37 Mansfield St and New Deal Updates

Things are still moving fast and furious! We’ve had six closings over the last few weeks with one more scheduled for Monday. In total we sold four of our properties and bought two new rehabs, with a third new rehab set to close Monday. 

We spent today touring some of our projects with a couple of our private lenders from the Boston area. While we were out walking the properties we got two more offers accepted!! One is a MLS listed property that we offered on Thursday. The second is a private owner that we met with on Friday and presented them with an offer. Both are looking to close ASAP so we’re gonna be busy getting everything together for these purchases.  These two properties are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. The MLS property is in terrible condition and will be a full gut. It’s real nasty and kinda spooky…. just like Bessemer and the Ware House were. The second property is a very light rehab; condition wise it’s probably one of the better houses we’ve purchased. It will need paint and light kitchen and bath updates.

 

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I’ve fallen behind with the updates on the fire damaged multi family on Mansfield St. We’re almost done with this one and should be able to get it to the market next week. Heres a pictorial timeline;

Insualted Walls

All the walls were insulated throughout the house.

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The sheetrock was delivered and put on all three floors.

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All the sheetrock was hung…. it finally looks like a house again!

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Sheetrock gets taped and mudded (is that a word??) 

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Vandals break in and completely TRASH all our new walls 🙁

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Just kidding…. thats a picture from when we were doing the Demo…. just making sure you’re still paying attention!
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All our new walls are painted in our beautiful TAN

 

These pictures are from a few weeks ago. Right now all the hardwoods have been refinished, all the doors have been hung, everything has been trimmed out, the bathrooms are in and we are finishing up the kitchens. I’ll have some more current pictures/videos pretty soon. 

 Stay Tuned………

Bringing Down the House… Part Deux

Heres a little bonus footage we put together to follow up on my last post.

*Warning: These are trained professionals, please don’t try this at home*  🙂 

Enjoy!

Bringing Down the House…..

well maybe not the whole house….. just the first floor.

Heres a look at how we fixed the fire damage at 70 Glenwood St. If you remember from my previous post(video or photos), the fire in this property started in the basement and burnt all the floor joists and support beams in the front half of the house. So to fix it we had to cut out the whole floor. Luckily I was there with my camera to capture the whole thing. Heres a look:

Cutting out the Floor

Cutting out the Floor

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First Section Gone

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Second Section Gone!

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Almost There

Ripping out the Last Peice

Ripping out the Last Peice

Can We Save these Hardwoods??

Can We Save these Hardwoods??

All Gone!!

All Gone!!

Looking at the Front Door from the Basement

Looking at the Front Door from the Basement

Heres Whats Left of our Floor!!

Heres Whats Left of our Floor!!

After cutting out the whole floor our contractor rebuilt it from the ground up.
Heres our shiny new floor:
New Floor

New Floor

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And a look from the basement:
New Center Support Beam

New Center Support Beam

New Floor Joists and Plywood

New Floor Joists and Plywood

Whew, that was a lot of work…. I’m tired from just looking at those pictures!!

Glenwood Fire Damage – an Upclose Look

Things are moving right along at the Glenwood St project. Last week we passed all our rough inspections and insulation inspection. This week the sheetrockers were there hanging drywall, taping and mudding. Next step is to paint and begin all our finish work.

I made a short video of the fire damage at this property. The fire started in the basement at the old electrical box and burnt up through to the first floor. Most of the damage was done in the basement to the floor joists and support beams, including the main support beam. Have a look:

I’ll show you how we fixed it in the next post…..

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70 Glenwood Update

Work is well underway at Glenwood. We actually started renovations back in August before we even closed on the house.  After hitting quite a few delays in getting clear title we finally closed on the property last Friday. By the time we closed we had already put a new roof on the house, gutted the interior, reframed the interior, and replaced the fire damaged support beams, floor joists and half the first level floor. I wouldn’t recommend doing this much work prior to actually owning a property… we were definetly getting nervous as weeks went by and we still weren’t clear to close.

Heres a video from week 1:

37 Mansfield St– Fire Damaged Multi Rehab Update

We’ve made some slight changes over at the fire damage three family…. mainly we decided that it was no longer going to be a three family, we are converting it to a two family. The main reason behind this is because the city wanted us to do too many life/safety upgrades to the property that would have killed our budget. They were requiring us to either put a sprinkler system in, or install a fire alarm system complete with pull boxes, strobe lights, illuminated exit signs, beacons, and a fire panel that wirelessly called directly into the fire department. These are things you would generally find in a large office building or a 50-100 unit apartment complex…. not a dinky little three family located on a side road in Forest Park.

 The changes are actually going to work out pretty good. We had planned on holding this property as a rental, but now since it is only two units we are going to retail it. The value of the property actually doesn’t change that much, a two family is worth about the same as a three family, mainly due to the ease in which an owner occupant can buy a two family. A three family is much more difficult for an owner occupant to finance and an investor purchasing usually needs 20%-30% down thus limiting the pool of buyers and bringing the price of a three unit down.

It is now a very large two family with the second unit taking up two floors, kind of like a townhouse unit. The second floor unit will now be 6 bedrooms and 2 full baths…. it’s gonna be huge!

We’ve finished up the majority of the work on the outside. The inside is being sheetrocked. Heres a look;

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All the siding is complete along with the roof and the windows. The front porch was rebuilt and the side porch was taken down. Heres what it looked like before;

 

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  So the outside is looking real sharp. Now it’s just a matter of finishing up the sheetrock, painting, and completing all the finish work inside. Before you know it we’ll have this one on the market and under agreement!!!

Glenwood Pics

The property on Glenwood is another fire damaged home. It was being used as a two family prior to the fire, but because it is so small (for a two family) the best use is to convert it to a single family home.  We’ll be rearranging the floor plan a bit and making the house 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths with a large finished attic space similiar to Hartford Terrace. The property is a full gut and we will be doing a new roof, some siding, new electric,new plumbing, new heating, new kitchen, new baths, etc…. The fire started in the basement and burnt up alot of the floor joists, sill plate and main support beams.  The owner of this property stopped by our fire damaged three family project and was impressed. He asked our contractor if we’d be interested in his house on Glenwood. We were out of town at the time but our contractor toured the property with the owner and gave us the green light.

Here are some pictures of the house in all it’s glory!!

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Sneak Peek-New Rehab – Glenwood St

Heres a quick look at a new rehab we are starting in Springfield…… another condemned, full gut, fire damaged property. Paint and carpet rehabs are for Wimps!!  Check it out:

Stay Tuned….. More Pics to Come