Nowadays short sales are a dime a dozen, you don’t have to look too hard to find them…. but every once in awhile one will catch my eye that I really wanna buy. In order for a short sale to get me all hot and bothered it’s got to have a few key factors. First, it needs to be a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Secondly, it needs to be vacant. Thirdly, somethings happened to the house thats gonna make the bank motivated to move it, and will allow the BPO or appraisal to come in nice and low (i.e. burst pipes, hole in the roof, mold etc…).
This was the case with a house that I’ve had on my radar for the last month. This particular property was located in a great neighborhood and had excellent curb appeal. It was very similar in style and location as to our house at 42 Wexford. I pulled up an old listing sheet on the house and it said the boiler was inoperable…. sweet!! I went by the house and peaked in the windows and saw the ceilings had caved in from burst pipes in the second floor bathroom…. double sweet!!! I figured this would be a slam dunk short sale as long as I could get in touch with the owner prior to the bank taking it back. I found a PO Box for the owner in Colorado and bombarded them with letters and postcards for the last four weeks. I finally received an email today from the owner telling me that they no longer own the house and to stop contacting him. “Well” I thought to myself… “he must be mistaken”. See, I checked the registry of deeds and the house was still in his name, and while the bank did file the foreclosure notice in October, they hadn’t actually gone through with any auction. I also checked all the auction sites and the public notices and the house wasn’t in any of them for the last four months. So I replied back to the owner letting him know that while the bank did file a foreclosure notice, there has been no auction and that he still owns the house and he can still sell it…. and further…. I want to buy it from him and lets get this thing rolling!!! Well his response back crushed me. He said “I don’t know what the banks doing, but we deeded it back to them in lieu of foreclosure in December.” 🙁 DAMN….. thats the one thought I had when he initially said that he didn’t own in anymore, but a Deed in Lieu, who’s ever heard of a bank actually doing these?? I’ve been around quite few of these foreclosure situations and have never heard of a bank actually going through with a Deed in Lieu…. oh well… I guess they haven’t gotten around to recording the new deed, you know how fast these banks are. Looks like I’m gonna have to wait till it becomes an REO and bid against the 30 other investors that will be offering on it.
New House
On the deal front we just put this monster under contract to purchase:
Front of House
Eastern side of House
Western side of House
Wow, She’s a real beauty!! This beast is 6 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths and over 3,000 square feet. It needs a major renovation and its in a historic district, so we have to play by a whole new set of rules. The good thing is we bought it real, real cheap ($16,000), but the rehabs going to come with a very hefty price tag!!
We’ve got a few other rehabs finishing up that I could post about… but this is getting too long so I will save those for another day…..
Peace Out
I think you should run some of those existing colors on the new paint job. This house can hold a 6 color scheme. cool stuff.
Short sales are a real pain. I am finally closing on a short sale I’ve been working on for about three months now.
Short sales are very easy to find but NEVER go after a short sale were a foreclosure notice has already been filed. I made that mistake once. The banks always foreclose the house as your trying to do a short sale. Its very frustrating…
I am also amazed at how much work you guys get while its snowing. How do you paint in that weather, with hardener? Also.. one question.. are you running kerosene in that heater? i see a gas can next to it. Just wondering cause kero is so expensive here and I have the same heater.
Hi Tom,
Exterior painting is tough during the winter. We end up having to wait for a warm day. Usually we just vinyl side the house that way we don’t have to worry about it.
For the interior painting we use the portable heaters when we have no working heat in the house. We do run them on kerosene.
Rehabbing during the winter definetly presents some challenges…. not to mention those unheated houses just hold the cold inside.
been reading your blog for awhile now – that house is definitely a beast!! looks like it belongs in a horror movie LOL! – can’t wait to see what the budget will be for this project
Hi Eric,
A horror movie is right…. like the Bates Motel or something!!!
This is a very big house, i like the upstairs open porch. I can’t wait to see the after picture, i know it will look spectacular. Good luck!!!
Thanks Kevin.
Just started reading your blog…looks like you keep busy. And this Victorian looks awesome. Have you worked with historic homes before, and how much trouble/interference do you expect from the local historic authorities?
Hi Greg,
This will be our first historic home, but our contractor has worked on them before.
I think as long as we follow the historic comittees guidelines we should be OK.
Our city has alot of historic homes… and many of them need work. So if I like this one we may do some more of them.
This house is beautiful! New to your site and can’t wait to see the progress on this!
Hi Kim,
Welcome to the site. Keep coming back for more updates!!
Looking forward to keeping up with the progress on this one. What a beauty.
Hi Melinda,
Keep checking back in…. this one should be fun.
woooo, man. That thing is huge! It would take me 3 years to rehab that doing all the work myself. At least 150k budget right?
Hi Tom.
This ones definetly gonna take some time.
The budgets gonna be less than $150k…. thats what the house is gonna be worth once fixed.
I need some good exterior colors so I’m gonna check out some of your historic renovations for ideas.