The fixer-upper is a grand tradition of real estate. Many houses go on the market needing some work before they are truly habitable. Whether your intention is to live in the house or to fix it up and sell it on for a profit, you will need to do some work one way or the other and because of the work involved, often these houses are available for a bargain price. However, it should be noted that not every house that is available for a low price is a bargain. Sometimes, people only find this out after doing a lot of work.

A money pit is a house which looks like a bargain when you initially buy it, but when you come to realize the extent of the renovations that need to be done before it is even habitable you realize that you will have to spend a ludicrous amount of money. If you are selling, you may not make a profit. If you plan to live there, youd have been better moving in to an already suitable house and paying the extra money up front. Of course, by the time you have found this out, its already a little late.

Before buying a house which requires work, it is always advisable to have a survey carried out on the property to find the extent of work that needs to be done. You may be pleasantly surprised, or you may get a warning that you should not proceed with the purchase. Although it costs money to have a survey done, it is still immensely preferable to buying rashly and then spending time and money putting that decision to rights

If you were offered a deal that sounded as though it was unbeatable, and it turned out that there was no risk involved for you, youd surely take it, wouldnt you? Most of us, if not all, would. But then throw this variable into the equation: You can only have this deal by taking advantage of the fact that a couple with three children are divorcing after one of the parents lost their job. They will sell for just over half of what they paid for the property because the bottom fell out of the market and the repayments are crippling them.

How do you feel now? Still thinking of popping open a bottle of champagne and toasting your good fortune? Well, you may well be. The fact is that there will always be misfortune in this world, and if you feel that it is excessively unkind to profit from someone elses misfortune then there will be countless other people out there who are not at all bothered about taking that step. Obviously you would be well advised not to celebrate your good fortune in front of the family who are losing their home, but they need to sell it, and you will not be helping them by opting out of the decision.

This is how many people make their first step on the real estate ladder. Equally, others will buy houses from seized-property auctions without considering that the work that went into those homes may have been funded by drug dealing, and buying from a repossession auction is also a way of profiting from anothers misfortune if you wish to take that view of things. Its all relative, and you are not the bad guy