Michel had been in Austin for about two years when she started thinking about buying a home.
“I was already living in this neighborhood,” Michel said. “I loved it. I knew I would want a home in the area eventually.”
When she saw a 1930s cottage for sale in the area, she decided to check it out with her dad. The two-bed, one-bath property was about 1,150 square feet.
“The house was modernized, but it was being advertised as a teardown,” she said, meaning the listing suggested a buyer might tear it down and rebuild because parts of the home, like the flooring, had seen better days.
“We toured it, and I was like, ‘This is not a teardown. It just really needs to be renovated,'” Michel said.
She said she immediately thought the house was beautiful. She loved the layout, as it had no hallways and maximized the existing space. She also loved the home’s green exterior, the glimpses of hardwood floors she could see throughout the house, and the fact that she could instantly tell how much potential it had.
There was also a separate guesthouse on the property that could be turned into a rental space to bring in additional income for the owner.
“When I walked through it, I could just picture what it should look like,” she said.
