Hampden Homebuyers in the News

May 5, 2010 by 6 Comments

You’ve seen us on Youtube, now it’s time to catch us on the Primetime News…Our story will be airing tommorrow (Thursday) night on the 6 PM and 11 PM news on CBS 3 here in Springfield. Next stop is A&E’s Flip This House!!

I received an email from the news anchor Jen Thome that read….  “Just wanted to let you know our promotions director put together a promo for the story.  It’s running on CBS now until Thursday.  It will definitely run during the news but should run other times too.”

Heres a look at the promo that has been running on CBS:

Pretty Cool!!

Filed Under: 151 Bowdoin St Springfield MA, Hampden Homebuyers in the News Tagged With: , , , , , ,

New House Flip – REO Rehab, Bosworth St Springfield

May 4, 2010 by 2 Comments

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.

Filed Under: 8 Bosworth St Springfield MA Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Crazy Times in Real Estate + We’re on the News!!

April 29, 2010 by 8 Comments

So it’s been a very hectic 7-10 days. With the expiration of the first time buyer tax credit looming on the horizon, buyers have been out in droves trying to snatch up a home. We put quite a few finished properties on the market in anticipation of this rush and there’s been no shortage of action. Dominic’s phone has been ringing off the hook with agents wanting to set up showings, buyers wanting to see houses, and offers coming in. Heck, it looks like we may even be selling an REO we just bought last week, that isn’t even halfway done, to a first time buyer determined to buy one of our finished homes…….

Which brings me to an interesting phenomenon that we have noticed lately. Several buyers have come to us and said they want to buy one of our finished homes, and no one else’s. Typically they will look at one of our properties or see some pictures online, they will instantly fall in love with the finish work and they will have an epiphany… they say to themselves “These guys houses are head and shoulders above the rest of the rehabbed junk that’s on the market…. and I only want to buy from them.” At least that’s what I think they say 🙂

In other news, we bought another house today. A short sale in Chicopee MA that is going to be a pretty sweet deal. It wasn’t with Bank of America so it didn’t take over a year to get done. It actually was pretty quick, maybe about four months, which is good for a short sale. I’ll post more details about this property in a separate post.

Now on to the most exciting news of the day. We’re going to be on the News!!! We met with the very talented Jennifer Thome today of CBS 3 Springfield, she is doing a story on Hampden Homebuyers and the renovation we are doing of the Historic Home on Bowdoin St. We spent several hours at Bowdoin St today with Jen, doing interviews and walking through the property. She even interviewed our contractor Jason, here are the pictures;

Smile for the Camera!!!!

Jason's a natural with the Microphone

Notice how he’s sitting down during the interview, what’s up with that?? I think he’s getting a little lazy on us 🙂

So anyway, the story is suppose to air next Thursday on the 6 PM and 11 PM news here in Springfield on CBS. I don’t know how long it will be, maybe only 30 seconds.. maybe a couple minutes…. but it is good publicity for the house and our company. Plus we can use it as a credibility builder going forward, when we meet with sellers, lenders, other media outlets, etc…… I don’t usually watch the news because it’s usually filled with negative stories and doom and gloom, but I’ll have to make an exception here.

Well that’s it for tonight, we’ve got a lot of new properties I need to write about, but that will have to wait for another day.

Filed Under: 151 Bowdoin St Springfield MA, Short Sales Tagged With: , , , , , ,

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

April 25, 2010 by 7 Comments

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!!!!

Filed Under: 104 Columbus Ave Holyoke MA Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

REO Rehab Complete – 53 Fullerton St Finished and Staged

April 25, 2010 by 11 Comments

We are working overtime trying to finish up a couple properties in order to beat the first time buyer tax credit deadline. I’m hoping their are lots of last minute shoppers out there who will be out looking for a new home over the next 7 days.

First up on the list is 53 Fullerton St. This was our first ever MLS/REO purchase. It seems hard to believe that over the last couple years, with all the deals we have done, we had never bought off the MLS. I was trained as an investor to market for deals and work directly with sellers…. this is our preferred method of doing deals as there is usually no competition and better deals can be made. However, with the flood of foreclosures, I couldn’t ignore the REO’s anymore. You have to be aggressive, and quick with your offers when working REO’s. It’s true that the well priced ones will go very fast, usually with multiple offers. So there’s always competition, which will limit your profit potential, but good deals can be had. As a matter of fact, we bought two REO’s last week and got an offer accepted on a third!

OK, back to Fullerton St. We did new siding, new windows, a new kitchen, 2 new full baths, new electric, new plumbing, a new boiler and a new driveway. This house had a very funky second floor bathroom. It was one of those ones where the tub was built right into the slope of the roof line. In order to take a shower you either had to be a midget, or kneel in the tub because there was absolutely no head room due to the slope of the roof. We corrected this by extending the bathroom out into the main hallway. We pushed the main hallway over, taking some space from a bedroom and a small closet. This allowed us to move the tub out of the roof line and gave us a functional shower and tub.  

Onto the pictures; (you can see the before pictures HERE)

House for sale Fullerton St Springfield MA

53 Fullerton St Springfield MA

Home for sale springfield MA

Fullerton St Springfield MA

Staged Kitchen

Fullerton Kitchen, Stainless Appliances

Cabinets and breakfast bar top facing Dining Room

House for sale 53 Fullerton St

Fancy Built In Fridge, Tile Countertop

Dining Room with Breakfast Bar to Kitchen

Dining Room

Living Room with nice shiny Hardwood Floors

Living Room looking at Staircase

First Floor Bathroom Tub and Shower panel staged

First Floor Bathroom Vanity

53 Fullerton St Bedroom

New Second Floor Tub that we Moved out of the Roof Line

Flipped house bathroom

Second Floor Bathroom

New Boiler

 

Damn…. this place shines!!!! It has 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths and 1500 square feet. I really like the floorplan of this house as it has a great flow to it. We enhanced this by removing the wall between the kitchen and dining room, creating that great open feel and adding the breakfast bar.

We’ve got two more going on the market so I’ll post some updates and photos of those soon.

Filed Under: 53 Fullerton St Springfield Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Flip This Ranch- New Property Update- 1892 Parker St

April 20, 2010 by 8 Comments

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.

Filed Under: 1892 Parker St Springfield MA Tagged With: , , , , , ,

House Flipping Update – 209 Gifford St Springfield

April 17, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Work is now complete at 209 Gifford St and it will be going on the market.

This project went pretty smooth without any major problems. Our biggest challenge came in dealing with the water department over the main water line. See, the main water line was damaged inside the house during our initial demo and the city had to turn the water off at the street. Our plumber repaired the line but the water department said they wouldn’t turn our water back on because they didn’t allow soldered repairs to the main line, and they wanted us to pay to run a whole new line from the street. After much arguing they agreed to come out to the house and do a pressure test. The test failed, but it wasn’t because of our soldered repair, turns out the line was also broken somewhere underground between the street and the house. So the water department had to dig up the street and our yard to run a new line into the house, and we ended up having to pay for a new line anyways.

So, this house now even has a brand new main water line all the way to the street to go along with everything else that is brand new!!!

I still need some pictures with the house staged, and I do have a video, but here are my most recent photos for you to view:  (You can see the before photos HERE. )

209 Gifford St Springfield MA

209 Gifford St Springfield House for Sale

View of Kitchen

Kitchen with tile Backsplash

Kitchen looking into Dining Area

Stainless Steel Appliances, 18x18 tile floors

New staircase heading to Second Floor

Dining Area with shiny Hardwood Floors

First Floor Bathroom w/Tile Floor

Fireplace with new mantle and tile

Second Floor Bath w/ Double sink vanity

Body Jet shower panel with Tile surround and Glass Tile border

Master Bedroom

Bedroom with Skylight and Closet

New High Efficiency Boiler and Water Tank

This one was another full gut rehab for us. We ripped off the whole roof and second story, then we rebuilt the whole thing and added a full dormer off the back. The house came out awesome and we should get a quick sale.

Filed Under: 209 Gifford St Springfield MA Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Flip This House Update-Historic Home Rehab

April 16, 2010 by 4 Comments

Dominic met with the historic society last night and we got all our final approvals to go ahead with our renovation of the historic house on Bowdoin St.

Heres a video of the way it looked just after we closed on it.

Filed Under: 151 Bowdoin St Springfield MA Tagged With: , , , , , ,