handyman special

It's the handyman specials that fly off the market."

For wealthy bargain hunters, there are handyman specials.

"The house needs redecorating, it needs work," she said, but handyman special is not a term she would use either.

A few years ago, Ms. Ritacco said, the most popular starter homes were "handyman specials."

Despite its somewhat beat-up interior, the house wasn't one of the neighborhood's "handyman specials"; it was actually livable.

Handyman specials are rare.

To help revive its older housing stock, New Jersey is encouraging adventurous home buyers to take on "handyman specials" through a novel mortgage program.

Several hours later, after seeing all the "handyman specials" and "charming cottages" barely affordable to us, we returned home to Brooklyn disillusioned and depressed.

In Danbury, of 13 houses that would qualify, most are seasonal, and the handful that are year-round dwellings are classified as "starters," or "handyman specials."

They said that prospective buyers should check the prices that well-maintained homes in the same areas sold for recently, to determine if the investment in the handyman special would be worthwhile.

The purpose of the seminar, Mrs. Adams said, is to teach real-estate agents about the hamlet's architecture and marketing old houses as historic homes instead of handyman specials.

A decade ago, the Callicoon area was not a popular place for second-home owners, although those seeking a remote getaway at bargain prices bought "handyman specials" and fixed them up, Ms. Langley said.

Like many buyers of "handyman specials" - properties that because of their poor condition sell at prices considerably less than those of well-maintained comparable homes in the area - the Sharpes have had both headaches and satisfactions.

Allowing for renovations made when housing prices were rising in 1985 and 1986, the acting chairman of the center, Robert W. Burchell, maintains that at least 5 percent of the state's housing stock can still be classified as handyman specials.

One of the keys, Mr. Burchell said, is finding handyman specials "before they are snapped up by local renovation contractors, who buy them before they are even advertised, fix them up and either resell or rent them out."

"Modest as it is, this program helps people buy and repair so-called handyman specials, that is, homes that need a good deal of renovation and thus buildings that traditional lenders are reluctant to provide mortgages for," said Arthur J. Maurice, executive director of the agency.