Flipping Houses in Todays Market

Well for today’s post we have a very special guest. My business partner Dominic has put together a great article about what it takes to flip houses in today’s buyers market.

This is Dominic’s first post on our blog so please give him a warm welcome.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Hey everyone,

It is a very cold Sunday here in Western Mass.  I’m sitting here thinking about what would be interesting for everyone.  Of course I thought about flipping houses.  As you most of you know we own a house flipping company called Hampden Homebuyers.  We have been doing very well the last few years and a big reason why is because we have tailored what type of end product we are putting out.  5 to 7 years ago we could get away with doing laminate countertops, white paint everywhere & maybe white appliances.  Back then it didn’t matter.  Houses were selling before they hit the market.

Times have changed.  The past few years have brought a buyer’s market and with that you have to put out a better product.  The days of white everything are gone for now.  We have improved our finished product dramatically.  Now we use natural colors on walls, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and we really pay much more attention to finish details.  Today’s buyers have options and they are weighing all of them.

So my words of advice are…

1.  Pay attention to the finish details.  If you can see it then the potential buyer can and will see it too.

2.  Spend a little more to stand out.  The difference between new white and new stainless steel appliance is less than $1,000 and the end buyer definitely notices.

3.  Don’t be afraid to try something new.  Use different wall colors from room to room.  NOT every room but you can do one color for bedrooms and one color for the rest of the rooms.  Keep them neutral and it will work.

4.  Stage your properties.  We just started staging our finished properties and we love it.  Staging can distract the buyer’s eye from less attractive parts of the house.  We use staging as a vision of what the end buyer could have.

5.  Of course price is always important.  We have only had a few emotional purchases where price was not the deciding factor but a typical buyer will look at the surrounding properties and solds to make sure they are getting a good deal.

That’s what I have for you all.  I hope you enjoyed my info.  Please check out our other sites, www.FlippingSmart.com and www.HampdenHomebuyers.com  If you like them let us know.  If not, thank you for visiting.

Have a great Sunday and a prosperous 2012!

Dominic Kirchner II

www.FlippingSmart.com

www.HampdenHomebuyers.com

 

P.S.  Remember, if you like our blog posts you can subscribe using the form right below:

[subscribe2]

or you can subscribe in the upper right hand corner under the heading “Subscribe to this Blog” , that way you get an email whenever we make a new exciting, awesome, informative and inspirational post!!!!

Tornadoes and Rhinebeck Ave Rehab Finishing Up – House Flip Update

Well it has been a pretty eventful week here in Springfield MA. After enjoying a lovely Labor Day weekend we got hit by a Tornado that rolled right through the heart of Springfield. The storm demolished houses, ripped off roofs and siding, cleared trees and knocked out power for days.

Amazingly, with all the properties we own in and around Springfield, none of our houses were damaged. I can’t believe it…… if the tornado had been just a few blocks north or south of it’s actual path we would have taken quite a few direct hits.

Thanks to everyone who emailed and messaged us on Facebook making sure we were OK. Dominic still doesn’t have power at his house but things could have been a lot worse for us.

Now onto some business:

We are almost done with the rehab at 84 Rhinebeck Ave in Springfield and it is coming out beautiful!!!

As of right now we just need to get the inside cleaned and staged and the home will be ready to go on the market.

This is really a prime property; 4 bed 2 full bath Cape located in an awesome neighborhood.

In total the project took about 6-8 weeks. We had to do quite a bit of work including repairing some major water damage. We did all new flooring throughout, new walls, new kitchen, 2 new baths, new plumbing, new lighting, new trim, new doors, new windows, fresh paint and a bunch of other stuff……

Here it is almost done: (you can see all the Before pics HERE)

84 Rhinebeck Ave house for sale Springfield MA

View from Front Entrance, Living Room looking into Kitchen

Rhinebeck Ave Kitchen

Kitchen 2

.

We did a full gut of the kitchen. The new kitchen features granite countertops, 16×16 tile floor, tile backsplash, Fridgedaire Gallery line stainless steel appliances, cherry finish cabinets, and new recessed lighting.

Springfield MA house for sale

.

In the living room we added all new Bamboo Hardwood flooring, new recessed lighting, new ceiling fan, and crown molding.

Eat In Kitchen Area

Full Bath 1

Tiled Tub Surround in First Floor Bath

Full Bath 2

Tiled Tub Surround in Bath 2

.

We fully gutted both bathrooms and added new Euro style vanities in a nice dark Java finish. Both tub surrounds were tiled and a beautiful tile inlay was added.

First Floor Bedroom

Second Floor Bedroom

Huge Open Basement Ready to be Finished

.

We added bamboo hardwood flooring to the first floor bedrooms. The second floor bedrooms have a nice Berber carpeting.

.

.

Well there it is. I will get some new photos up once we have it staged. The home is sure to look even more awesome after the staging!!!!

 

P.S.  Remember, if you like our blog posts you can subscribe using the form right below:

or you can subscribe in the upper right hand corner under the heading “Subscribe to this Blog” , that way you get an email whenever we make a new exciting, awesome, informative and inspirational post!!!!

1892 Parker St Video Preview

Heres a look at our ranch located at 1892 Parker St in Springfield. I showed you the before photos a few weeks back, now have a look at the before video.

 

This house is now complete and ready for the market. I will post some of the finished pictures in a couple days.

House Flipping News Story Update

Our story aired on Thursday night during both the 6PM and 11PM news and it really came out great. Jen Thome with CBS 3 did an awesome job of putting it all together and putting a good, positive, spin on the story. I wasn’t sure just how long it was going to be, but it turned out to be over two and a half minutes.

Heres the link to the story that aired: (just click on it to open)

Local Company Flips Historic Homes

And here it is on Yutube:

On top of our company being on TV, Jen invited us to the CBS 3 studio so we could check out the newsroom and help anchor the 11 PM news.

Here are the photos of Dominic and I in action

Hampden Homebuyers on the news

Matt and Dom covering the Days Top Stories

Dom covering Sports

Matt Giving a Weather Update

Matt, Jen and Dom discussing all the latest Trends in Flipping Houses

We’re officially Famous….. so if you want an autograph just leave a request in the comments section below!!! LOL

New House Flip – REO Rehab, Bosworth St Springfield

We purchased a new rehab property located at 8 Bosworth St in Springfield MA. This house was an REO that we bid on in early March. We wanted to close in 2 weeks but the bank asked us to push the closing out to a month. This seems to be the norm right now, we always write our offers up for a quick closing and the banks always ask to put the closing out for a month or longer. I guess with the volume of REO’s all these lenders are trying to process they can’t close fast anymore.

This house is a newer colonial (built in 1985) that had some burst pipes which caused a bit of water damage. It also had a real nasty pool that we had to clean up and fill in. We’ll do a new roof, a new kitchen, two new full baths, gut out the water damaged sheetrock and flooring, and add all new plumbing. The second floor bedrooms all had electric heat, so we are going to run a new line off the boiler and add hot water baseboard heat to the second floor.

We closed on this house a little less than two weeks ago and we are making real good progress. All the rough plumbing and electric is done, the sheetrock is up and the guys have started painting.

The nice thing about this house is we already have it sold. A buyer that fell in love with our house on Fullerton St, but was outbid, really wanted to buy one of our houses…. they also wanted to get in contract before the expiration of the tax credit. So we showed them this property when it wasn’t even halfway done and they decided they would take it!

Here’s a look at some of the pictures from this project:

New REO rehab in Springfield MA

8 Bosworth St Springfield MA

Nasty Green Pool

Flip this house Kitchen

Kitchen

First Floor Bathroom

Living Room

Second Floor Bathroom

Bedroom

 

The first thing we did was drain and fill in the pool. I thought we may be able to save this one because the liner was still good and it was holding water…. but it had some problems with the pump and some of the pipes buried in the concrete were cracked…. so we just filled it in. The good thing is the pool took up the majority of the backyard, so now we have a really nice fenced in backyard.

Heres how it looks now:

Filled in Pool

Filled in Pool

 

We’ll be testing out FHA’s new guidelines of allowing flips within 90 days of ownership, so we’ll see how that goes.

Yet another completed Rehab… 104 Columbus Ave Holyoke, MA – Finished and Staged

Here is another amazing home we finished and just brought to the market.

This property is located at 104 Columbus Avein Holyoke MA. We did a full gut renovation of this property, bringing it down to the studs. We rearranged the floorplan to give it a great open feel. We enlarged the kitchen and the first floor bath. We also finished the second floor into a master suite complete with it’s own full bath.

The major problem we had to deal with on this house was some structural issues caused by 4 layers of shingles on the roof. With all that weight on the roof it was crushing the house. So the roof was stripped and there’s only 1 layer on there now. We also had to build new foundation walls to give the house a solid structure to sit on. Our contractor jacked the house up, rebuilt the foundation, and resupported the band joist and floor joists. Now the house is as strong as an Ox!!!

Here are the pictures of the completed home; (you can see the before pictures HERE)  

House for sale holyoke MA 104 Columbus Ave

104 Columbus Ave Holyoke MA

House for sale Holyoke MA 104 Columbus Ave

Home for sale Holyoke MA

Living Room Columbus Ave

House for sale Holyoke MA

Living Room Looking into Kitchen

House for sale Holyoke MA

Columbus Ave Kitchen Staged

Kitchen with Breakfast Bar looking into Living Room/Dining Area

House for sale Holyoke MA columbus Ave

Huge Kitchen looking at Built in Fridge

Kitchen with Tile Backsplash and Stainless Appliances

First floor bath Vanity with tile floor

First Floor Bath tub with glass tile inlay / border

First Floor bedroom with shiny hardwoods

New second Floor bedroom addition

New second Floor Full Bath staged

New second floor Full bath Vanity

Another look at second floor Bedroom addition

Newly built foundation wall

All new electric lines

One more Look at this Gorgeuos Kitchen

Wow!!!! This one looks incredible. With the second floor finished we have 4 bedrooms and 2 Full baths. This house has new electric, new plumbing, new insulation, new sheetrock, new kitchen, 2 new baths, fresh paint on the inside and outside, new flooring, and two newly built foundation walls.

This home is on the market now should go Fast!!!!

Flip This Ranch- New Property Update- 1892 Parker St

This is a new update on a property we started rehabbing back in January. I guess I’ve fallen a little behind with some of these houses.

1890 Parker St is a huge “sprawling ranch”. I like to call it an executive ranch, but some people don’t agree with me on that. We got this deal off one of our banners that we hang from our various rehabs.

This house was very dated and had a couple roof leaks, but overall was in fairly good condition compared to the properties we usually buy. The renovation plan is to really open up the floorplan by removing walls between the kitchen, dining room and living room. We will also do a new roof, some new siding, and all new windows throughout. The electrical turned into a bit of a problem. Alot of the wiring was done very half assed, and looked like the job of a “handy Home-owner”. There were buried junction boxes all over and exposed wires everywhere. So we are basically going to have to rewire the whole house, which we did not budget for. Other than that we will do a totally updated kitchen, two and a half new baths, fresh paint, some new sheetrock, new lighting and new flooring.

Here are some of the before pictures:

1890 Parker St

1890 Parker St Springfield MA

House for Sale Parker St

Parker St Springfield MA

We Buy Houses Springfield MA

Parker St Springfield with We Buy Houses Sign

Parker St House For Sale Springfield MA

Living Room with Walls marked to be Removed

Master Bedroom

Kitchen

Kitchen 2

Full Bath 1

Master Bath

Back Bedroom with Roof Leak

Finished Basement

This ranch is just under 2,000 square feet and it has 4-5 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, 2 fireplaces and a finished basement.

So far it is coming along real nice. It should be finished within the next week or two, so I will post some updated photos and videos for you in the near future.