“Flipping houses is very popular and profitable for the right investors,” says Amy Doran, partner in the Doran Cornwall Real Estate Group with Keller Williams Advantage Realty. “The inventory is so low right now, though, that houses are hard to come by.”
A few exceptions exist in Philipsburg, where a little flipping movement is stirring.
Darla Karimushan and Ian Senior are a mother-son team who together form Karsen, LLC Construction Company. Not many parents could work alongside their children, or vice versa, day in and day out, especially on big, hands-on projects that require countless tiring hours and a lot of time together.
“What’s it like?” I ask the duo. They both laugh in harmony.
“It’s very different from our teenage relationship,” says Darla.
Ian agrees that if someone had told him when he was a teenager that a few years down the road, he’d be working alongside his mother flipping houses, he wouldn’t have believed it.
“It’s scary how much we do think alike,” Darla acknowledges. “We don’t always get there at the same time. He comes to me with ideas, and I go to him with ideas, and his are more practical.”
“Mine save me work,” Ian chimes in.
“Like the clawfoot tub,” they say almost in unison.
“I was sitting in a men’s group,” explains Ian, “and I get a picture of [my mom] sitting in a bathtub on the side of the road at 9 o’clock at night.”
“Clothed!” Darla clarifies. “In New York. I texted him, ‘Can I bring this home?’”
The tub, did, by the way, end up making it from New York to Philipsburg. It’s now a gorgeous feature in Karsen’s current project’s master bedroom.
“We have a give-take relationship,” says Darla. “I don’t think we have ever had words over anything, and we have never come to blows over anything. If one of us is really passionate about something, then we talk about it.”
Ian got his start in carpentry, and from there, he started his own contracting company. Darla specializes in restoring, repairing, and repurposing furniture—mostly country farmhouse with some primitive-style. Darla and Ian got a little taste of working together eight years ago, when Ian worked on a building that would become Darla’s store in downtown Philipsburg. Their complimentary skillsets eventually led the pair to try their hands at flipping a house in Philipsburg.
“We talked about doing a house, and the one on Ninth Street came up,” Darla remembers, “and we looked at it and talked about it, and said, ‘Let’s give this a try.’ So we did it, and it kind of whooped our butts.”
Ian was still fulfilling contracts for his company, and Darla was still running her store at the time.
“So it was three jobs for two people,” Ian recalls.
“We would work on it when we could, and we both decided that was not the way to do it,” Darla says. “You really need to set the time, fully commit, and do it.”
‘You can’t set a plan’
The first house “worked out well and sold pretty quickly.” Now, Karsen, LLC is putting the finishing touches on their second flip—a grand home on Philipsburg’s picturesque Presqueisle Street built in the 1890s by Dr. Bigelow, famous in town for his homeopathic medicines.
Ian and Darla do all the work, except HVAC, themselves. The process has been slow going, in part because Ian had other contract commitments and because getting materials has been difficult with COVID and the supply chain crisis. Nevertheless, Darla and Ian don’t seem to mind taking their time, savoring their moments together and time spent with the old homes they respectfully take into their care.
“You can’t set a plan, because it’s never going to go how you want, especially in an old house like this,” says Ian. “What you think is going to be there is never there, and what you want to not be there is always there.”
The Bigelow House, though a bigger project than Ian had in mind transitioning from the first house, fits the bill for what Karsen looks for in a flip house. “Location and money” are the main criteria.
“We always start with what the neighborhood will sell for and work backwards,” Darla says.
“As long as it has good solid bones the whole way through it,” adds Ian.
Darla is drawn to older houses, though she admits she gets more personally attached to them than her son, who often reminds her, “You’re not living here, mom.”
“I love looking the size of the old beams and thinking about what it took for somebody back in the 1890s to build it. That part of it is cool,” Darla says.
“I do enjoy working on the old houses once I get started,” says Ian. “I already know it’s going to be a major hassle, but it’s enjoyable.”
“You have to be willing to compromise,” Darla says. “If you go in with the mindset that it’s going to be this, this, and this and not be flexible, you’re in for a lot of heartache and a lot of tension. It’s your heart and head. What you want to do and what makes sense doesn’t always match.”
“Your heart and your wallet,” Ian adds.
‘Restoration flippers’
Darla and Ian call themselves “restoration flippers” because they pay attention to the house and seek to bring out its character.
“There’s a difference between flipping a house and flipping to bring the old house back,” says Ian. “I wouldn’t really say ‘flip.’ I’d say we restore a house.”
“There are certain things—you start working in the house and it just requires, it just needs something special. We didn’t have to build this,” Darla says, knocking on the custom-built window seat she and Ian installed beside the big bay windows in the Bigelow House’s kitchen.
“We didn’t have to hang that wallpaper. Or make the walls round again. It’s just those little special touches. We want the house to live up to its potential. It’s been here for so many years; I’m not going to be the one to just slap it back together so it’s liveable. I hope Dr. Bigelow’s proud. I would hope Dr. Bigelow would come in here and say, ‘I’m not sure what that sink’s for,’ but he would look at it and be proud of what it still is after so many years.”
Karsen, LLC has another property in Philipsburg purchased and awaiting their restorative touch. While Ian provides his workaday attitude, evaluating time, and costs, Darla will lend her eye for detail and décor.
“I pick the colors, and we just kind of go with the flow,” Darla says.
When it comes to paint and other fun design choices, Darla and Ian will often include several family members, passing ideas and pictures around through a text chain. At times, these projects become a family affair, as Darla’s husband, Shan, helps with landscaping, and her daughter, Aneesa, self-appointed “Employee of the Month” (for several months running) will bring delicious lunches, supply “Karsen, LLC” t-shirts, and help out when she’s able.
“We have a lot of laughs,” Darla says.
“It’s fun,” Ian, the more reserved of the pair, says with a smile and a shrug.
The laughter that is constant between Darla and Ian and the entire Karsen, LLC team is evidence of the love they have for one another and for their projects, and it shows in the quality work they do, providing someone with a future home they will love for generations to come.
Getting creative and thrifty
Eric Kelmenson, head of Reframe, LLC Construction Company, is a non-conventional flipper. His projects have largely been on the larger side: he’s completely renovated the old Hoffer Building on Front Street in downtown Philipsburg. The building, which dates from 1903, now houses eight apartment units and two commercial spaces. Across the street, Kelmenson has converted the old Taylor Hotel (from 1876) into three apartments and one spacious commercial unit on the ground floor.
“We’ve been primarily fixing up vacant historic buildings on Front Street, but we take on spillover projects to have seamless and continuous work,” Kelmenson says.
Reframe has completed two houses in Philipsburg already and has the deed to a few more that are on the to-flip list. Kelmenson says he holds onto properties and rents them or else sells them. If he doesn’t sell the properties, Kelmenson says his company “flips them to ourselves,” as buildings can be refinanced based on their new valuation once they’re renovated.
Reframe, like Karsen, LLC, has an appreciation for historic features, and the company goes out of its way to ensure that the integrity of the structures in its charge is maintained.
“We try to always repurpose things, and I think through being thrifty and not throwing away things that could be reused or repurposed, we do save a few bucks, on average,” Kelmenson says. “We try to get as creative and resourceful as possible by using and wasting less.”
Saving money has, of course, become “significantly more challenging” recently, says Kelmenson, with the “ever-increasing unpredictability and price hikes of construction materials. Pricing is all over the place.”
Kelmenson says, for instance, that pre-COVID, the sheets of plywood he was buying would be $8 or $9; now they’re $30.
“Lumber’s gone through the roof,” he adds. “And when you’re trying to provide affordable housing, it makes it hard.”
Fortunately, Reframe has not experienced the labor shortages so many other companies have struggled with.
“We have a strong team,” Kelmenson says.
Another way Reframe reduces costs in flipping projects is by taking advantage of incentive programs, such as opportunity zones and historic preservation tax credits.
“We dive in deep and do all the paperwork to manage the bureaucratic process to get reimbursements and tax savings,” Kelmenson explains.
A challenge to the process that Kelmenson says can be quite prohibitive is the process of navigating zoning and code enforcement. One real estate investor he encountered recently has been waiting three years for a permit to begin construction, spending and forfeiting thousands of dollars in the process.
“Zoning and code enforcement are obscenely cumbersome and ridiculous and tack on a ton of money and a ton of time,” Kelmenson says.
Kelmenson expects the real estate market to remain hot for the foreseeable future, barring a drastic change in interest rates. “Given the way the market is now, I’d be very careful diving in head-first, because everything is very expensive,” he says. “Maybe anticipate your first deal or two being as much a learning experience as a profit generator. Have a nice cash cushion. Don’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Sweat equity can bail you out of being otherwise over-budget.” T&G
Teresa Mull is a freelance writer who lives in Philipsburg. This article appears in the May 2022 issue of Town&Gown.
