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- [00:00]
Ethan Finkelstein
We bought this $27,000 house and it needed a lot of love. There was a lot of foundation stuff re hoisting up the house, new floor joists everywhere, basically in the house. There was a lot of big problems in the house that spent easily $50,000 of our budget. And I think the biggest concern that we had was any back taxes, any prior liens, anything that we needed to clean up. That's a little bit of a scary piece of purchasing one of these houses is that you can get into someone else's trouble.
- [00:28]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Foreign.
- [00:35]
Vivian Tu
What's up, rich friends? Welcome back to another episode of Net Worth and Chill. I'm your host, Vivian Tu, your rich BFF and your favorite Wall street girlie. There are two things I always heard about when it came to my generation and money. Millennials ate too much avocado toast and ruined the economy. And. And there's no chance in hell that any of us would actually ever be able to afford a house. And both of those things are. You guessed it wrong. The number of first time homebuyers is half the historic norm. But it doesn't mean you should just count yourself out of the race. Even if the housing market seems to be grinding to a standstill, there are still ways to sign your dream home. I should know because I did it. It just means you might have to get a little bit more creative. Luckily, the guests on today's episode of Net Worth and Chill know all about getting creative about home buying. Ethan and Elizabeth Finkelstein are the hands and brains behind who's Afraid of a Cheap Old House? The HGTV show on hbo Max and Discovery plus that follows the couple as they tour and restore houses all under $150,000. Their Instagram @Cheap Old Houses has over 2.9 million followers and they are stopping by today to to share all their best kept affordable house buying and renovation secrets with us. Ethan, Elizabeth, welcome to Net Worth and Chill.
- [01:57]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Oh, thank you. We're so excited to be here.
- [01:59]
Ethan Finkelstein
Hey Viv, it's great to be here.
- [02:01]
Vivian Tu
Thank you so much. And to kind of just warm us up, I would want to know if there was one feature that you could put into your dream home, whether it's like a realistic one or like a fantasy one. What would it be? Support for the show comes from Amazon. We've all been there. It's the night before your flight and despite your best intentions, you've procrastinated, fascinated on packing, only to realize that your favorite travel size moisturizer only has half a pump left. What we're not going to do is stretch that half a pump over 10 days and we're definitely not going to try and find it at the airport for a 200% markup.
- [02:38]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Not one.
- [02:38]
Vivian Tu
There is Amazon. Get your essentials ahead of time or get them overnight. If you live for the drama of panic packing, shop Amazon and save on essentials. Save the everyday.
- [02:49]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Fireplaces, all of them. We actually just put seven in a house.
- [02:53]
Vivian Tu
Seven?
- [02:54]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Storage.
- [02:55]
Vivian Tu
Is your skin dry?
- [02:57]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
I walk the walk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's, that's not the fireplaces. That's just me.
- [03:06]
Ethan Finkelstein
What would be my. Oh, my gosh. There's so many housing fun things that you can add. I guess something that I've been geeking out about is a geothermal system for. It's, it's underground heat, using underground heat. So we put that in this same house and it's electric heat, but it's a sustainable way of heating a house. So it's kind of an affordable way. And it's really. You're not burning fossil fuels in the house.
- [03:32]
Vivian Tu
That's so thoughtful.
- [03:33]
Ethan Finkelstein
Besides the fires, of course.
- [03:34]
Vivian Tu
Yeah, of course. Of course.
- [03:35]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
It's a balance.
- [03:37]
Vivian Tu
All right. I feel like I was going with a much more insane answer was I wanted a slide that would go straight into a panic room.
- [03:45]
Ethan Finkelstein
Well, that's Richie Rich. I mean, come on. That's, that's my like childhood dream for sure.
- [03:50]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
I think I gotta get out of my cheap old houses space a little bit and get more in your space.
- [03:54]
Vivian Tu
That's so funny. But today we are going to be talking all about cheap old houses and fun renovation projects of homes. Can you talk to me a little bit about how you guys got into the world of renovating?
- [04:07]
Ethan Finkelstein
Elizabeth grew up in a cheap old house.
- [04:09]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Yeah. So it's kind of been in my bones. I watched my parents, they bought a house for under a hundred thousand dollars. It was from the 1850s and they just restored it over the course of my childhood. And I watched them, you know, save their pennies, do the work themselves, really express themselves through that house. And so it's kind of been in my blood for a very long time. Both seeing a house as a source of sort of creativity and expression and also just pride in your home. I mean, they had so much pride in that house and the house was very special and special to me.
- [04:40]
Ethan Finkelstein
But I think as Elizabeth and I met, we were both digital folks in the city, in New York City, and we met here in New York City and we really wanted that homeownership dream. That was sort of our goal and dream. And before we got married, we kind of just started doing some steps and Elizabeth got her master's degree, and we were both just working professionals, and we kind of did some little wework stuff where we would have, like, office spaces in Brooklyn and basically kind of rent out spaces. So we were always like, hacking this space issue because New York City is such a invaluable space for everything. And so that kind of helped us kind of get our leg up into, okay, we gotta, like, do some grind here to kind of afford this dream that we want as ultimately a house. So we looked forever for like a brownstone.
- [05:33]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Oh, I still want one. Yeah.
- [05:36]
Ethan Finkelstein
And we knew, you know, Elizabeth's mom was always like, oh, you gotta, like, get out there and we can find one cheap. And so this kind of led us on this perpetual hunt of finding an affordable house for ourselves. And this is, I don't know, maybe 10 or 11 years ago, and, you know, at the same time building our careers. And I think, you know, after kind of doing that, we afforded our first house. It was a $400,000 house, not so cheap, but we put 5% down. So that kind of allowed us to kind of get into the homeownership game here in Nyack, New York, just north of the city. But I was still working and commuting, so I was giving up a lot of my freedom or time at home to kind of do that. And then that kind of let us dip our toes into the restoration world of fixing up a house and really diving in. We don't come from contractor backgrounds. We're both digital professionals who were dying to kind of use our hands and get. Get more experienced at restoration.
- [06:35]
Vivian Tu
Kind of a big philosophical question, but why do you think owning a home was such a big goal for you guys?
- [06:43]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Oh, we have talked about this so much.
- [06:44]
Vivian Tu
Yeah.
- [06:45]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
I think. I think it's very built into the American psyche that if you don't own a home, you have somehow failed. And it's. I feel like I'm the worst messenger for this, but I completely disagree with that. Yeah, I don't think everybody should have a home. I think financially it makes sense for some people, and also just lifestyle wise, it makes sense for some people. I think there are a lot of places where it makes a lot more sense to rent. And I think there are a lot of people who, you know, don't want to be spending all their time working on their house. And we know from experience, we happen to love it. And if you are the Kind of person that wants to do that. That's great. But I think for us though, we're just house people. I really think because of my upbringing, it was such a source of expression for me. And we find that so many members of our cheap old houses community really want this. They want to nurture it, they want to work with our hands. It feels so different from the digital world we've created in so many other ways and the ways they're spending their days at work.
- [07:37]
Vivian Tu
And you guys mentioned like looking for cheap houses broadly. Your first home, even at $400,000 in the state of New York, is relatively affordable. Like, what are the ways that like these days people can find affordable housing? And I ask this because I see so much on social media about, oh, you should buy a house at an auction or you know, the foreclosure homes. But like, what is legit and what's not, Right?
- [08:03]
Ethan Finkelstein
Yeah, there's, there's. I think starter homes are one of the most interesting phenomenons piece of this that we're missing, you know, as just a overall economy. We don't have a lot of starter homes. You know, we have a lot of apartments and then we have some townhouses and we ended up buying a 1200 square foot house. It was $400,000. It's. Everyone looked at us like for like you're crazy to buy like that much square footage and to buy that. And you know, it did well by us when we sold. And I. That's one of the biggest challenges, I think, is that the lack of starter homes. But there's, I think, a ton of avenues. You know, we've talked about land banks, we've talked about the foreclosure market. You know, Covid had a stop for that. Now it's kind of back up and running land banks. If your county has land banks, they can offload those tax foreclosures. You know, we really don't post on cheap old houses foreclosures because we just post cheap houses all around the country. So I think location, location, location has been one of the biggest fallacies for us. I think for us to be able to create independent jobs that don't really require us to have a location has helped us break that code of location being the only way. And that was the biggest, I think, win for us anyway.
- [09:25]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Yeah, I think you have to open yourself up to different locations and you have to open yourself up maybe to a house that needs work and it's going to be one of those things. There are a lot of places we post a lot of houses in places that they're inexpensive because it's just the average cost of real estate there is a lot lower. Right. So if you're looking in a more expensive area, you're going to have a fixer upper.
- [09:43]
Vivian Tu
And when it comes to kind of like this perspective of like this generation right now, it's confusing. People are very stressed out about the housing market. Like from your perspective, who has the actual advantage? Who might be getting the shorter end of the stick? You know, what are we looking at here?
- [10:01]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
I think, I think the biggest advantage is for people who aren't tied to a specific location. I think if you can. And I think that we live in the most exciting time for that right now because remote jobs are much more out there or there's more.
- [10:14]
Vivian Tu
Everybody's trying to get forced back into office.
- [10:16]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
No, definitely forced back into office. But I think creativity in terms of jobs, I think there are more different types of jobs and different ways to create your own lifestyle than there ever have been in the past.
- [10:27]
Ethan Finkelstein
I think what we see is the creator economy and the younger generation creating own jobs that never existed. And you know, you have this dichotomy of a lack of the workforce, of people coming into the workforce. But then you have people who are creating YouTuber jobs or create creator jobs and they can work from anywhere. You know, I, I've seen this guy who's a farmer who, I think he's in Australia and he does like weightlifting and does all this weird stuff and he like, he's like a creator in Australia. I don't know, doing this really weird, obscure things that the Internet kind of loves. So I think that's for regular jobs. I think yes, it's harder to kind of get a regular job working for a company that's remote. But creating your own job has never been a better time. Kind of creating your own job and your own sort of capabilities through business.
- [11:24]
Vivian Tu
And in terms of like, if you're someone like me, I'm a young urban professional, I don't know anything about finance, fixing, upping, but like, if given the opportunity, like, I, I know what your answer is going to be, would you rather buy a brand new build or buy a dump and then be able to restore the whole thing? And if you guys say it's better to buy and you know, restore, like how does someone who maybe doesn't understand that process even get the knowledge to do that?
- [11:51]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Yeah, well, first of all, I think there's a little bit of an idea that all old houses are Huge dumps that need 100% work. And all new houses are move in ready and amazing.
- [12:00]
Vivian Tu
Right.
- [12:01]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
And I think there's lot of nuance there. A lot. There are a lot of old houses that might need work, but you can prioritize that list. Not everything needs to be done day one. If it has major structural issues or water issues, that's the worst offender. Any water in your house, you have to seal up the house. New houses as well. I mean, yes, might be shiny and new now, but for the most part are built with subpar materials. Let's be honest, all houses need maintenance. All houses, new houses, old houses, everything.
- [12:26]
Vivian Tu
1 to 4% of your purchase price every single year. So annoying.
- [12:32]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
A lot of times with a restoration you can get in at a lower closing cost which allows you money to save up in the end. And I would truly rather work on a house that has quality materials that I can put my own stamp on and that maybe I can do slowly over time versus somebody else's. You know, either new flip that they done that they did very quickly with kind of subpar materials. And, and, and their only goal was to get in and out as quickly as possible. Where your goal is to buy a long term sustainable asset, those are not the same goal. So there's a, it isn't necessarily just newer is this and older is this. I think there's a lot of nuance in the middle of that, I think.
- [13:05]
Ethan Finkelstein
Yeah, like buying, buying a house in the middle of your question would be probably my, my perfect solution. Buying a house that's old enough, that has character and that's fun to work on and that you have projects but not, and not new enough where you're spending overspending on your mortgage and your daily living expenses, I think is kind of a great starter house for someone. But again, the problem is that these don't really exist. So then we kind of create ourselves these extremes extreme for $800,000 house or a $27,000 house. And so it's just like, where's the sort of middle ground here for stuff? And no, it's hard because I think if you. I would not recommend buying a really, really inexpensive house if you don't know what's going on. I think you want to get into the homeownership game, kind of learn a little bit about it and then kind of build on from there. It's, it's just like, it's almost like a mini business. You don't want to just jump into business and do everything all at once. You're never going to get there. You're, you're kind of managing this own little piece. And nor maybe do you want to get some $800,000 house. I think there's debt and problems in both sides. Right. You can have an $800,000 house that you're way over leveraged and you're going to have issues with later. So, you know, trying to find something in the middle that is, is, you know, attainable.
- [14:32]
Vivian Tu
And Elizabeth, you mentioned a little bit earlier, you just said a bunch of subpar materials. Subpar materials point blank. Do you think houses are crappier now than they used to be?
- [14:43]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Absolutely. I really.
- [14:44]
Vivian Tu
Tell me about that.
- [14:45]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
So a lot of, a lot of older houses were built with old growth wood, which is wood that had had, you know, years and years and years to develop. And it's sturdier, it's more solid. And I think now we're, we're building with materials that are more quickly produced and they're just, honestly, they're just cheaper. It's also another thing is that materials are very expensive right now because of inflation. So if you can fix an old house where the materials are already there. So for instance, if you want to fix your floor versus replace it, even if it nets out to be the same cost because it's labor versus materials, you're putting your money toward a local craftsman and not to Home Depot. Right. Like you're kind of. It's also where your money is going. So it is a misnomer that everything in an old house is a better material than in a new house. But by and large, especially the very old ones that were built before prefab came around definitely have more quality materials.
- [15:38]
Vivian Tu
What's prefab?
- [15:40]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Sort of in the 1950s, we started to build houses where there were sort of prefabricated materials that would come together and kind of put a house together. So you would have aluminum windows. Yeah, you just get materials. For instance, vinyl can't be replaced. I. In the old house world, we talk a lot about old windows because old wooden windows you can fix. You can, you can endlessly repair and patch wood. A vinyl replacement window has a shelf life of 15 years and then it goes in a landfill and you have to replace them again. So materials that can be repaired versus materials you have to replace for a long term investment. We were talking in the car on the way over here about how sometimes in this economy you might not be able to move out of the house you're in. You might be in it for a Lot longer. And the stats are showing that people are living in their houses longer because they can't afford to move. And so you want a house that you're going to be able to live in long term. So making those long term investments up front, even though they might be more expensive or require more labor, is a better investment in the end.
- [16:33]
Vivian Tu
Oh my gosh. It's just like Terry Pratchett's boot story of like you, if you buy a good pair of expensive boots, they last you season after season. Otherwise, within a month of wear of a pair of cheap boots, there's a hole at the bottom, there's water leaking in on a rainy day. Like sometimes cheap is costly.
- [16:54]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Absolutely.
- [16:55]
Ethan Finkelstein
And that's kind of the sort of fun misnomer about our name of cheap Old houses is that these are really quality houses built with quality materials, but they're pretty inexpensive because people forgot them at one point.
- [17:05]
Vivian Tu
Okay, so I want us to pivot a little bit. Everybody who listens to the show wants to be taught how to do something. Let's just pretend, okay, I am about to go and purchase a quote unquote cheap old house. I have $50,000 saved up in a high yield savings account. I'm ready. I'm so excited. How would I do this? Like walk me through like a pretend scenario and let's do it step by step and what are the things that I would prioritize?
- [17:38]
Ethan Finkelstein
So did you purchase the house already and still have the 50 or are you.
- [17:43]
Vivian Tu
Oh, okay, great question. How about, okay, how about this? I have $50,000 that I spent on. No, I have $25,000 that I spent on the down payment. And we'll say it's a right now a half a million dollar home. So that's what. Let me do the math really quick. Five, that's 10% down.
- [18:09]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Okay?
- [18:10]
Vivian Tu
No, that's not right. 10%, 5% down.
- [18:12]
Ethan Finkelstein
And we did that. We did $400,000 house and 5% down on our first house.
- [18:17]
Vivian Tu
5% down. And then I'm paying PMI every single month, private mortgage insurance because I don't have 20% equity yet. But now I still have $25,000 left. I have this in theory, older home that was worth half a million dollars on the market. What do I do now?
- [18:35]
Ethan Finkelstein
I wait for a while. I let that $25,000 grow. It depends on if you have water leakage and you have something urgent you have to do, then you have to fix it. But you see what the house is going to kind of tell you at first, this is like the first three to six months.
- [18:51]
Vivian Tu
Okay, step one, three to six months. We are waiting.
- [18:54]
Ethan Finkelstein
We had a water heater break. You want that. You want that money at the onset of that purchase to know what is already failing. And then you're like, oh, wow, did they replace everything at that period 10 years ago or 15 or 20 years ago? And then we had. Our oven was kind of acting up and all these little things. And I think I kind. That's what. That's how we did it anyway, was we waited to spend that 25,000. Now what we ended up doing was we increased our square footage. That was our second bigger investment that we spent probably $20,000 in was increasing our square footage. In the basement, we made it an office. Like, we only had a 1200 square foot house. It was tiny. And so we made more square footage. And that immediately upped the value of the house, which I think is, you know, you have to do those small fixes. But then if you can or if. If it's possible, that's what we did. And I think it helped us in the long, long run.
- [19:50]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
I think when you look at a house and you just walk through it a couple times, you have a lot of ideas of things you want to do. And if you do things too quickly, first of all, you might live with them a little while and realize, actually, I kind of like the way it is, and I'm not going to spend that money. Like Ethan is saying, other priorities might come up that take precedent. So our. It's important to wait.
- [20:08]
Ethan Finkelstein
Our last staff member just bought a $400,000 house. Waited about. They're only in there a month, and they're, you know, getting used to homeownership, all the stuff, and they. They're loving it. And then the furnace is like, hello, knock, knock, knock. I might be going out. And they're like, oh, God, this is a $9,000 issue.
- [20:30]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Yeah.
- [20:30]
Ethan Finkelstein
And they're not 100% ready, but they are thinking about this problem. So I'm glad that they waited before jumping into X, Y and Z little,
- [20:39]
Vivian Tu
because then they would be even more in the hole.
- [20:40]
Ethan Finkelstein
Even further in the hole. Exactly.
- [20:42]
Vivian Tu
So, okay, so let's go off of that case. Say I do wait a couple months. Now we're on to step two. A problem has arisen. So there's a problem that we need to address. But maybe I also still want to change out the kitchen. What does that look like?
- [20:59]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
I think it's a little bit of. So a lot of old house restoration. Is either you need time or you need money. You need time to be able to invest in learning some DIY tricks that you can do to save money.
- [21:09]
Vivian Tu
Yeah.
- [21:09]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
If you don't have that, you're obviously going to have to pay someone to do it. So I think it's prioritizing which is which. What you can do are your. Are your kitchen cabinets okay? Cabinets are just boxes for things to sit on. Like a lot of times the cabinets are not the problem. You don't necessarily have to gut the entire kitchen, bring in everything new. If they're real wood cabinets, you might be bringing in less quality cabinets anyway. So look at what you can keep in the space and what small changes you can make that can go a really long way.
- [21:37]
Ethan Finkelstein
So some fun things that are small could be countertops, some of your fixtures, maybe a new sink. Sure. The appliances, Hardware. Hardware goes a long way and it's not that expensive. Paint, wallpaper, something fun. Tile in the space that can go a long way that you can do yourself. We like to do. One of the biggest tricks that we have is unfitted furniture in spaces. So it's antique.
- [22:02]
Vivian Tu
Wait, can you ask, can you explain to me what unfitted furniture is like?
- [22:05]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Like a. Like an unfitted kitchen.
- [22:07]
Ethan Finkelstein
An unfitted kitchen. Sorry.
- [22:08]
Vivian Tu
Yeah.
- [22:09]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
So kitchen that's sort of composed of different pieces. So you might. You don't have to bring in sort of custom cabinetry to perfectly fit the space. But maybe you have a sort of antique hutch that you get on Facebook Marketplace that has the same amount of storage as cabinetry would have, but it also adds charact and it's the period of the house. And then maybe you have like a standalone sink and sort of a kitchen that isn't necessarily something that has to be custom built for your space because anything custom adds a lot more cost money, of course. So anything you can get secondhand or diy, you're always going to save on.
- [22:40]
Vivian Tu
What are your like, just give me like your top three DIY favorite hacks. Easiest ways to level up a room. Support for the show comes from Amazon. Obviously we love a solid budget, especially for fun things like travel.
- [22:55]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
But a vacation budget is one of
- [22:56]
Vivian Tu
those sneaky things that can grow and eventually get out of hand before you know it. And I'm not talking about surcharges on flights and hotels when you're trying to book during peak dates. I'm talking about all those last minute must haves, the neck pillow that'll perfectly match your plane outfit, those packing cubes that your favorite influencer Just reviewed. And let's not forget the things for your home. Like the new pet camera, except this one shoots treats across the room so you can still play fetch with your fur. Baby may be from afar. These are the things that add up if you're not careful. And suddenly your fabulous little getaway can feel like more of a financial burden than a reward. Here's a tip, Amazon. Whether you're shopping for travel sized versions of your everyday essentials or indulging in an impulse buy that you swear will actually make your trip better, chances are you'll find it on Amazon for way cheaper than you would on the road. Which means you'll be relaxing on vacation. And when you get home, shop Amazon and save on essentials. Save the everyday.
- [23:58]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Oh, I'm. I'm a big lighting person. I feel like people put bad lighting in places makes all that I love, like switching up lamps with good shades and sconces. I'm always going around to antique stores, secondhand stores, buying good shades that glow really nicely. I feel like that's a big.
- [24:14]
Ethan Finkelstein
We have a room in our house that has, I'm not even kidding, a hundred different types of shadows, shades I wanted to. It's our storage room of like. And. And she's not lying when she tells you about this lighting.
- [24:24]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
I'm a big online auction person and I throw low bids on things that I love. And I won. Like how. How many lampshades? Like 400 lampshades one day. And I'm like, this is my dream.
- [24:33]
Vivian Tu
This is how I find out that Elizabeth is the low baller on ebay.
- [24:39]
Ethan Finkelstein
Yep. And it's shades and lights and light fixtures and we have collections of lights. Like part. Part of our basement is full of hanging chandeliers and lights and things and she gets them rewired. She has a rewiring guy and she brings him to him. And for 25, $50, he rewires like an antique. Something that could have been like gas done or. Okay, we can go down a rabbit hole just on lights. Sorry.
- [25:06]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Oh, my gosh. Paint, paint stripping, wallpaper.
- [25:12]
Vivian Tu
How do you get wallpaper up without the bubbles?
- [25:15]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Oh, it's tough. I mean, it's time. It's definitely time. What I like about these things, though, is they're DIY projects that are neither toxic nor going to set your house on fire. I feel like that's where I draw the line. If there's very intense chemicals. And this is a personal choice. I know a lot of people who put a hazmat suit on and they get right in it. And I'm kind of like, if this is gonna horribly affect my health, I'm not gonna do it. And I don't really. I wouldn't necessarily want to run my own electrical. That said, I know a lot of people who do it, so it's kind of a personal preference. But things like paint and decorative things, even tiling, I mean, if you mess it up, it's. It's okay. You're out the cost of the tile or the paint, but you can go back and do it again. That's what I like about it. It's kind of light diy, and it's fun. It's fun. It gives you an instant result. And I think you. We can talk about the practicality of this and the finance side of this, but I think a lot of this is. Is love and having fun with it. And I think a lot of people buy old houses because the character keeps them excited. And I feel like, for me, that's been a huge part of it because there are times when it's very difficult, and you have to be able to see the beauty at the end of it.
- [26:20]
Ethan Finkelstein
I think my favorite is just landscaping, curb appeal. Getting that curb appeal up from the outside, because that's the first photo that you're going to see on the real estate listing is the first thing that someone's going to walk up to the house and see and get a first impression. So that goes a long way.
- [26:36]
Vivian Tu
Okay, now, so we've. We've done our step one. We waited. Now we've done our step two. We have done some of the cheaper DIY projects. Elizabeth was so kind to share that we would not be wearing our hazmat suits. We, as a team, have decided we're not doing that because I don't want to do that either.
- [26:53]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Ethan will do that. Ethan will do that. Scary.
- [26:55]
Vivian Tu
But we. We have decided as a unit that we are not doing that for this scenario. How do you find a good professional, a good contractor, a good person who can, you know, the electrical. The rewiring guy? Because I have heard so many horror stories of people who give money to a contractor who then gets a subcontractor, and then somehow my friend is out $300,000 and has nothing to show for it. Right?
- [27:21]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
This is like everything in life, it take. It does take time even. We have been doing this now we do this professionally, and we work with people all the time who do it. And it happened to us. The first people we hired really remember that we brought in for Some of the houses like we, we, you just kind of have to go through the process. You have to find people you sometimes have to mess up and then you find your people and then once you get in with your people, you have people that you can call and trust.
- [27:45]
Vivian Tu
Yeah.
- [27:46]
Ethan Finkelstein
My favorite way to basically know and to work with folks is to test. And it's just like running a business, you're testing someone to kind of see if they're a good fit for you. So test on a small project. Sometimes it's hard to get those contractors in to do those small projects. I get it. But it pays off in a long term because if you do that test and you see the quality of workmanship that they give and the follow through for that small project, you know you can trust them for the bigger project and build that relationship and build that trust. I think that's the, it takes a while though, because you're really building that network of folks who you can call upon and they're going to answer your texts a lot quicker when you've already done some work with them than some rando that you found on the Internet that you're or someone that you are getting.
- [28:34]
Vivian Tu
You're just a lead, right?
- [28:35]
Ethan Finkelstein
You're just a lead. And you know, I think obviously asking friends and neighbors and people in your local area that have had good work relationships with people and when it comes
- [28:45]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
to old houses, I definitely find there are contractors who are fixers and like to look at something and figure out how to fix it. And there are contractors that are going to constantly be like, just replace it with something new. And you want the people who think in terms of fixing because when it comes to an old house, you're going to want to try to maintain as many materials that are original to the house as possible. And if a contractor tells you to replace it, it's often because they don't know how to fix it and their default is to just put a new thing in. I also heard a designer once say, and I thought this was really good advice, find someone whose default is your standard. So if somebody normally does something way and you're asking them to do it this special way that you really want and they're figuring out on the job when you're not looking, they're going to go back to their default.
- [29:27]
Vivian Tu
Yeah.
- [29:28]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
So try to find someone whose default matches your standard for what you're looking for.
- [29:31]
Vivian Tu
Oh, I love that piece of advice do. Is there like a step after that? So say like we've gotten this contractor, they've Done good work. Like once you're quote unquote happy with your house, do you keep putting work
- [29:45]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
into it or you will keep putting work into it? It's a misnomer. First of all, these houses are never done you to fall in love with the fact that your house is just going to be a project now. It's not going to be the huge project that it was when you bought it where you have to fix the foundation and the roof and maybe all the other things.
- [30:02]
Ethan Finkelstein
But those are our projects, not necessarily everyone else's. Don't just go buy out, buy a house that needs all that.
- [30:07]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
But yeah, but it, it will get easier. And I think the more that you can get in the habit of just constantly maintaining your house, the less of those huge projects you're going to end up having.
- [30:17]
Vivian Tu
And there's a, you know, a little bit of a reputation that when you are buying an older home they can be a money pit. Obviously I'm sure people who have limited sources of money and are buying a cheaper older home, they have a budget set in their mind. But how do you also then assess what the total budget would be to do all the things that you want? Like is there like a little calculator
- [30:41]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
online that we can use or is
- [30:43]
Vivian Tu
it finger to the window?
- [30:45]
Ethan Finkelstein
There are some AI apps and stuff that are coming out. But I think in terms of just like figuring out your overall budget for what you're looking to do, I think working closely with a contractor and I think initially if you're testing, you're doing a small project and then you're kind of getting that set up and then you can say okay, now I have a multi phase project. Let's line item this thing out and let's get a signed contract going and then you're in agreement. I think we just ended a project that you know, was a full on house restoration and we got the CO last week so we're feeling really good that everything lined up. You know, the only thing that were different was the cost of materials and that's, that's great when you kind of can land on that partnership with somebody.
- [31:29]
Vivian Tu
Yeah. And what's a red flag that buyers should beware if they see in an old home that you're just like absolutely not. Would never ever take this project on. Hi friends. Quick pause in our show to take a question from my besties in phone a friend presented by Amazon MJ asks what are some sneaky travel costs people forget to budget for, especially in the summer. Summer travel can be such a Budget trap because everyone's focused on the big ticket items like flights, hotels and rental cars. But it's all those little sneaky costs that'll get you Here are some smaller fees that can add up quick that you should watch out for. One the gotcha fees. Hotels might come up with hidden fees that jack up the price of your stay, especially at beach or city destinations. They tack on mandatory resort fees of 30 to 75 dollars a night that cover amenities you may never use. Things like the pool, the gym, the lobby, wi fi, etc. These are often not included in the advertised nightly rate, so always check the full price breakdown before booking. Beyond hotels, even vacation rentals hit you with cleaning fees that can be a hundred to $200 plus on top of your nightly rate. And don't even get me started on airlines. They now have bag fees, seat selection fees, and some airlines are even charging for carry ons. Make sure you know how much your ticket will actually cost you in reality, not just in fantasy land. With how much you are bringing, what is it going to cost? So what should you do? Build in a 20 to 25% buffer on top of your main travel costs for all of these little extras. That way you're covered for any unexpected expenses. Or. Or I'm on vacation splurges. It's always better to be over prepared. Now back to our show.
- [33:19]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
So I'll preface by saying that pretty much everything is fixable. Some things are very expensive, so it kind of depends when you go in with your budget. If you notice severe cracking in the walls where it looks like the house is settling in places, especially as you get to the upper stories, I would say that might be an indication that the foundation might need to be looked at. Active water issues. But again it might be a small patch in the roof or it could be having to replace the whole roof. Some things might also be sort of residual and they and it may have been caused by something that was fixed by a prior owner. So you need to look at the house history. Some things that look really terrible up front are less terrible than you think and can be controlled. For instance, sometimes you walk in these old houses or we see a lot of cheap old houses where there's like all of the paint in the house is just totally peeling and that's probably just because there was a temperature control issue in the house that may not have caused further issues. And once that's fixed it's fine and you just kind of have to scrape the paint off and repaint it and that's okay, but it looks like a big issue.
- [34:19]
Vivian Tu
It's really scary.
- [34:20]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
There could also be issues where, you know, it doesn't look like much and then you find something bigger. Christiana, who works with us, who bought a cheap old church that she's now living in, when she walked in, there was a giant hole in the floor at the church, and she's like, oh, my gosh, this is a huge problem. She talked to a contractor, and he's like, you just put joists and a few boards over it, and you fix the floor. It's not a big deal. But sometimes things that look like giant holes in the floor really aren't. Really aren't that bad.
- [34:46]
Ethan Finkelstein
And one of our favorite tips is when you're looking at a house, if you look at it on a rainy day, a really rainy day, you can see where the water is the biggest problem for houses and any house, and old houses specifically. But if you're looking at a house and you see water infiltrating, you can at least see where the problem areas are or where it's puddling up in the yard or whatever in the basement. If you have a roof leak, you can see it coming through the roof.
- [35:09]
Vivian Tu
That's such a hot tip to go see places on a rainy day, because then you actually know what it looks like. Like, what the lighting is when there's no sun.
- [35:17]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Right, right, right.
- [35:19]
Ethan Finkelstein
Welcome to the Northeast.
- [35:22]
Vivian Tu
Now, let's talk a little bit about money. Like, obviously there's diy, but what other resources are out there for me to be able to save money on buying a home, renovating that home, like, especially when there might be multiple projects included, some that are necessary. Necessary like asap, water, furnace, and others that are just, like, nice to have
- [35:45]
Ethan Finkelstein
in terms of buying a house. I think our favorite tip really quickly is either a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA. You can take out 10,000. I think you would tell me if I'm actually correct there, but I think you can use that money without penalty for that first little. Little nugget that you need to kind of get going. And then I think what we were talking about some other kind of ideas. Oh, if someone. If you're. If you're privileged enough where someone is able to give you a little gift, there's some gifts that you can get from a family member that you can get a little bit without them having a tax penalty. So know who your people are back. Back there. You know, we were privileged enough where my grandmother was able to help us for our first act down Payment, she gave us $10,000. So those are two, like, little things. Obviously, you're working hard, you're hustling, you're out there trying to make your money. And that, that's, that's. But, but I think the traditional IRA or the Roth IRA is the first, because you really need to start generating that flywheel for your wealth. Accumulation. Accumulation.
- [36:53]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
You're.
- [36:54]
Ethan Finkelstein
If you're young, you're 20 years old, you know, just even learning how to accumulate that money in your savings bank that you don't touch is the hardest training lesson you need to learn because you're, you know, life is expensive. And so just kind of accumulating that wealth. I think having a goal is huge. Having the mindset to just know that, okay, like, this is what we're doing, we're trying to save for a house. If you don't have a goal, you're spent. You're spending that money on that avocado. Right. The toast. Like it's.
- [37:25]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
The avocados are not the problem. Yeah.
- [37:27]
Ethan Finkelstein
It's obviously the joke, but it's like, you know, if you don't have the goal to save, then money's going all over.
- [37:35]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Yeah.
- [37:36]
Ethan Finkelstein
And then in terms of restoration, you
- [37:40]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
know, a lot of people come to us and they say, I just bought a historical house. Are there any grants available? And there really aren't grants available to help you in your personal house. There are not a lot of handouts with this. So it's a lot of getting creative. There is a federal tax credit that's available to houses that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which sounds like only major landmarks, but there are entire districts in neighborhoods where you might just pass through that that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. We bought a house that happened to be in a national registered district, and you get a 20% dollar for dollar tax credit back on your income tax for all the work that you do on the house.
- [38:16]
Ethan Finkelstein
In New York State, it can be carried over, which is cool. And it depends on your state. So you have to look up the state rules. But yeah, we had to have a roof redone. It's not just. If you do things historically, it can be for anything. And we had to have our roof redone and we got a ton of money back for just doing our roof, which needed to be done anyway.
- [38:32]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Right. Yeah. It's a one pager you fill out. So that has been really helpful for us.
- [38:37]
Ethan Finkelstein
There's a lot of these unicornish houses that are out there. The federal side, if you live in a multi family and there's residential above retail in small town America, all over the country, specifically New York is what we are most knowledgeable about. But, but you can get a 20% statewide tax credit and then another 20% for 40% total. So for federal, so if you, you can, I mean for your, let's say your roof, you're getting potentially a 40%. And it's a one page form that, you know, a lot of small towns in upstate New York qualify for if they're in a district, a historic district. And that's just regular maintenance. And I'm constantly telling our neighbors what they need to do, what form it is, and I'm saving them money just by helping because I want to see our community get lifted up with this program. So it's kind of a cool program in terms of restoring or fixing. We always think saving the materials because then you're saving on material costs. So if you're saving a floor, if you're saving anything that's good. We, we are crazy enough to take off all of our clapboard siding that was very old, plane it down and put it back up. But you know, anything. And that was saving on materials. So you know, Maybe we save $5,000 on that materials by just refinishing it ourselves. So that's the biggest tip I think. And, and also just a sustainable one and a fun one to kind of be able to reuse old materials. What else? There's a lot of like, you know,
- [40:18]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
well, there, I mean, little things. Like for the house we just restored, we found a whole bunch of materials at a surplus auction, like a liquidation auction from these big box stores. So we got all of our flooring, all of our baseboard. You log in, it's an auction. And we, I mean we got it for very little and it, and it, and it was everything. Now you have to, it's not perfect, it's kind of big box stuff. So in some houses you pick and choose where you prioritize. So maybe this house had no flooring, so there wasn't any flooring to save. So we had to put new flooring in and we weren't going to spend all of our money on really, really nice flooring because we wanted to prioritize it elsewhere. So for times like that, those things are really good. And it, and it's just kind of talking. One of the nice things about buying a, buying a cheap old house in a community that has a lot of them is you're going to meet other people that are doing it. And that's kind of instant community, which is awesome if you're moving to a place especially where you don't know a lot of people. So you tend to meet the other people that are doing this and they're going to tell you about the tax floor closer auction coming up and they're going to tell you about the liquidation auction and, and you kind of just kind of get in there and that's part of the fun of it.
- [41:19]
Ethan Finkelstein
Yeah. And I, there's online tools to help you with this stuff like Facebook Marketplace, things like that, where you can find materials for much cheaper that someone bought overbought insulation or something very basic that you just need to kind of fix up your house. And they're selling it at a discount and maybe there's no taxes on it, maybe it's just. And it's discounted also and you're getting it for a little bit cheaper. So. So yeah, those are some quick tips anyway, in terms of saving some money.
- [41:49]
Vivian Tu
I want to go and take it to like, kind of like this modern day social media era. It feels like a home is an extension of your fashion, your brand, what have you, each individual person. And it feels like a lot of young people now think that their very first home purchase needs to look like the penthouse apartment south of Central Park. All of these young people want to have that turnkey luxury. They want to walk in and everything already looks like it's straight out of like Architectural Digest. What is your perspective or like what is just some like come to reality advice you might have for this generation?
- [42:26]
Ethan Finkelstein
It's so funny because I actually have a specific story about this.
- [42:29]
Vivian Tu
Tell us.
- [42:30]
Ethan Finkelstein
I have a. My, my little half brother is like, I like fancy things. You know, he's, and he is straight out, just tell I like fancy. And I go, well, well, here's, here's the deal. I like fancy, fancy things too. But you know, I could be pulling up next to a Tesla or a Lamborghini and they spent a lot of money on that vehicle. But I pull up in my $5,000 old 1977 Ford and you know who everyone's going to be coming over to is me because. And I bought that thing for $5,000. And that's just such a little source of pride for me because it's just like a, like I can have luxury. I find this to be my own sense of luxury though, and different way of looking at what luxury is. I get to drive around in a vehicle from another time and enjoy that. Of course. Do I like Modern things do I like, you know, Teslas and, you know. Yeah, I've driven a few racetracks and stuff like that. I've gotten a Lamborghini. Like, yeah, they're really cool.
- [43:32]
Vivian Tu
But I can hear Ethan literally convincing himself during this episode.
- [43:39]
Ethan Finkelstein
But it is funny when we drive
- [43:41]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
that thing, how many people. People just smile at us because it's kind of the great Uniter truck.
- [43:45]
Ethan Finkelstein
So I think. I think finding your own unique, authentic version of luxury or authenticity or difference, what's cool to you is more valuable than anything you can purchase or buy
- [44:01]
Vivian Tu
or just what we're told conventionally is what you want.
- [44:04]
Ethan Finkelstein
100%.
- [44:06]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Yeah. I also think what. What sells on social media, what works really well on social media is a quick snap, which is never how it happens. And so I. I understand why people on social media have to do that. I mean, we're on social media and we have to do that sometimes to get people over to then see the real work. Cause as I was saying to Ethan on the way over here, and he. He refuted. Cause he's like, I think this is fun to look at. But I'm like, no one wants to watch someone insulate their basement on social media. And he's like, I love to watch that. And I'm like, okay, well, you're the exception. Most people just like to, what, look at the pretty things and think that's what it is. So I think. I think social media and sort of home design networks have done great because they've opened this up to people to consider. But you have to take all of it with a grain of salt. I mean, this person is pushing a brand, and this person, you know, this. This reel is to get clicks, and it's not for reality. And so you just have to know what's real and what isn't.
- [44:58]
Ethan Finkelstein
What I think is cool, though, is to your extent, to your point, that people have taken their home and their life, they've kind of extended their life into the social media side and made, you know, we. There's a whole section of social media that's all about old houses and old house people. And they have brand partnerships and they have social media accounts, and they're creating this wild. Many different versions of what their version of their home extension is. And we get to kind of get invited into their houses through social media, which is so interesting. And some that are fixer uppers, major fixer uppers, and some that are living, you know, very luxury on a farm somewhere, and they're, you know, living the life and it's like, hey, is that everything that it's, you know, actually is? But I think it's just really fun to see and be invited into so many people's houses through social media.
- [45:53]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
It's funny because we hadn't bought our first cheap old house until we had already started this Instagram account and started to see enough people doing it that we were like, oh, maybe we can do this too. So in a funny way, although we grew up in the world of cheap old houses, it wasn't until we started to see our own people do it that we bought our cheap old farmhouse that we're now. We've been working on now for a while. And so, yeah, it really is inspiring to see other people do it and enjoy it and then buy another one. And you're like, well, if they bought another one, it couldn't have been that bad, right?
- [46:29]
Vivian Tu
And speaking of buying another one, I heard that you guys bought Ethan's mom a $27,000 home on auction, which literally feels like a fake number in this economy. Like, talk to me a little bit about that home buying process.
- [46:45]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
My gosh, that was such a funny night.
- [46:48]
Vivian Tu
Why does it sound like you guys got drunk and did this? Like, I don't.
- [46:51]
Ethan Finkelstein
Basically. Not even kidding.
- [46:52]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Everything except the drunk part. But yeah, but basically. I mean, there was a. There was a train station as part of this tax foreclosure auction. So this was the first tax foreclosure auction in our county since COVID So there had been a buildup. They hadn't done one for a while. So there were a lot of properties in there, and there was a cool train station. And we honestly didn't know what we'd do with it, but we're like, we have to have this building. It's so cool. And then we had gone around and looked at a lot of other ones that were on the list, and the train station went pretty. Or the train station got pulled off at the last minute. That's what it was. But this guy had had in his head that he was gonna buy a house tonight. And I knew. I'm like, oh, man. He's. You know. You know that feeling when you're at an auction and you're like, I gotta go home with something.
- [47:31]
Vivian Tu
Yeah.
- [47:32]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
And we ended up buying this house. And then, coincidentally, shortly thereafter, Ethan's mom sort of needed a place to live, and it just worked out, and we've been working on it for her ever since.
- [47:42]
Ethan Finkelstein
Yeah. Yeah. No, there was a guy, actually. Or a person. I think his name was guy. So I think there was a specific gender attached on the account when he was bidding. And he kept bidding on me on other properties. And so I was like, this guy can't beat me at this property. And it was kind of.
- [48:00]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Elizabeth was like, we don't recommend this, by the way. I don't recommend this as a way to buy a house. But it ended up working out for us. So sometimes the best things we've done in our business are just the fun, silly things that we've done and taken a chance on and it worked out.
- [48:14]
Ethan Finkelstein
No. And I think, you know, it's a sensitive topic. It was a foreclosure. And I think the fact that we're moving my mom in is such a full circle moment. You know, we bought this $27,000 house.
- [48:31]
Vivian Tu
House.
- [48:33]
Ethan Finkelstein
And it. There was some restoration kind of happening. It was really just a complete mess. And it needed a lot of love and someone to really take care of it and really get it back up on the market. I think the county obviously wanted that they wanted the taxes paid. There's a lot of small communities all around the country that need this sort of support and they need that financial sustainability in their economies. And so we purchased the house. We purchased it cash. I think it's like you have 90 days or something to actually you put a deposit down, you put your credit card on the site. You actually, I think you pay immediately something, and then you're required to go and pay the remainder in 90 days. And so we did. And I think the biggest concern that we had was any back taxes, any prior liens, anything that we needed to clean up. And I did call the county first to make sure that there was no
- [49:31]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
issues because that is public information.
- [49:33]
Ethan Finkelstein
So public information and are interested enough. And they said that they would actually, they would clean it from its back owed needs. So I felt comfortable kind of getting into that. So I think that's a little bit of a scary piece of purchasing one of these houses is that you can get into someone else's trouble with buying something that you didn't expect to be the actual price. And then, you know, I think just over time, we started to do slow work on it with cash. And then we found out my mom, she moved in with us and we started a generational living thing. And she was like, I, you know, she works for a bank, she has a great job. And she was like, I want to be living close to you guys and help with the kids at home, but be close. And so we had this house 15 minutes away. We wanted to get her in quicker. So we started working on a construction loan for this restoration and construction loan. And we work with a bank, and we got a $150,000 mortgage. And even in this economy, still, $150,000 mortgage seems like another dream. And now, as of last week, we fixed up the house. $150,000, plus the 27 and some carrying costs. You know, we have some heat and taxes and stuff like that in there, but feels pretty good to be moving her in and having her close by and making this dream into a reality. There's still some work to be done. We still have to paint some of the outside and stuff. But, like, it's completely livable. The county inspected it. They're like, it's good to go, it's safe, it's all ready to go.
- [51:15]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
And it is cute. We did this house on a budget. I think that's another thing with old houses. People think everything has to be custom or everything has to be antique or special. And a lot of this house we were able to do with stock items and mix and match with old pieces, and it looks really, really cute.
- [51:31]
Ethan Finkelstein
And I think if it didn't have. If it wasn't in such a high water table and like, have these water problems that we were telling people about, it would have been a little easier. We would have been able to do it with less. But there was a lot of foundation stuff. There was a lot of re hoisting up the house. New floor joists everywhere, basically, in the house. And so there was a lot of, like, heavier lifting. Big problems in the house. That spent easily $50,000 of a home, our budget, just on that kind of stuff. That's not sexy at all. It's not the appliances, not the paint. It's not the drywall even. And then you have your infrastructure stuff, electrical H VAC and plumbing stuff. And then you have your final finishes for that last 50. So, yeah, it's pretty fun. I think ultimately too, Elizabeth and I are just really excited about showing people about this possibility. And, you know, just the fact that this can be done and just educating people on this, that there is other pathways out there to home ownership that. And it's really tested us too, to even, like, prove it to ourselves. We started running this account without our own fixer upper project. So it's cool.
- [52:51]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
We have a book, and the intro chapter in our book is called the Lost Art of Imperfect Living. And I love that because I think that coming along with this, there is a little bit of A permission to live in an imperfect space for a while. And that's okay. I think if you expect your house to look like you were just saying, not only is that impossible, but it's stressful because it's like, oh, if it's not perfect, oh my gosh, oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. And it's perfectly fine. One of the things we love about visiting other cheap old house owners is going into their houses and then you notice that there's a rug and it's totally covering up the little holes in the floor because there was no subfloor there. And they have to fix that. But don't look at that. And it's like, oh, I feel so much better. My house isn't perfect. Perfect. I think there's something about, in this society we live in now where there's this pressure that your house has to be perfectly representative of you, and it has to just, you know, and. And you're going to do things wrong. There's so much information out there and all the things you can do wrong. And it's just nice to know that these houses are so well built that even this abandoned house we bought for his mother was. Was still standing. And it was. And honestly, it was doing pretty well for all the water infiltration and everything else that was going along with it. And so it's okay. It's okay.
- [53:56]
Ethan Finkelstein
Yeah. I think in terms of the money, specifically, like, you know, this $27,000 house, it had a roof. The roof is slate. The slate is worth, like, good for like 150 years if you, if it's good and you replace it. And it had the frame, it had windows, it had a septic, it had a foundation. These things all cost money now. Yeah, foundation's easily 10, 20,000. A roof is 10,000. You know, you add all that stuff up already in two little line items, you're already past the number that I bought this house for.
- [54:28]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Yeah. If you think about building that house new, what each of those things you just listed out would cost, and then you have something that has very little character, and that would be even doing it the cheapest way possible with, like, very non interesting stock materials. And this house has so much charm.
- [54:45]
Vivian Tu
And I think that is a perfect place for us to wrap up because. Because guess what? A cheap old house has all that charm, and it is a lot more interesting than just having the turnkey LEGO house that everybody else has.
- [55:00]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Yeah.
- [55:00]
Vivian Tu
Yeah. Any final pieces of advice or words of wisdom for our audience?
- [55:07]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Oh, my gosh. Just go for it. We just love this so much and we feel so honored.
- [55:11]
Vivian Tu
I can literally feel your passion.
- [55:14]
Ethan Finkelstein
That's the true thing. Is is we made a business out of cheap old houses that, you know, is, is, is, you know, has become wildly more successful than we ever could have thought. And I think just following your passion, your authentic, authentic self and creating your own little corner of the world.
- [55:33]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Amazing.
- [55:34]
Vivian Tu
Thank you guys so much for being here. Tell everyone at home who is listening where we can find you.
- [55:39]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
You can find us at cheapold houses on all the platforms and CheapOldHouses.com and we have subscription newsletters at CheapOldHouses. Too, where we send out specific kinds of cheap old houses if you're interested. So if you want a farmhouse or a cheap old house abroad, you can find them there.
- [55:55]
Ethan Finkelstein
We do a little podcasting with this old house and what else? Oh, our TV show at HBO or. Yeah, what is it? HBO Max.
- [56:07]
Vivian Tu
We don't even know what it's called anymore. You're fine.
- [56:09]
Ethan Finkelstein
Exactly. It's changed a lot of hands.
- [56:11]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
And we have a book available at all major retail called Cheap Old Houses. It's amazing.
- [56:17]
Vivian Tu
Cheap Old houses it is. Thank you guys so much for being here.
- [56:19]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Thank you, Vivian.
- [56:20]
Ethan Finkelstein
Thank you, Vivian.
- [56:21]
Vivian Tu
Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part of the Vox Media podcast network. If you liked the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcastourrichbff.com follow Net Worth and Chillpod on Instagram to stay
- [56:41]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
up to date on all podcast related
- [56:42]
Vivian Tu
news and you can follow me at YourRichBFF for even more financial know how. See you next week.
- [56:48]
Elizabeth Finkelstein
Bye.
- [56:49]
Vivian Tu
Thanks again to Amazon for supporting this episode. Whether you're trying to stay on top of your everyday essentials or on the hunt for an unexpected need, you'll probably find it on Amazon, probably for cheaper, so you can spend less money on markups and more on the weekend getaways and bucket list trips that make it all worth it. Shop Amazon and save on essentials. Save the everyday.