The Shotgun House

SEASON 3, EPISODE 14:

Located at 625 S 7th St, Waco, TX 76706.

If you remember this episode, the biggest issue with this house was that it needed to be moved to another location because the land was sold to a developer.  It's only 1100 sq ft...  It has a normal bedroom on the bottom, with a loft on the top. And it allows us to tell you the state of Fixer Upper houses today.

Almost 90% of all the houses you saw on the show... have been sold... or are now dedicated AIRBNB's.  Very few people live in the houses they got on the show.  And the reason... CASH.  They get on average $400 a night... they are occupied 80-100% of the time.  Simple math, they are making over $10000 a month per Fixer Upper house.  That's a great income.  That's even with 12 hotels being built in downtown Waco in the next 12 months.  There's no saturation.

It's so bad, that a few months ago... during the marathon.  There was one room left at the Motel 6.  It was going for... $250 a night.  But even more incredible, the shotgun house is currently on the market for $950,000.

And as far as the history of a shotgun house...The shotgun house plays a large role in the folklore and culture of the south.  New Orleans historian Samuel Wilson, Jr. suggested that the term "shotgun" is a reference to the idea that if all the doors are opened, a shotgun blast fired into the house from the front doorway will fly cleanly to the other end and out at the back.

Southern superstition holds that ghosts and spirits are attracted to shotgun houses because they may pass straight through them and that some houses were built with doors intentionally misaligned to deter these spirits. 

Notably, Elvis Presley was born in a shotgun house.