Taking on a handyman special can be a path to a dream house, but what is the fair price for a wreck? The U.S. Government provides the answer through its foreclosed homes offerings by the Department of Housing & Urban Development, or HUD.

HUD House is a journal account of a successful bid and the rehab of a HUD house. Readers of HUD House will see how we bid and how we overcame snags in the process, will obtain methods of finding workers, will learn something about the actual daily process of rehabbing a modest home and might be able to decide if they want a HUD house. The journal includes inserts about issues raised, such as Do You Need a Lawyer?

HUD House is pertinent now because:

• The market is more transparent today. Data about real estate prices are available on the Internet and in local newspapers.
• The Internet now makes it possible to find HUD offerings daily. The bids can be submitted through Realtors via the Internet or by phone.
• In this generation of mathematicians and surgeons, construction knowledge is not commonly around us. HUD House goes through the process day by day.

Nancy Lapidus is a retired high school biology teacher. She is a past president of the New York Biology Teachers’ Association, and a founder of the newspaper Adaptation, its official publication. She won the Alice B. Crow Award for dedication in counseling with her thesis recounting the mammoth efforts required to originate a drivers’ education course in New York City high schools.

Arnold Lapidus started his working life in a gas station when he was thirteen years old. There he picked up knowledge of simple objects like screwdrivers, pliers and Philips head screws. Later he learned about math and computers and used this knowledge in a successful career whose theme has been to make difficult subjects easy to understand.

Nancy has previously bought a fixer-upper for $44,000 and sold it for $73,000. Arnold notes the gross profit is greater than 50%.

Arnie and Nancy currently live in the HUD house in the Poconos, Pennsylvania.

6/23

We bring a coffee maker and sleeping bags the night before meeting Phil the Electrician. We must buy a mattress and a box spring.

Phil the Electrician and his assistant arrive. As mentioned earlier, Phil had given us an evaluation. He thought that the wiring in the house was okay but needed checking, and the main circuits had to be connected to the wiring. There were also some loose wires in the basement, which he thought should be reinstalled and brought up to safe standards. His assistant labels the circuit breakers in addition to helping with simple tasks like moving bulbs and shouting out whether a light is on or off. The very high ceilings have recessed lights, which aren’t working. We thought it might turn out to be expensive to get them on, but Phil finds that an amateur had purposely disconnected five of the lights and had put the sixth on an upstairs switch. He brings in a very high ladder to reach the lights in the vaulted ceiling and get all the recessed lights working perfectly. His helper found out that covers for the lights are available at Home Depot for about $4, each of which might otherwise have cost $20 each. Arnie thinks we should get them at Home Depot instead of painting the ones that are already there, and Phil gives him a long list of about $150 worth of electrical supplies to buy, as long as he would already be there. The Home Depot salesman is pretty knowledgeable but not perfect, and Arnie has to point out that the size he recommended for high hat fixtures would not fit.

The circuit breakers are modules that fit into the circuit breaker box. They cost $5-10 each, depending on technical features such as single pole or double pole. Arnie and Phil originally thought that there was a partial installation of a new circuit box. Arnie now thinks that someone merely removed the modules to obtain a salvage value of about $30-40, not caring about the consequences. The electrical hookup for the dishwasher is dangerous and needs upgrading. There is a switch placed half in the wainscoting and half on the wall, necessitating an interruption in the wainscot edging, which looks inappropriate. We want to raise the switch about two inches above the wainscoting. Phil says he could do it, but he would not recommend it because it would be a harder installation than doing the original, which was in the wrong place. This is good advice: the correction would be disproportional to the cost, about $200.

We thought that the garage door opener was a lost cause and were budgeting about $500 for it, but Phil gets it running, and we are all delighted and play with it for a while. This leaves just a couple of electrical odds and ends to be done. Outdoor outlets and many garage outlets now work. We are also delighted that the rear door halogen lights work.

In summary, the cost was about $500, and many upscale features such as the garage door opener, overhead fans, halogen light and recessed lighting, in addition to the regular lighting and the many outlets in the house, are now operable.