Homer contractor, Realtor has 'flipped' more than 30 houses

HOMER — With nearly 30 houses purchased, renovated and resold under his belt, it is no wonder people call Darian O'Dell "the house guy."

"It's all houses all the time," said O'Dell, a contractor and Realtor, referring to The Learning Channel show "Flip That House." "There's houses that need to be flipped everywhere."
O'Dell refers to the houses he rehabilitates as "fixers and flippers," but the similarity of his work to that done on the show ends there. It would be like comparing a lipstick job to a Mary Kay makeover.

"They don't do the extent that we do," the 38-year-old O'Dell said. "We gut them down to the studs, rearrange rooms (and) layouts and put absolutely everything new in them."

O'Dell earned a Bachelor of Science degree in management with a minor in marketing from Central Michigan University. The construction bug bit him after he purchased his first home and remodeled it to meet his family's needs. He tore out an old garage in back of the house, built on a new one and doubled the living space.

"I do enjoy saving houses," said O'Dell, who is married with two children. "This is what got me started: doing one myself."

At that time, eight years ago, he was working in the retail sector and thinking about how Americans make money. The only thing that seemed attainable to him was real estate.

So he bought his first sale property, he said, and it "seemed like we worked all our free weekends and nights" fixing the place up. The work took a year that way, but after he saw the profit that could be made, he ditched the retail work.

"I quit my job the Friday before Sept. 11 and when all that went down, I wondered why I quit my job," O'Dell said.

"Then, of course, one thing leads to another," he said,
smiling.

He initially became licensed as a contractor and started Hired Hands Construction. Then, three years ago, he was licensed as a Realtor. He became a broker in November and opened Spotlight Realty.

The work suits him better, O'Dell said, since he likes to live casually — wearing shorts 24 hours a day, year-round. Now he is becoming just as busy a Realtor as he is with the construction work.

"It all kind of breeds one another," he said.

O'Dell's teams operate concurrently. One team is working on a duplex on Leigh Street — which they will convert to a single-family dwelling — while another team recently finished and sold a house on Adams Street.

He will buy "pretty much any house that doesn't have pest damage or structural trouble." The houses have been varied but seem to have two things in common, O'Dell said.

"There's always a pink room in every house we buy ... (and) they're all ugly, always," he said.

Julie Yeider, a teacher in the Homer district, bought the Adams Street house, eyeing it as a potential dwelling for her family of five while it was still being worked on.

"We walked through it and fell in love with it," Jack Yeider, her husband, said.

The 2,600-square-foot house has five bedrooms; two large baths; new electric wiring, heating, kitchens, baths, siding, roofing and flooring; and a main floor laundry. Counters in the kitchen and bathroom are granite, and the walls are painted "the color of money," a shade O'Dell has custom-made for his houses.

"We really like what he did to the house," said Jack Yeider. "He definitely picks things that just about everybody should like."

O'Dell, who also is vice president of the Homer Area Chamber of Commerce, works primarily in the Homer area, where he grew up and still lives. He has rehabilitated some houses in Litchfield and Marshall, and has done some commercial and fire restoration.

The houses take around three months and up to $60,000 to turn around, and quite a bit of the material is recycled or put on the curb for others to haul off free.

O'Dell is an energetic and capable person, Village President Chris Miller said.

"We think he's doing a very fine job, exactly what the village needs, and we wish him all the success in the world," Miller said.

The houses bring in new families — benefitting area schools — and the property is put on the tax rolls at a higher tax base. The neighborhood is usually improved significantly because it seems to spur neighbors to clean up their properties, O'Dell said.

"We funnel the money back in locally as much as we can," O'Dell said. "Everybody wins is what I like."

Kathryn Hemenway is a freelance writer.