With little action on the market, I pretty much combed through ever available single family property available for sale with nothing jumping out to me. I then tweaked my search criteria to pull in multi-family homes and found a new batch of interesting old houses. I got the idea to check out some duplexes and see if those could be converted to single families.

First up was an early 1900s duplex that was split right down the middle - two entry doors right next to each other, 2 stairways up to the second floor and a wall separating the middle of the unit. The house was all original inside with a kitchen straight out of the 1940s or 50s. I thought the house had potential due to the original materials, and the price was very low, but after inspecting the place, I couldn't imagine converting it into a single family without major surgery to it. The way the interior was set up, it seemed like the house was designed as a twin rather than someone later chopping the place up. I didn't want to take something original and rip it out to suit my needs, but I also don't want a twin. Many of the homes in Wildwood are set up for multi-family because rentals are the bread and butter of the town.

The second house was built in late 20s/early 30s. It was split upstairs and downstairs, so it was easier to envision restoring this back to a single, but as a multi-family it looked like it sustained years of abuse renting to people.

There was a lot of wear and tear on the place from tenants and the interior was pretty much trashed. The house just felt abused and worn down. Sadly this happened to lots of Wildwood houses where the place is rented out to either drug addicts or rowdy teenagers looking for summer fun.

So after seeing the 2 duplexes I scratched both off my list of potential homes.