How Daniela Bought Her First Fixer-Upper at 21 | First-Time Homebuyer Tips

How does a 21-year-old buy her first home, and then spend nearly two years transforming a fixer-upper?

Daniela Gonzalez did exactly that.

In this interview, Daniela shares the real story behind buying her first home, how she prepared financially, why she chose a fixer-upper, and what she learned from nearly two years of renovations.

Her renovation journey has attracted millions of views online, but the story behind the house may be even more interesting.

Daniela didn't have a huge income or wealthy parents. Instead, she created a financial plan, saved approximately $20,000 over two years, took on additional work, and ultimately purchased her home using a conventional loan with approximately 3–5% down. She also received an $8,000 first-time homebuyer grant.

📺 In This Interview:

00:00 - How Daniela bought a fixer-upper at 21
02:00 - How did she actually afford a house at such a young age?
04:00 - How she saved approximately $20,000 in two years
06:00 - Why she chose a fixer-upper
08:00 - Three lessons from nearly two years of renovations
10:00 - Why buyers shouldn't only look at Zillow
12:00 - The renovation savings—and working with her dad

🤝 Connect with our guest, Daniela

→ TikTok: @_danielaagonzalezz
→ Instagram: @_danielaagonzalezz

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Transcript

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0:00

welcome back I'm Tim Jones with foreclosure.com buying a home today feels impossible for many young Americans the average first time home buyer is around 40 years old but today's guest bought a fixer upper at just 21 years old since then millions of people have watched her renovation journey online today we're talking about how Daniela Gonzalez actually did it what she wishes she had known and why buying a fixer upper might still be one of the best paths to home ownership today Daniela thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me absolutely thanks for having me I'm so excited we're excited to have you so let's let's dive in okay let's do it alright I get this question a lot um before I answer Fixer Upper I'll I'll actually answer what because when I was actually searching for houses you know interest rates were through the roof and I was just like everybody else I was gonna wait till interest rates went down and it's funny because now I have a friend that bought a house four years before me and we have the same interest rate so so it didn't it didn't it didn't matter how much time I waited the interest rates were the same so I think that people need to focus a little bit less on interest rates and just buy the house you know they say um so I I married a fixer upper and believe it or not I actually didn't plan to so I'll give you a little backstory when I decided to start my home search journey I actually looked at three houses in one day with my realtor and one of those three I ended up submitting an offer on and it was this one and I got it and this doesn't happen often that you only submit one offer and you get approved but that's great sometimes when you know you know right so your videos have reached millions of people and you know I know they're still waiting for the next the next the next video to come out seems like that's the question you keep getting but other than that what's the one question people keep asking you over and over again yeah besides when am I gonna post the next video it's uh I mean all the time every almost every day I get asked that question yeah I get that mm hmm and and so so what I know I know you mentioned interest rates but what was the something that surprised you about the beginning getting the process started yeah that's a that's a good question I have a couple thoughts but I'll spare you the time I think uh two things that I think people misunderstand when buying their first home is being a first time home buyer comes a lot of perks especially if you do an FHA loan it allows you to put no money down but if you wanna save you know the additional m I P the mortgage insurance Protection if you just wanna save some cost there you can always go conventional which is actually the route that I went so when I bought my home I bought conventional and I didn't have to put 20% down which is what most people think yeah I ended up putting I think 3 or 5% down OK even with going with a conventional loan I actually got granted $8,000 for being a first time home buyer wow and that actually brings me to my second point which is yeah a lot of people don't want to do that because they can do the research themselves you know go on Zillow foreclosure.com and look at houses and just you know make an offer on their own but my realtor and I'll shout out Eddie Lopez he's awesome he got me a new roof new water heater an entire replumb and he was kind enough to split his commission with me as a closing gift wow and because of all of that my house was actually appraised 30K over before the entire remodel so not only did I get a bunch of free stuff but then I also walked in with equity that's amazing that's great yeah I mean most people assume you have to have wealthy parents or a huge down payment is so I know you mentioned 3.5% and I know you have another job other than your your recent TikTok fame but uh yeah I mean at your age it's it's it's incredible accomplishment so can you other people that are trying to do that any tricks and tips you can share yeah yeah um and it's funny when people ask that I feel like they they think I have like a magic secret uh answer but I I don't have huge income well I didn't have huge income at the time and I don't have wealthy parents so when I knew that I wanted to make buying a home a goal I actually sat down with my financial advisor and we created a plan for it which funny story when I after we did the math you know we sat down how much we're gonna need to save and you know the time horizon that we had she told me it was gonna be impossible to buy a house in two years okay and so I asked her I said okay well how much money do am I gonna need she gave me the number the next day I went to my boss and I sat down with her and you know they really say that your network is your net worth and that's so true because of the ecosystem that I had around me I sat down with my boss and I told her my ambitious goal and my annual review was actually coming up and she supported me through and through and she actually gave me a little bit of a raise but then on top of that I actually started doing freelance marketing work I even picked up dog sitting for additional income because I treated every extra dollar that I made as money that just didn't exist so I lived completely off of my paycheck and my advisor would take $500 from my account every single month I didn't even know when it would withdraw at that point but I would throw that into my savings account and then whatever additional income that I made that month I would just throw that in there too so two years later I had just about I say like around $20,000 saved up wow that's great yeah that's ambitious I I don't think uh many people at your age are thinking quite like that so that's that's great you know yeah kind of sacrificing what you know that immediate gratification for for your future you know well being so that's that's very impressive I definitely wasn't thinking like that at 21 so good job thanks you could have waited for a move in ready home you're right I could have waited my financial advisor would have said the same thing yeah but just like what I said earlier God's plans are always greater than your own not many people know this but the house that I actually bought it's actually the same exact layout as my aunt's home which is one of the homes that I grew up in she still has it till this day and when I took my dad with me to look at the houses and one of I I mean immediately when we walked in we just looked at each other and we were like no way because it was we just felt like we just stepped into my aunt's house and it's crazy because she lives over 20 miles away 30 minutes away from this property and it just so happened to be the same builder I guess you know at the time but he actually knew before me my dad actually knew before me that I was gonna buy it because he looked around and you know he inspected he did his thing and he warned me that it was gonna be a lot of work and I just sat there in my thoughts and he could tell what I was thinking and he said you want this one don't you and I smiled and I said yes and at that moment I knew that I was gonna buy a a fixer upper and it was the right decision for me yeah that's great I'm not sure everybody gets a you know I'm I'm assuming that your aunt had put a little work into it so you could see what the you know the the process might look like at the after repair you know so that that's great that's important I think a lot of people think that they're just getting ready to move into the perfect home but they don't realize that sometimes in today's economy and just you know overall there are definitely other options out there and putting a little sweat equity into a project you know might turn out be your best interest so yeah see it's been a little journey now you spent close to what two years renovating at this point yup if you can go if you can go back only three I have so many but well they want the rest yeah I'd say maybe the first thing is that well I guess the biggest lesson I Learned was that sometimes you know you're already spending so much money when you're doing a fixer upper that there are so many projects that my dad and I convinced ourselves that we were going to do and most of them we did we did it but we definitely would have saved a heck of a lot of time and energy if we would have just hired someone and sometimes the labor is is worth the money you know yeah so I would say that but secondly I would say don't well unless you have a heck of a lot of patience and a small amount of clothes because living in your remodel is a nightmare I didn't have a kitchen for over a year wow and I had to cook outside and then and you know Florida when it rains then we just don't eat we had to eat we had to eat out a lot um and it was it was just it was just a pain so you know I'm sure not everyone is as crazy as I am and is and is gonna destroy the whole thing at the same time but whether it's a kitchen a bathroom a room I'd say just mentally prepare for the adjustment because it's more of a mental game you know you're stepping out of your your routine just for a couple of months to you know make your kitchen or your house look prettier but and then lastly I'd say just kind of to my point earlier about you know the whole realtor thing so not everybody has a dad like mine but whoever you're planning whoever you trust to do that is gonna do that the work on whatever house that you buy definitely bring them along the appraisal will tell you the value of your property but your contractor will tell you how much it's gonna cost you and that that will give you a clear picture of if it's even worth it wow because my dad whenever he was walking the house he actually was kind of calculating things in his head you know just taking into a a factor you know all of the little things that I don't see you know I walk in the house and I'm like oh my God this is gonna be great but then you know your contractor somebody that's more experienced is catching those things that you know just just the the human eye doesn't see and I'd say having a contractor will definitely save you a lot of time and a lot of money OK that's great and it's it's funny you say that cause I've talked to a lot of professionals that do this for a living and they always say to have your team ready before you start so I think that that's a great uh a great point you know so you touched on this a little bit earlier but many buyers spend months looking on Zillow and Realtor without realizing there are other places to search if someone wanted to find a home with potential like yours today yeah so Zillow is obviously a great place you know but what I've come to realize is that not everything gets posted on Zillow so you know I was lucky to find this home right place right time you know but these quality fixer uppers at a decent price are really hard to find on Zillow and they I mean they just get bought up super quick by investors on Zillow yeah you know so which is actually why I'm so glad that we met and I Learned more about foreclosure.com because I I would have loved to have this resource when I started looking for my house just foreclosures.com has so many options to I I just thought I mean when you read foreclosure.com you just think it's houses on foreclosure but you know you guys have the just to buy just rent to own even city own properties that's I mean that's huge opportunity for people and I just think that having somewhere where you can just browse through these properties and you don't have to kind of go on a scavenger hunt all around the internet is just saves you so much time and also you know when when when people say they wanna buy you know just saying hey I wanna buy in Florida it's kind of like shooting darts with your eyes closed you know besides knowing what neighborhood the school district property taxes yada yada yada I think that knowing why the seller is selling gives you the upper hand hmm that's a great point which is my favorite feature on foreclosure.com by the way is the fact that you can look at the public records because this is something I do anyways but I would have to you know kind of go around town and search a different websites and go to Facebook and then then searching people's to figure out you know why they're selling or who they are because I mean I'll spare you the details but the sellers of my property were actually trying to get out of the property really quick so they disagreed with almost everything that we were asking for and and we got it so knowing why the seller is selling their home definitely gives you the upper hand yeah no 100% and that's something um you know we really pride ourselves on is is saving time right um trying to bring all of these and you know we obviously uh advise people to have a licensed professional whether it's a contractor or a realtor to help you through the process but you know I think we try to focus on all of the different distressed listing types so that you can kind of get a picture of what's going on in the area and to start your due diligence so no thank you so much for that we appreciate the shout out so so you mentioned this a little again earlier you know DIY versus hiring do it yourself versus hiring your dad had a you know a major play in this yeah you know um fixer upper doing so much work between the two of you guys man I wish I asked him this question he would definitely know but the labor yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah cause you know we've just been paying for material cost and then some things like the fence and the and the roof you know we we obviously paid for but I don't know exact numbers but if I had to guess I would definitely say over 50 k wow maybe close to 100 wow so far just insane I mean saved saved for sure saved for sure so almost you know at least doubling your budget oh for sure for sure yeah yeah yeah but well so I stopped counting because it just hurt I don't wanna know anymore it just hurt you know how much I'm actually spending and I think the last time we did the calculations I think I was like at 40K and this was like beginning of this year so I mean just trying to look at that as like doubling that for you know just labor cost I would say around that range but yeah that's I would also say yeah I would also say you know talking about my dad besides the money that you know I've saved I think that the most valuable thing is the relationship that I've built with my father hmm because I think that nothing whether it's a spouse or a family member I think that nothing puts your relationship to the test like building a house from scratch OK and you know just overall I think that growing up we often forget to be grateful for our family because they're always there and familiarity can make a blessing feel ordinary and we worry so much about what god does or doesn't do in our life but if we just take a second to just look around our friends and family there's a lot well there's not a lot of people whose father can build them a home one or whose father is even alive that's something that I also got in my comment section a lot and I just say I mean I just have to shout out my dad he's awesome and I'll always be grateful for my dad's selflessness during this entire project because he helped me build a home completely for free not because he had to but because he wanted to and I'd say that the purest form of love is sacrifice without expectation wow that's wonderful well I hope your dad is watching this I'm sure he's proud but I hope so too no that's great well we're we're just about out of time um but before we head out I have one more question imagine someone's watching this interview they've convinced themselves that they'll they'll never own a home what's one piece of advice you'd leave them with today they'll never they think they'll never own a home yeah they just they never they can never imagine themselves owning a home right they think they're priced out affordability um you know what's what's one piece of advice you'd leave them with a little bit of hope I say what I say earlier God's plans are greater than your own okay well you can't disagree with that so Daniel thank you so much for sharing your story with us today if today's conversation inspired you start looking for fixer uppers uh and of course transforming her home uh I'll add your TikTok handle as well again I'm Tim Jones of foreclosure.com and thank you for joining us today