New House Flip — Bruce St Rehab Underway

We are starting up another fun filled rehab project!!!

I’ve been after the Bruce St property for about 4 years. This house is a total piece of crap, so I don’t even know what possessed me to pursue this dump… but I was working with the owner for awhile and got no where, finally the bank took it back and we were able to buy it as an REO. The cool thing about this house, like our Fullerton St properties, is that it came with an extra building lot.

As always, this house is in need of some minor TLC. It’s not too bad, we just have to tear the roof off the house, fully gut the interior, tear out and rebuild two foundation walls, do all new mechanicals (plumbing, heating system, electrical), raise the whole second floor roof line a couple feet, install new siding and windows, etc…….. You know, your typical “paint and carpet” type rehab!!! Lol

So here are some pictures of this gem . Another Hampden Homebuyers special!!!

Bruce St Springfield MA

38 Bruce St

Side View Bruce St

Extra Lot

Bruce St Garage

Living Room

View into Dining Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

First Floor Bathroom

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2

Bedroom 3

Awesome Blue Bathroom

Blue Second Floor Bathroom

Cracking Foundation Wall

The house has been empty for over 5 years and definitely needs some sprucing up and redecorating.

The sad thing is a house in this condition no longer even phases me. Most buyers would walk into this place and want to run out screaming… or they would walk through and get very depressed, thinking how could someone let a house get so damn nasty!!

Our first step was to take the roof off the house. We did this because the second floor ceilings were just a little over 6 feet high, which is not very functional. I think minimum code nowadays for ceiling height within living space is 7 ft 6 in.

Here are some cool pics from demo day… get your Hard Hats!!!!

Start of Bruce St Demolition

Tearing More Off!!

Dominic Enjoying the View

Dom Flexing his Muscles

This Can't be Safe

The Roof Collapsing Around Me

I Made it to the Top!!!

Almost Losing My Balance.... Don't Try this at Home!!!!

Fork Lift in Action

Our Contractor Jason Moving my Car

Tearing off the Garage Addition

Garage Addition going Bye Bye

Roof All Gone!!!

Job Well Done

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook have probably already seen these photos. By the way, if you aren’t my friend on Facebook click the little f in the upper right hand corner of this webpage and make me your friend, or just click HERE….. please, I need all the friends I can get!!

Actually, come to think of it, Dominic needs friends more than I do, he’s kind of lonely, so make him a friend here: Friend Dominic on Facebook

So what do you think? Looks like fun doesn’t it??

Historic Home Rehab

We’ve officially closed on the historic home and our renovation plans have been approved by the historical society. Our first job is to smash up the concrete pool deck, fill the pool in, clear and level the overgrown yard, and tear off the illegal addition built on the rear of the house. 

I was a bit surprised to find that the interior of the house is no where near as bad as the exterior. Don’t get me wrong….. it definitely needs lots of work, and it smells terrible, but overall it isn’t as bad as we first thought.

We are doing a full renovation on over 3,000 sq. ft., so this job is going to take several months to complete. The budget is around $75k-$80k, but hopefully our contractor can find a way to save a few bucks here and there. 🙂

 Heres a bunch of before pictures for you to look at:

Bowdoin St Springfield MA

Pool

Pondwater in Pool

Illegal/Halfassed addition built on rear of House

Overgrown Yard

Overgrown Yard

Interior of illegal addition

Kitchen

Kitchen pic 2

Kitchen Pic 3

Dining Room

Living Room

Main Hallway/Staircase

Full Bath 1

Full Bath 2

Half Bath

Bedroom with Fireplace

Bedroom 2

Scarface Bedroom

The REO broker told us that they took 8 dumpsters worth of trash out of this house just from the inside, and then they hired a professional cleaning crew to come in and scrub everything down…. and it still looks real nasty, and smells even worse. If you add up the cash-for-keys the bank had to give to the owners to get them out ($2,000), the cost of the trash out and the cost of the cleaning crew, the bank probably spent more getting the house ready for sale than what we paid for it!!!! Not to mention the $176,000 they lost on the mortgage they gave in 2006.  Hmmmm I wonder why all these banks are going out of business??

I’ll post some more updates of this project as things progress, as well as a few videos that we’ve put together.