How to Market a Fixer Upper House [9 Steps]

Ugliness is often a question of point of view. When some see it as a lost cause, others see the thing that is ugly as a raw diamond.

This is the case with fixer-upper houses which some also call ugly houses.

Especially real estate investors see them as great opportunities to make money.

And suppose you have a fixer-upper house and want to sell it.

In that case, you want to market it using a particular approach since these properties are usually unsuitable for the typical residential home buyer.

This article will discuss nine different steps of how you can market a fixer-upper, even if it looks messy.

1) Get to Know the Type of Buyers for Fixer-Upper Houses

To know how to market a fixer-upper house, we must also know what type of buyers buy these houses.

The definition above already implies that it needs to be someone who isn’t afraid to put in some work to increase the value.

This someone can either live in the house, rent it out or flip it at a profit.
So, there are about 4 types of buyers for fixer-upper houses:

The Deal Hunters

Deal hunters are buyers that can’t afford the average list price but still want to buy in a particular area of preference.

To live there despite any financial constraints, a fixer-upper house is a welcoming opportunity to achieve the goal of living in that neighborhood.

So the reason they buy an “ugly” house is to be able to afford at least something in the desired neighborhood.

Secondly, they don’t need to fix everything at once but can do different upgrades over time and steadily increase the house’s value.

These types of buyers come closest to being traditional residential home buyers.

Buy and Hold Investor

In a strong seller’s market, buyers sometimes must wait long to buy a finished house.

So, buying a fixer-upper house can be an excellent opportunity to access a high-demand neighborhood.

Buy-and-hold investors buy these fixer-uppers to remodel and upgrade them, not to live in them but rent them out at a good return on investment.

And they might also sell them later down the road for a profit. But that’s usually not the primary goal but rather an exit strategy.

Retail Remodelers

Retail remodelers are similar to buy-and-hold investors in a sense.

They have the money to buy retail but have been waiting for some time to access a particular neighborhood of their choice.

Until now, they couldn’t buy there because of high demand and, thus, other fast-moving buyers.

A fixer-upper house now allows them to access their prime neighborhood of choice.

They also do the remodeling work similar to the buy-and-hold investor.

The only difference is that later, they will either live full-time in the house or part-time and use it as a second home.

I have seen this in tourist hot spots, such as Cape Cod.

My girlfriend’s grandmother had an older house between two trophy houses in the first row on the beach.

And about a year ago, it was sold to someone from New York.

The new owner fixed it and added a second story and several other amenities now matching the neighbor’s trophy houses.

And this wasn’t even an ugly house you couldn’t live in anymore, it just didn’t match the development of that neighborhood anymore.

The Fix & Flippers

Fix & Flippers belong to the more obvious group of buyers.

They aim to buy a house at a low price, often at auctions, then fix it and sell it at a higher price.

They are not interested in holding the property and renting it out. However, keeping and renting it could be an option as a contingency plan.

Why?

They may not find a retail buyer on time, no one on their buyers’ list wants to buy it, or they have a long-term flipping strategy from the beginning.

The latter aims to rent it for a year and flip it as an income property with tenants already in it. So, in that case, it wouldn’t exactly be a contingency plan.
This approach might also have tax advantages.

2) Communicate Transparently

Usually, most of the buyers mentioned above already know that the respective house they are looking for is a fixer-upper.

So there’s no need to describe things as better as they are or exaggerate.

There will be features and related benefits worth discussing and a little bit of bragging about.

One of these things can be the history of the house.

Another point that can be described is what could be done with the house once it is fixed and its overall vision.

Since most potential buyers will know it’s a fixer-upper house, you want to communicate the flaws directly.

So again, no hiding is necessary and would be instead damaging in acquiring potential buyers and your overall reputation.

You can also mention the flaws and how they could be fixed and make suggestions.

And if you have information about potential costs to fix them, you might want to share them too.

3) Write a Good Description

The step mentioned earlier (transparent communication) is also vital when writing the fixer-upper description, hence the real estate sales copy (LINK).

And to write a description for a Fixer-Upper, we can use the same principles I covered already in my article “How to Write a Listing Description that Actually Pops,” “How to Market a Unique Property,”, “Real Estate Landing Pages – A Performance-Based Guide“, and “Sales Copy for Real Estate – The Ultimate Guide for Better Conversions.”

As you may have guessed, it again comes back to copywriting principles with the proper preparation.

Why?

Well, because the fixer-upper description’s purpose is not just to have a description; ideally, it is to sell it to potential buyers via the words you use. And by definition selling with words is copywriting.

I will give you the steps below shortly, but if you want to dig a bit deeper, I recommend you read the articles mentioned.

Know who your buyer type will be

Identify current and potential benefits of the fixer-upper to align them with the buyers’ needs, greed, and/or pains.
Convert the features into benefits.
Use one of the many copywriting formulas, such as AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) and/or PAS (problem, agitate, solve), to write the description.

A Fixer Upper House Description Example

“Headline: Gründerzeit Fixer Upper in Houston DownTown With at Least 80% ROI

Close to the center of Houston (TX), this raw diamond can give you an ROI of at least 80% when selling retail. Not to mention what you could do when you hold it.

It’s one of the rare 6 bed, 6 bath renaissance revival houses that can tell you a long history from the Gründerzeit.

One of the Allan brothers (the city founders of Houston) had lived in it for over a decade; today, it could be yours too.

Again, the 80% ROI is a pretty conservative estimation.

Due to its closeness (10 minutes by car) to downtown, it could be easily turned into a multi-unit townhouse with the charming renaissance revival style it still has. In that case, you will easily surpass the 80% ROI.

The parts of the house that look a bit sad and need fixing are the following:

Bathroom fixtures
50% of the roof

The wall between the kitchen and the living area
Floors in two living rooms

However, the foundation still stands like on day one and could beat the quality of some of the new buildings built today.

Contact us today at 123-123-1234 or by email at contact@wesellfixeruppers2023.com, and we can send you more details about the things that need repairs and the concept of a new spatial plan.”

4) Know When Your Property is Not the Best Candidate for Fixer Upper Buyers

As always, in preparing a marketing strategy (read my article here), putting yourself in the target customer’s shoes is always a good idea.

One of the things you need to know is when fixer-upper buyers discard a property because it doesn’t qualify and what they are actually looking for.

So first, the things they are actually looking for:

Non-existing curb appeal: This is when you might need a machete to get through to the entrance door because the landscaping got out of control and is overgrown. Also, the paint is peeling.
Bad shape but quality construction: In this case, the home still has good quality construction but has suboptimal updates. The home’s original character can be restored again.

Ugly and dark interior design can be easily removed once the seller moves out.
Outdated kitchens.
Outdated bathrooms.

Bad smells can be easily removed by replacing carpets, adding a fresh coat of paint, and having window treatments.
Water leaks on the roof.

A bad layout and, thus, small rooms can be changed by tearing down non-load-bearing walls.

There are property candidates that can’t be saved, and even borderline reckless investors wouldn’t consider them.

With these kinds of houses, investors just can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s often a house that needs to be torn down and has many different issues.

It could be major structural ones, bad foundations, environmental problems, geological issues, etc.

Even at the lowest price possible, some problems could only be fixed with some serious Lord of The Rings type of magic.

A positive return on investment will be impossible for the investor.

5) Use the Proper Marketing Channels to Market Your Fixer Upper House to Buyers

Suppose the property you have doesn’t need to be torn down.

To increase the likelihood of reaching the above types of fixer-upper buyers, you also want to determine which marketing methods and channels would be most effective.

Property Listing Portals (Some Only for Fixer Uppers)

When using property listing portals, there is not much difference compared to marketing “normal” properties.

The main difference will be in your copy, including your headline and the description text you will use (see above).

The headline should mention that it’s a fixer-upper house. Hence, the property becomes searchable for buyers on the respective listing portal.

Most of these buyers already know what to look and search for. They use keywords like “fixer-upper” on portals like Redfin or Zillow.

But there are also property listing portals that are solely dedicated to fixer-upper homes or foreclosure homes, such as:

Other portals that can attract fixer-upper buyers and are more in the context of for sale by owner properties are:

Using these platforms will attract all types of the above fixer-upper buyers.

Targeted Cold Calling & Direct Mailing to Potential Fixer Upper Investors

With the help of Zillow or similar platforms, you could first determine where you have the highest chance of finding fixer-upper investors.

These can be investors that plan to buy, fix and hold or buy, fix, and flip.

I wrote an already more in-depth article about this topic here.

You can search for a certain neighborhood and filter out landlords/owners who offer houses in lower price ranges for rent.

The reason for this is that a certain share of these landlords may be investors that might be looking for other investment properties.

Once you have the addresses, you can check for further contact information on RedFin or the county records.

The software PropStream might also be of help to digging deeper.

Once you have the contact information, you could either cold call them, direct mail them, or target them directly with a custom audience.

Or you can use the exact geographic areas by running a Facebook campaign.

This approach will make you less likely to attract or find the so-called “Deal Hunters.”

Contact Realtors Specialized in Fixer Upper Buyers

You can also use the same approach as above with Zillow to contact realtors that might specialize in fixer-upper buyers and properties.

You also want to look for properties represented by realtors in the lower price ranges, similar to the fixer-upper home you are trying to market.

The thinking behind this method is that realtors listing these properties might also work with fixer-upper buyers.

Another approach is to enter “fixer-upper realtors in [location]” in Google, and you will find fixer-upper houses for sale from different agents.

You can then contact the respective agent to work with you, whether you are an investor or a real estate agent that could co-broker.

The property database platforms that mostly appear in the search engine result pages for this type of search are Redfin, Realtor.com, foreclosure.com, and Zillow.

Here are, for example, the results for a fixer-upper agent search in Miami, Florida:

https://www.redfin.com/state/Florida/fixer-upper

Paid Online Advertising

With paid online or pay-per-click advertising, you need to get more creative to target fixer-upper buyers.

You could run Google Search Ad campaigns or Facebook Ad campaigns.
Both have different approaches that I have already discussed in-depth here and here.

Google Search Ads

To run a Google search ads campaign for fixer-upper buyers, you need to determine the most likely search intent such buyers will have.

Below, I will give you some keyword ideas that may be relevant:

fixer-upper homes
fixer-upper houses

fixer-upper homes for sale
fixer-upper houses for sale
fixer-uppers for sale

fixer-upper houses for sale near me
fixer-uppers for sale near me

Facebook Ads

With Facebook Ads, you can go more creative on the different interests of fixer-upper buyers.

As mentioned above, you can use the already researched geographic and/or contact information as custom audiences and lookalike audiences.

Some relevant audiences/interests you could target are in combination with the respective area or neighborhood you are focusing on and the proper age range (e.g., between 25-60):

real estate investing
real estate broker
real estate

real estate entrepreneur
real estate investments
real estate investors

real estate investment club
buying and selling real estate
housing

fixer-upper
real estate development
renovation

remodeling my home

Of course, you will need to use different angles, copywriting approaches, and ad creatives for each audience.

And also important to consider is the different awareness levels the prospects on Google and Facebook have. As you can read in my article about the topic.

Also, you want to do several test iterations to get results with potential fixer-upper buyers.

In the same context, I invite you to read my article on real estate marketing on Facebook here.

Content Marketing & Local SEO

Of course, suppose you want to play the long game and focus on a particular neighborhood.

In that case, you can also market through content marketing and local search engine optimization.

Why the long game?

Because you won’t see immediate results such as with pay-per-click advertising.

Depending on the quality of content you produce and the competition on a particular keyword, it can take between 6 and 12 months for Google to rank you in a position that can bring results.

It would be best to have a strategic content plan to produce the right articles or videos to rank you for certain local search terms related to fixer-upper homes or buyers.

If you want to know more about how to do content marketing for real estate, you might also want to read my article.

By the way, if you need general help finding viable marketing channels for your lead generation, you may want to check out “The Ultimate Real Estate Lead Gen Strategy and Performance Suite” here.

6) Prepare the Fixer Upper House (Your Actual Product)

Before running any advertising campaigns or marketing activities, you might want to prepare your fixer-upper a little bit.

Yes, it’s a fixer-upper, but sometimes, you can make minor improvements that make even a fixer-upper more appealing.

Such things could be the following:

cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms
washing the floors and the windows
sweeping away dust
removing debris from the yard and the house
remove unflattering furniture from the rooms

The goal here is to make it a bit easier for the potential fixer-upper buyer to imagine the fixed house of the future.

7) Determine the Right Price for Your Fixer-Upper House

Another part of the preparation should also be to determine the right price.

Finding the right price involves considering all the pros and cons (e.g., the current issues).

The cons may be water damage, and the pros are hardwood floors.
But generally, there are three approaches you can use to appraise a home:

The sales comparison or market data approach
Cost approach
Income capitalization approach

These methods can also be used for fixer-uppers.

The only difference is that you will need to factor in the repair costs and deduct them from the estimate you get.

With the sales comparison or market data approach, you answer the question at which price properties with similar characteristics (e.g., number of bedrooms, bathrooms, etc.) have recently sold in your neighborhood.

To do that, you can use different tools available.

Using the cost approach, you try to answer what it would cost to build a comparable house.

You also include the value of the land and depreciation in the calculation.

Lastly, the income capitalization approach answers how much the property is worth when it can produce rental income.

This is usually the method investors use. Let’s say the property would rent out for $1,000 per month.

Investors typically have an annual gross interest rate they aim to get with the properties they invest in.

So if this number is 10%, these investors will appraise the property at $1000 x 12 months divided by 10% minus repairs.

If a 500 square feet house needs a lot of repairs, they will price it at $112,500 ($120,000 minus $7,500 (500 square feet x $15)).

They often estimate $5 for no repairs, $10 for minor repairs, or $15 for major repairs per square foot.

You could use all three and arrive at a price range. But ideally, you already know your primary buyer type and use the most suited method.

In the case of a fixer-upper, you will likely attract investors. Hence the income capitalization approach would more often be applied.

The whole purpose of this exercise is that you know beforehand how low you are willing to go with the price.

8) The First Offer Won’t Be Necessarily the Best One

The first three weeks you have a (fixer-upper) house on the market are typically the most active ones. (source)

This presents a little dilemma and conflicting goals when you want to sell a fixer-upper fast.

Why?

If you want to sell fast, you want to take advantage of these first and most active weeks in terms of offers you may receive, and don’t wait too long until you accept one of these offers.

On the other hand, you don’t want to act too fast and accept the first offer you get right away, which may be beaten by a better offer you get a little bit later.

So it’s a bit of an art to finding the middle ground here so you can sell fairly fast, but don’t accept a lowball offer right at the start just to sell fast.

Therefore it’s essential you know how low you want to go, as already previously mentioned.

9) Facilitate Attaining Renovation Loans

You might increase the response rate and/or conversion rate, at least for deal hunters (but not limited to them), if you can facilitate attaining renovation loans.

When getting a renovation loan, a fixer-upper buyer can get approved for a higher loan instead of buying the house and paying for the renovation.

They then get the approved funds in different phases to pay for larger renovations.

This can happen if their credit score checks out, and they can put some money down.

Additionally, the renovation needs to get approved by a representative or consultant of the mortgage company.

So by doing that, you could include a phrase, such as “Renovation loans available at attractive conditions,” in your ad copy or property description.
It depends on which marketing channels you will use.

This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.