Couple bought an abandoned house in Vancouver for a $1.5 million, has spent over $250,000 renovating so far—take a look inside

CNBC

a day ago

In 2023, Nick Volkov came across a listing for a property in Vancouver, British Columbia, and knew immediately that he had to show his girlfriend, Jenna.
Though the listing shared photos of just the exterior and described the house as a "tear-down," the 28-year-old program manager tells CNBC Make It that what stood out the most was that the property was priced much lower than those in the surrounding area.
Plus, it had a view of the water, and wasn't your standard modern home.
Jenna Phipps, a 29-year-old content creator, says she fell in love, but wanted to get out to see the house in person as soon as possible.
"There was a reason they didn't show photos of the inside," she says.
The Vancouver property is a 2,757-square-foot single-family home, built in 1961. It had three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a pool, and sits on 0.30 acres.
The house was so dilapidated that the realtor asked the couple to sign a waiver before going inside.
"You can really see this property had not been cared for at all," Volkov says. "There was a really musty smell with the old furniture and old things in there."
Still, the couple were able to find some beauty in the space. "The architecture showed through all of that. You could see what it was in its former days," Volkov says.
"Even with it falling apart, it was still really pretty."
The couple made an offer of $2.1 million CAD — $1,525,923 USD at the time — and it was accepted. They closed on the property in January 2024.
"People were very shocked at how we were able to get that price, especially in that area," Phipps says. "We kind of bought the worst thing in a great neighborhood."
The median list price of homes in Vancouver was $1,578,540 in March 2024, according to Houseful, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Canada.
The property's rundown condition meant Volkov and Phipps were unable to obtain a traditional mortgage and had to apply for a private two-year loan instead. They split the 20% down payment evenly.
When Phipps and Volkov took possession of the house, it had been empty for four years and was deteriorating. The seller lived several hours away and would rarely visit.
"It was in a state that probably no one should have lived there," Phipps says.
When the couple closed on the house in 2024, their first order of business was clearing it out.
They had hopes of preserving some of the structure's original features, like the wood paneling, but ended up having to take the house down to the studs. There was extensive water damage and mold that had grown over the years that the house was abandoned.
That summer, Volkov and Phipps worked to get rid of the roof, windows, ducting, and electrical. In October, the couple hired contractors to help rebuild the roof and frame of the house.
"We're pretty much at the stage where it feels like a real home," she says.
The couple did most of the work on their new home themselves. They would work six days at the house from 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. while documenting the journey for Phipps' YouTube channel. On Sundays, they would spend most of the day working on content creation.
"We work really hard because we want to keep showing videos and showing a process to everyone," Phipps says. "Having that support from so many people cheering us on, I think that was great accountability, too."
Phipps says the renovation process has been hard, but even just getting windows installed helped them picture what life will be like once they can finally move in.
"For a while over the winter, it was mentally challenging and now we're finally at that exciting stage where we actually see it. I think we're finally enjoying all this hard work we put in."
The couple will pay homage to the original space by having some of the wood paneling details restored.
"We look at the home and we're like 'Wow, this is beautiful.' We have the exact same home but just a new form. We pretty much recreated it," Phipps says.
Volkov and Phipps are planning to replicate some of the original furniture that came with the sale of the house, but that they had to get rid of. They also modified the floor plan slightly to make the house a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom, and kept the exterior the same.
The couple had an initial budget of $220,792 USD with a max limit of $294,389. They've since gone over budget and had to readjust.
Phipps says they've already spent over $257,590 and is hoping to stay at or under $441,583 going forward.
"We chose to go over budget because we're going the extra mile to have a better quality home," she says. "It's obviously not the greatest thing to see higher bills come in, but we're so invested in this project. It's an investment and that's how we're looking at it."
The couple plans to transition to a traditional mortgage next January.
"We're hoping that it will be at that livable standard so we can get it reevaluated with a traditional bank," Phipps says. "We would love to move in by the end of the year, so we're working very hard to try to still get to that goal."
Phipps knew from the very beginning that once it became theirs's, she didn't want to ever sell the house. Now that they've put in a year's worth of work, she's even more adamant about that.
"I don't think there would ever be a price tag out there that I would be able to sell it for or at least not anytime soon," she says. "I really want to enjoy the home."
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