Bought a Tired Landlord’s Property on MLK Blvd in Lexington and Rebuilt It From the Foundation Up
A Landlord in Over His Head
When Marty reached out to me through our website in the spring of 2019, he was done. He owned a rental property at the north end of Martin Luther King Boulevard in Lexington, and the situation had gotten away from him.
The property was a 1920s shotgun-style home in the Northside District, just east of downtown. Marty had been landlording it for years, but the house had reached a point where the maintenance was more than he could keep up with. The tenant had been there a long time, and over the years, every room in the house had filled up with furniture, personal belongings, and the kind of accumulation that happens when nobody is checking in.
Marty was not looking for a complicated process. Cleaning the house out was not on the table. Neither was hiring contractors or listing it on the MLS and waiting months for a buyer who might walk away after seeing the inside. He wanted someone to take it off his hands and give him a fair price for it.
That is exactly what we do.
The Property: A 1920s Shotgun Home Packed to the Ceiling
I drove out to Lexington to see the property in person. Walking through the front door, the first thing I noticed was that you could barely walk through. Every room, floor to ceiling, was full. Furniture, boxes, personal items stacked on top of each other. You had to turn sideways to move through parts of the house.
Behind all of that, the house itself was in rough shape. The foundation had settled unevenly, so the floors sloped. The electrical system was original and outdated. The plumbing was failing. The roof had three layers of shingles stacked on top of each other, which is about two layers more than any roof should carry. Years of deferred maintenance had compounded into a property that needed everything.
But I also saw something else. The Northside District in Lexington is one of those areas with real history and real potential. The houses on this stretch were built in an era when craftsmanship was different. The bones were there, buried under decades of neglect. I knew what this house could become with the right investment.
What I Offered Marty
I sat down with Marty and gave him a straightforward cash offer for the property in its current condition. Everything included. The belongings filling every room, the failing systems, the foundation problems. All of it was our responsibility after closing.
No repairs. No cleaning. No inspection. I walked him through how our process works and told him we could close as soon as the title work was clear.
Marty was thrilled with the number. You could see it in his face. This was a property that had been weighing on him, and he was finally going to be free of it. We closed through Bluegrass Land Title in Lexington in about three weeks, all cash, and Marty walked away without looking back.
On closing day, the relief was visible. He shook my hand and you could tell that a weight had been lifted. That is the part of this work I never get tired of.
What We Found When We Started the Renovation
After closing, the real work began. It took six full dumpsters to clear out the personal belongings and demolition debris. Once the house was empty, we could finally see the full picture, and it was worse than what we could assess during the walkthrough.
We tore out every wall. We dug out the foundation and reinstalled piers to level the floor. We ran brand new electrical throughout the entire house. New plumbing from the ground up. New drywall, new flooring, new everything. We pulled three layers of shingles off the roof. We opened up walls to create an open concept living area and kitchen, and added a second bathroom as a master suite.
We invested over $100,000 in the renovation, turning a house that was barely standing into a home someone would be proud to live in.
The Lexington Building Code That Changed Everything
Here is something I will always remember about this project. The houses on this stretch of MLK Boulevard were built before modern building codes existed. They sit inches from each other, property line to property line. That is just how homes were built in 1920.
Modern Lexington codes require setbacks from neighboring properties. If we had demolished the house and rebuilt from scratch, the new structure would have been subject to current codes, meaning we would have had to pull the walls in from the property lines. The house would have been smaller.
So instead of tearing the whole thing down, we demolished one exterior wall at a time and rebuilt it in place. We kept the original footprint alive while replacing every piece of the structure. There was a point about midway through the project where I stood in the middle of the house and could see straight out through three exterior walls. The house was essentially a skeleton held up by temporary bracing. It is still amazing to me that the structure stayed standing through that process.
That is the kind of problem-solving you only learn by doing the work. And it is why we were looking for a project in this part of Lexington in the first place. We saw the potential in the neighborhood, and we knew how to get there.
The Finished Product
The property sold in 2020 for $200,000. It went from a house that was falling apart, packed with belongings, and draining its owner, to a fully renovated home with new everything: kitchen, bathrooms, electrical, plumbing, foundation, roof, and an open floor plan that honored the original character of the neighborhood.
This is what we do. We buy properties that other buyers walk away from, and we put the work in to bring them back.
What Marty Had to Say
“They made the process to sell my house simple and fast. A lot of people looked at the property and they offered the highest price of anyone I talked to”
Marty, Lexington Seller
Read more seller experiences on our reviews page.
Property Details
| Neighborhood | Northside District, Lexington, KY |
| Bedrooms | 3 |
| Bathrooms | 2 |
| Square Feet | 1,369 |
| Year Built | 1920 |
| Situation | Tired landlord, property in severe disrepair, hoarding |
| Days to Close | ~21 days (approximately 3 weeks) |
| How He Found Us | Our website |
Tired of Managing a Rental Property in Lexington?
Marty’s situation is more common than most people think. A rental property that started as an investment turns into a burden. The maintenance piles up, the tenants are not taking care of the place, and one day you realize you are losing money and time on something that was supposed to be an asset.
If you own a rental property in Fayette County that you are ready to walk away from, give me a call. I will make you a fair cash offer, buy it in any condition, and close on your timeline. No cleaning, no repairs, no listing. Just a straightforward sale.
Call me at (502) 849-5950 or fill out our quick form. I will get back to you within a day.
