially people of the Instagram generation like millennials and younger who are just really strapped with student debt and don\u2019t have the ability to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n The Finklesteins drew <\/strong>on their own experience to show how others can buy a cheap old house to actually live in. After a decade living in apartments in New York City, the couple moved upstate to their first home.<\/p>\n Elizabeth had at the time been running an online real-estate marketplace and had a background in historic preservation. She developed the idea of creating an Instagram account that would be a place to put listings of old, historical homes that were fixer-uppers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Homes listed on online brokerages in this category were often poorly photographed, she realized. \u201cI know that this [real-estate agent] in the middle of Oklahoma is making a $20 commission on this $10,000 house and can\u2019t afford professional photos. But like that blurry photo is a picture of an original art deco bathroom \u2014 and someone needs to see this,\u201d she recalled thinking.<\/p>\n They launched their Instagram account in 2016. The couple now regularly posts on its feed, and also sends out newsletters for more niche audiences, such as those interested in cheap old farmhouses, or in cheap old houses abroad. Houses featured recently on the Instagram account include a \u201cstately\u201d four-to-five-bedroom brick house for $39,000 in Oxford Junction, a town of about 400 people in Iowa. Featured homes are often a mix of grand and rundown, with appealing historical details like stained glass windows or original woodwork. They\u2019re often in out-of-the way towns far from the coasts and urban centers.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd honestly, I didn\u2019t ever think that we would have a successful profitable business,\u201d Elizabeth Finkelstein added. But the Cheap Old Houses brand has definitely struck a chord, especially with viewers who want a break from reality. Particularly with the Cheap Old Houses Abroad newsletter, \u201cpeople constantly write to us and they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my god, this is like the catharsis I need during my work,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Around the time the Finkelsteins launched the Instagram account, they also decided to move into the fixer-upper near the Vermont border. They purchased the $71,000 home with cash.<\/p>\nHow they bought a cheap old house<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u2018There\u2019s so much housing stock in this country\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n