A Kansas couple got a free 3-bed Dutch colonial house. Since then, they've spent $95,000 relocating
- Eddie and Julie Flores won a bid to become the new owners of a free house in Lincoln, Kansas.
- But the renovation, including moving the house miles away, has cost them $95,000 so far.
- The couple believes they've found the "forever home" where they plan to raise their three kids.
Ever wonder what it'd be like to get your dream house for free? Meet Julie and Eddie Flores, a couple who have gotten exactly that in Kansas.
Julie and Eddie Flores have always had a soft spot for older homes.
But the couple, who have been married for five years and have three children, could never in their wildest dreams have believed they'd end up owning one for a price tag of $0.
It all started for Eddie and Julie, both 32, in January 2022. At the time, the couple was happily living in Kansas City and had no plans to move elsewhere, they told Insider.
However, when they decided to visit Julie's hometown of Lincoln, Kansas, that all changed.
While visiting Julie's hometown, her parents insisted they check out a local home that had sat empty and neglected for nearly a decade.
Looks-wise, they said the outside of the 2,023-square-foot, three-bedroom Dutch colonial property wasn't much to write home about due to it being in a state of disrepair. In fact, Eddie went so far as to say the exterior appearance "was horrible."
Years of neglect had left the porch falling apart, the lime-green painted exterior chipping away, and a hole in the roof that the couple spotted squirrels going in and out of when they first arrived.
But as soon as Eddie and Julie stepped inside, they were in awe.
Originally built in 1910, the house featured beautiful hardwood floors hidden beneath carpets and a staircase that Eddie and Julie instantly fell in love with.
"It had good bones," Eddie said. "It's kind of hard to describe, but the minute we walked into the house, it was more of like, 'Wow, this could be our forever home.'"
Still, as much as they loved the house, they were happy in Kansas City and weren't planning to leave.
But as the weeks passed, the couple couldn't help being drawn back to the property. They could picture a future for themselves and their children, Lily, Drey, and Sophie, within its walls, they said.
"We kept going back and looking at it," Eddie said. "And my wife kept saying, 'Can't you just see your daughter walking down the staircase in her prom dress?'"
Soon after, Eddie and Julie heard about the possibility the house could be torn down if a new owner wasn't found within a year.
They said the home was built on land currently owned by the Lincoln County Hospital & Healthcare Foundation (LCHHF), an organization that was keen to develop the land for its own purposes.
But before doing so, the LCHHF decided to give the Lincoln Economic Development Foundation (LCEDF) one year to find the house a new owner. And as an incentive, the new owner wouldn't have to pay a single dollar for it.
In February 2022, Kelly Gourley, director of the LCEDF, set about spreading the word of Lincoln's "free house" across social media, which went viral, according to Eddie.
Although the house cost nothing, the new owner had to agree to move the entire structure to another part of Lincoln.
In order to deal with the huge volume of responses the listing had gotten, a local committee was set up to narrow down the applicants being considered, Eddie and Julie told Insider. One of the ways it did that was by establishing certain stipulations.
First of all, the new owner had to agree to keep the house within Lincoln given its historic value to the community – the property had not only been built over 100 years ago, but it was once home to one of the original mayors of the town, W.J. Grubbs, they said.
Secondly, the new owner had to agree to live in the home.
"They wanted a family to actually move in," Eddie said. "They just didn't want somebody to come in and flip it and make money off it."
Julie and Eddie decided they loved the house too much not to put themselves in the running for ownership.
Imagining the life they could lead is what finally led Julie and Eddie to apply to become the new owners.
Just a few months later, their bid was the one to be accepted. The couple employed lawyers who drew up what they described as a "bill of sale," a document that laid out in writing that they now own the home despite no money being exchanged.
"It made sure that there was a piece of paper out there somewhere that said we owned the house even though we never paid for it," Julie said.
Another reason Julie and Eddie decided to save the house is their belief in fixing things, not throwing them away.
"It was a perfectly good house to us. It just needed a little bit of TLC," Julie said.
Having grown up on a farm in Lincoln, Julie said she was taught that everything can be saved if you put enough work into it.
"I just grew up in that culture where we don't throw stuff away, we fix it," she added. "My dad, if a lamp breaks, he'll take it apart and he'll fix it. He won't go out and buy a new lamp."
And that's how she said she and Eddie approached their new home.
After the house was officially theirs, Eddie and Julie quickly got to work on renovations, such as replacing the entire roof.
Eddie and Julie started sharing their home renovation journey on Instagram and on their blog, Nursing Back to Life, in July.
One of the first changes they made and documented on social media was hiring a local company to get rid of the old roof, which they estimated to be between 15 and 40 years old judging by the state of the shingles.
Next, Julie and Eddie said they cleared the basement and ripped out the porches so that the house was ready for the big move.
After they cleared out the basement, Eddie and Julie began tearing out the front and back porches with the help of a few family members.
When that was completed, they went about patching it up so that no rain or animals could get in before the entire structure was set to be relocated.
While gutting the rest of the home, they made some pretty cool discoveries.
From dusty old playing cards and hair clips to old coins and Walmart receipts, Julie and Eddie found an assortment of interesting objects throughout the home while they were gutting it.
One of the coolest discoveries was a set of children's hand prints, left by a family that used to live there in 1973, on a slab of concrete where the garage used to be.
In the end, they said they decided to keep the slab and bring it to the new location as a way to honor the house's history.
"We just wanted to kind of bring the history and the feel that the house did have with us to the new spot," Julie said.
But there were some stomach-churning discoveries as well, such as finding a den of cockroaches in the insulation.
In a January 12 blog post published before the house move, the couple opened up about what it was like to gut the dining room and remove the plaster from the walls while hearing squirrels "frantically" trying to find an escape.
However, the squirrels ended up being the least of their worries. After tearing open the walls, they saw the insulation was "crawling" with cockroaches.
"The only saving grace was that we had discovered this very unpleasant finding on a brisk 10-degree Kansas winter day and the speed at which the cockroaches were moving could be described as glacial," the couple wrote.
But speaking to Insider, Julie did say they had braced themselves to find animals and pests lurking around the home.
"If I'm being honest, we kind of knew that that stuff was going to happen because the house has sat vacant for so long," she said.
While the couple was busy working on the house, a new basement was being built two miles away on a 3-acre plot of land they bought from Julie's father.
Building their new basement turned out to be one of the biggest challenges the couple faced in the entire process.
Initially, they decided to hire a local basement company run by an individual who made countless mistakes, according to the couple. They eventually decided to part ways with them and work with another company.
"He took the check we wrote him, and he went to California. He just literally picked up and went to another state and left all of his bills with his mom," Julie said. "That's really been the biggest hiccup."
After months of preparation, the house was ready for the big move, which took place in January.
Eddie and Julie said they hired Unruh House Moving to relocate their home for roughly $40,000.
On the day of the move, Eddie said he and Julie were inside the house wrapping up different items and areas when they suddenly felt the house shudder.
"In order for them to get the moving beams underneath the house, they actually had to knock the existing foundation in, except for four corners of the house," Eddie said. Five steel beams were then placed beneath the house, which would then be used to lift it up onto the back of the truck.
Eddie said he remembers watching the process in awe and thinking their home was literally hanging in the balance.
"It was just crazy," he said.
There were a few moments on the two-hour journey where Eddie and Julie were nervous the house was going to tip.
The new plot of land was only two miles away, but the journey to relocate the home took roughly two hours because of how slow it needed to be moved in order for everything to be safe, they said.
Julie and Eddie drove behind their house for most of the journey and nervously watched the movers maneuver it with hydraulic lifts over mailboxes and under low-hanging telephone wires.
Even though it was scary at times, Julie said they were confident the house was built to withstand the move.
"They don't make houses like that anymore," she added.
Overall, it was a "smooth ride," Eddie said. "It stayed upright the entire time. We were amazed by it."
Over the course of the big move, Julie said a "parade route" began as locals came out to watch the unique sight.
"Our house was on a parade," Julie said. "There were people all along the route and everything. It was so fun."
Now that the house has successfully been relocated, Julie and Eddie still have a lot of work to do to turn it into their forever home.
After dealing with their basement struggles and nerve-inducing relocation of their house, the biggest challenge the Flores family now face is trying to find time to finish renovations.
And it's not easy to do that when juggling three kids and Eddie's job as a traveling nurse, which he said requires him to be away for three days a week.
"We've got our kids here, and it's crazy," Julie said. "It's just really up to what we can do."
For now, they're in a house owned by Julie's parents and trying to find time to pop over to their own home to renovate it bit by bit, they said. So far they've spent around $95,000 on the house, including the $40,000 cost of moving it to its new location.
By bringing their house back to life, Julie and Eddie also hope to bring back a zest for life to the local community.
They still have a while to go to make their house a home, but Julie and Eddie believe they could have it ready to move into by Thanksgiving. "We really want to be able to spend the holidays in it this coming year," Julie said.
And although they're doing most of the renovations themselves, Julie and Eddie are also working with a few local companies for things such as installing air conditioning and electricity.
Part of the reason they've chosen to go local is that they want their home to be somewhat of a town project to help bring back a sense of pride to Lincoln, which is facing economic decline due to an aging population and a lack of innovation, they said.
"Our town is actually struggling quite a bit," Julie said. "And we want to make sure to use the platform we've been given for good."
By saving their home, Julie and Eddie believe they can also do their part to save Lincoln.
"We're trying to stick to our motto of really helping our town grow and giving the people who already live here some business," Julie said.
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