I Bought 2 Churches

I always assumed everyday people couldn’t just "buy" a church. Growing up, I viewed them as spaces too sacred to transact. That illusion ended in 2019 when I found this failing indoor flea market. From the outside, it still looked like a church. The moment I stepped inside, however, I realized it was going to take an act of God to clean this place out.

Every single corner, including a massive lower level, was buried under mountains of hoarded junk. To make matters worse, the basement had suffered severe flooding. Imagine piles of completely waterlogged items rotting with mold—plus the occasional rat scurrying through the debris.

With the building's mechanical systems entirely broken, it turned into one of the hottest, heaviest, and steamiest haul-out jobs I've ever taken on.

After weeks of toiling, I teamed up with a local church in search of a new location. We restored this once hoarded building into a respectable place of worship.

I attended the first service and was delighted to see the space being used for its original purpose. Years later I sold the building to a new landlord who continued to rent this space to the church and still does last I checked.

My 2nd church purchase was much more recent.

Last year one of my private money clients told me about this great opportunity to renovate an abandoned church in Alabama into a spacious single family home. I decided to take the leap and bought my second church!

Can you imagine this being your living room?

The tricky part here is that it's near a graveyard, so we had to really think about that from a renovation cost standpoint. With some essentials like a nice kitchen and some additional creature comforts, this home is now listed on the market for sale!

The piano is one of the only remaining original items in the church. Removing an old piano can be expensive. My Dad used to own a piano store and I grew up doing all kinds of backbreaking deliveries with him.

Another plus is this spacious kitchen, this is where a lot of the renovation money was spent. I could overlook the graveyard to have this much space to do meal prep.

I have included a link to the listing because this nearly 4k square foot 3br 2ba property is listed at only $155,000 https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/220-Burgett-Rd-Altoona-AL-35952/450540098_zpid/

Would you trade your current living situation for your own personal 155k church-home in rural Alabama? Follow along for more occasional windows into my world.