Dirty Pools, Short Sales, and New Website Updates

The new site is still a work in progress. Its amazing how customized you can make these WordPress sites, with all the themes, plug-ins, widgets and who knows what else, it’s actually a little overwhelming. I should have the new site ready over the next few days.

On the house flipping front we are still cruising right along. We’ve got three new properties lined up that we should be closing on over the next 10 days…. and I just heard from my negotiator that we got another short sale deal approved today.

The three new purchases are all really good deals. Two of them are REO’s that we are buying through the same agent and one is a short sale that we have been negotiating for the last 10 months.

One of the bank owned houses has yet another pool. This is the fourth pool we’ve had to deal with in the last three months. We were thinking we may actually be able to save this one, but after draining it and having a pool company look at it closer, it turns out there are some problems that are going to make it too costly to fix. In determining if we are going to keep a pool we look at how much it’s gonna cost to fix it and get it up and running vs. how much it will cost to fill it in….. usually it’s just cheaper to fill them in…. and so that is what we do.  Of the four pools, one was an above ground that we knocked down, and three were inground that we filled in. Here in the Northeast pools add very little resale value, if any at all, so that is why we fill them in.

Heres a look at it before we drained it. This thing looked and smelled like a swamp. Notice the nice green color.

Green Pool

 

Dominic tried to throw a whole bunch of chlorine in their to clean it up, but I don’t think it worked.

I’ve got to share this video with you…. it’s the funniest thing ever. I was laughing so hard when I saw this on TV for the first time. This is Armando visiting our pool pictured above!!!!

LOL!!!!! Oh man I could watch that all day 🙂

Hunting Down Short Sales and Deal Updates

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

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