What does "fixer-upper" mean?

A house, property, car, or other object that needs to be fixed up or repaired, often purchased as an investment.

What is a synonym for "fixer-upper"?

Common synonyms include: doer-upperer, fix-it-upper.

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Noun

1
A house, property, car, or other object that needs to be fixed up or repaired, often purchased as an investment. US, informal
"2003, Jay P. DeCima, Investing in Fixer-Uppers: A Complete Guide to Buying Low, Fixing Smart, Adding Value, and Selling (or Renting) High, McGraw-Hill Professional, →ISBN."
2
a house or other dwelling in need of repair (usually offered for sale at a low price) wordnet
3
A potential romantic partner who may need some motivation to improve their personality or habits. broadly, informal
"Don't be seduced into a relationship with someone who seems to be a "fixer-upper." Attempts at renovating people usually fail."
4
A person who tinkers or fixes things up; in particular, someone who fixes up houses, properties, etc. as an investment. informal

"The house that Tom bought is a real fixer-upper."

From a reduplicating suffixation of fix up, equivalent to fix + -er + up + -er.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.