I bought a cross-lease property on Chatham Ave for $86,000 — one house, one title, on a section large enough to carry more. Rather than treat it as a single buy-and-sell, I split the project into two.
First, the existing house. I renovated it and sold it for $86,000 — recovering the full purchase price before anything else happened. That's the number most people would have stopped at.
Second, the section behind it, valued at $32,000 once separated out. I built a second house there for $75,000 and sold it for $105,000.
Two properties. Two sales. One purchase.
The numbers
| Purchase (whole site) | −$86,000 |
| Sell renovated front house | +$86,000 |
| Build cost, rear house | −$75,000 |
| Sell rear house | +$105,000 |
| Net result | +$30,000 |
The renovation is the part worth pausing on. Selling the front house for exactly what I paid for the whole property only works — and only makes sense — because the renovation lifted its value to cover the purchase price on its own. Without that uplift, the numbers don't clear and the section isn't really "free." The renovation is what turned the retained section into pure upside rather than a cost I was carrying.