We bought this 160 year old uptown house in New Orleans

We bought this 160 year old property in Uptown New Orleans. The way we bought this isn’t typical and it has a very personal backstory. The house is in great condition, the owners did a gut renovation about 5 years ago. They had been AirBnB’ing and renting it out as they lived in Chicago. The burden of managing the property was getting hard as they had busy lives in Chicago and they were concerned about making the note payments if they were to lose the tenants. They could have sold through a realtor but since this is a $700,000 property, the realtor commissions would have been significant and it may have stayed on the market for a long time.

The twist to this story is that our founder Steve Keighery and his family were leasing the property at the time. They had originally taken a 5 month AirBnB on it when they first came to New Orleans for a vacation. When they figured out that they wanted to live in New Orleans for good they had leased out the property. After a couple of lease renewals they were going to buy a house of their own but started speaking to the owners and figured out they were concerned about they would do with the property once they left. Steve’s experience of solving homeowners problems kicked in and they ended up doing a lease option purchase where Steve and his family would continue paying rent for 2 years but take over responsibility of the maintenance of the property. Some of the rent would count as equity and the sale price to be executed in 2 years was agreed. This was a win-win as the owner avoided expensive realtor commissions and a long time on market when they would be getting no rent. They locked in the cash flow from the lease payments over the next 2 years and no longer had to worry about the maintenance of the property. For Steve it was great to lock up the property his family had been living in without locking up all that cash so it can be deployed into other income producing properties. This is quite a sentimental property for Steve, as his family went from moving into a AirBnB for a vacation to actually owning and still living in the property years later.

While Steve generally won’t lease your home for his family before he buys it, he does love to problem solve and come up with win-win solutions for property owners who want to sell. If you are thinking of selling a house in the Greater New Orleans then reach out to Steve and see if he has a good solution for you.

Watch the video of Steve talking about the house or read the video transcript below…

Common Seller Questions Answered in This Video:

Q: Do you buy historic or really old houses?
A: Yes! We regularly purchase 100+ year-old homes that need major work.

Q: What if my home has outdated electrical, plumbing, or structural issues?
A: That’s totally fine. We buy houses in any condition and take on the repairs ourselves.

Q: Will I have to fix anything or deal with inspections?
A: No. We buy properties as-is—no repairs, no clean-up, and no hassle.

Hey guys, Aussie Steve here from Home Buyer Louisiana. I’m here at a property that we bought in Uptown New Orleans. It’s a bit of a different property than we normally buy, and it’s got an interesting story behind it.

You can see it’s a really nice property — actually about 160 years old — and it’s in good condition now. It was in bad condition a couple of years ago, but the previous owner did a full rehab between 2014 and 2016. The builders at the time actually recommended they knock down the property, but the owners really didn’t want to do that. They wanted to restore it.

You might be able to see some of the original features — like the original staircase and brickwork. There’s a lot of beautiful craftsmanship in the property. After restoring it, the owners moved to Chicago and started using it as an Airbnb. But then the laws around short-term rentals changed, so they transitioned to leasing it.

Managing it from Chicago became hard. One of the owners became a resident doctor and their hours got crazy, so they couldn’t really keep up with vacancies and maintenance.

So we ended up purchasing it — but here’s the twist: we were actually the tenants! When we first came to New Orleans, we stayed in this house as an Airbnb. Our original plan was just to stay in New Orleans for five months. I had sold a business back in Australia and we were taking some time off. New Orleans is our favorite city.

A couple of months in, we realized this was a city we wanted to live in permanently. So at the end of our Airbnb stay, we signed a lease on the property and renewed it a couple of times. Eventually, we started looking to buy and negotiated with the owners to purchase it. Since we were already paying rent, we set up a lease-to-own agreement. That worked really well for the sellers because we took over maintenance responsibilities and our rent payments counted toward the equity. We had a set period where we would close on the sale.

It’s a bit of a different story — not the traditional way we buy properties, since we started as tenants. But I thought I’d share that with you.

We buy properties all over New Orleans — whether you’re in Jefferson Parish, Orleans Parish, St. Bernard, or St. Tammany. And while this house is in great condition, a lot of the properties we buy need work, have code violations, or are in financial distress. Sometimes people are upside down on their mortgage, and we can take over the payments and help them move on.

So if you’re thinking about selling your house, head over to HomeBuyerLouisiana.com. We’d love to chat with you about your options. Whether we end up buying it or not, we’re always happy to have a conversation and see how we can help.

Thanks very much!

Let us know if you are selling a house in Louisiana

If you know anyone looking to sell your house fast in Louisiana let them know we are buying. We buy houses all over Louisiana but have a particular emphasis on Greater New Orleans,  Metairie, The Westbank, The Northshore, Baton Rouge, Lafayette  and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. If you are selling a house in those areas reach out to us for an obligation free cash offer on our house.