143 Lloyd Ave Update

February 13, 2010 by 4 Comments

Lloyd Before

Our property at 143 Lloyd Ave is almost done. The city came out and turned the water on for us yesterday, so now the plumber can finish up with his connections and can fire up the heating system. This house received new siding, new roof, new windows, and a complete interior makeover. The major change that we made was converting the existing breezeway into living space. This required insulating and sheetrocking the whole room, installing vinyl windows and adding flooring. This new spaces adds about 200 more square feet to our living area and will make a nice dining room or family room.

Here are some pics of the house as we are finishing up;

143 Lloyd Ave

 

Converted Breezeway

Converted Breezeway Looking into Kitchen

Kitchen 1

Kitchen 2

Eat In Kitchen Area

Bathroom

Living Room

Bedroom

Once the plumber completes his work we’ll put together a final punch list. When the punch list is complete the home will get cleaned, staged and to the market.

In other news I think we have the house on Ravenwood St sold. This was the Bank of America short sale that we purchased two weeks back. We started the rehab well before we officially closed, so by the time we actually owned the house the renovation was nearly complete. We brought a buyer through this week and she is ready to sign a purchase and sale. I’ve got videos and pictures that I need to post of this property so keep your eye out for those.

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Hunting Down Short Sales and Deal Updates

February 11, 2010 by 16 Comments

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

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Gifford St Update, Sheetrocked and Painted

February 3, 2010 by 2 Comments

The Gifford St house is a few weeks away from completion. All the sheetrock is up and everything is painted. Now it’s time for trim, doors, kitchen cabinets, etc….. We have some outside work to do, like building a deck off the back of the house, but this stuff is gonna have to wait till it warms up a bit.

Heres a look;

209 Gifford St

Dining Room looking into Kitchen

New Staircase

Living Room

Dining Room

New Second Floor Bath

New Second Floor Master Bedroom

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Deal Updates and Top Blogs

January 30, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Wow, our little blog is getting some good recognition. Scott Costello over at the StrugglingInvestor.com put a list together of the Top Blogs: 8 Investors who are Crushing It and Sharing, and we made the cut.  Many of you are probably familiar with the other sites Scott features, all of which I like to visit regularly. Thanks Scott…. keep on coming by and checking out our work.  

On the deal front we finally sold 37 Mansfield St. This was suppose to close before Christmas but we hit a few delays and got it all closed up yesterday. Mansfield St was our biggest project yet. Doing a full gut rehab on a 3,700 square foot three family isn’t for the faint of heart…. but we got it done and sold. From purchase date to sale took about 7 months, which is a month over what we typically shoot for but with the size of the project that time frame is very good. After completing a job of that size I think we feel pretty confident that we can tackle most any project!!!  

42 Wexford Update

Well we’ve got about 6-7 houses that are all winding down and nearing completion…. which is pretty cool but also kinda sucks because I’m gonna have to stage all those. I’ve got about enough staging paraphernalia for maybe 3 houses… so this means we are going to have to do some shopping. 42 Wexford St is one of those houses that is getting close to being complete. All the new sheetrock is up, everythings been painted and the hardwoods are being refinished. Heres a look at the house so far:  

42 Wexford St

Living Room looking at Staricase

Dining Room looking into Kitchen with new Archway

Kitchen looking into Dining Room with new Archway

Kitchen

Full Bath

Master Bedroom

Finished Attic

One more look at the Archway

Sometimes when a house gets to this point you are wondering if it’s gonna look good when completed….  everything is still dirty and alot of stuff is half finished and maybe you start second guessing some of your choices…. but that is not the case with this house, I can tell right now that it is gonna come out amazing and I can’t wait to see it when it’s done.

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Bank of America Short Sale Approved…. and Closed

January 27, 2010 by 5 Comments

Everyone thats ever attempted a short sale knows that there is nothing short about the whole process…. as was the case for the short sale we just closed on today. I met with this homeowner about a year ago…. January of 2009. It took two appraisals and 12 months time, but we got Bank of America to approve the deal and we finally closed on it.  We got a really good deal on this property, as is the case with most of the short sales that we buy, so it is definitely worth the wait. My strategy with short sales is to just jam them into our pipeline and sit and wait. I never know when they will get approved, or even if they will get approved at all….. but its always a pleasant surprise to get that call or email with an approval.  

This is another one that we started work on before we even owned it. A little risky, but we actually received the short sale approval letter in December and they gave us over three weeks to close it….. which really surprised me because usually they are drilling you to close within 10 days.

Heres a look at the property, located on Ravenwood St in Springfield;

Kitchen

Dining Area

Living Room

Bathroom

Bedroom

Roof Leak.... always a plus on a Short Sale

Bedroom

Garage Full of Junk

Basement Full of Junk

You’ll notice that this house had an active roof leak, which is always a plus when you are negotiating a short sale because the bank knows that no FHA buyers will be able to purchase the house. Use this as ammunition to drive the price down. 

I think we may have another short sale very close to approval. Should be another good deal, I’ll post more about it as things materialize.

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82 Lasalle St, East Longmeadow…. Finished and Staged

January 21, 2010 by 8 Comments

We finished up the work at 82 Lasalle St last week and we staged it over the weekend. It came out great!! I thought we had it pre-sold but that my not work out so we will be putting it on the market this week. In the kitchen we did granite counters and a real nice appliance package that includes a top of the line Bosch Fridge…. its gorgeous.

We’re still going strong churning through our pipeline of rehabs and working hard on the acquisition front. We got two new short sales approved over the last two weeks so I’m gonna have to make some posts on those.

We’re still waiting for the property on Mansfield St to close. We initially got held up on this one because we couldn’t get the building inspector to issue our certificate of occupancy as he was away on vacation…. that added an extra week and a half to our closing schedule, and now that we’re ready our buyer is not. The lender now has to reverify employment and what not now that we are in a new month… and it is dragging on.

So here are the pictures of Lasalle St; 

82 Lasalle St

82 Lasalle St East Longmeadow

Kitchen w/Granite and Tile Backsplash

New Bosch Fridge

"Hidden Control" Fridgedaire Gallery Dishwasher

Fridgedaire Gallery Convection Oven w/Microwave

Top of the Line Appliance Package

Dining Area with Kitchen Island

Updated Bathroom

Shower Panel

Bedroom 1

Main Hallway

Bedroom 2

Master Bedroom

Living Room

Living Room w/Pellet Stove

Bedroom 4/Office/Fitness Room/Play Room/Den/ etc.......

Oversized Garage

I’m thinking this house will go quickly. It’s got a lot of nice features including the oversized garage, half acre lot, and it’s located in a great neighborhood.

On to the next one!!!!

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209 Gifford Update… Ready for some Rock!

January 16, 2010 by Leave a Comment

All the rough framing, electrical and plumbing is complete at Gifford and we passed all our inspections with no issues. Now we are ready to insulate the whole house and then hang our sheetrock. The guys are coming in this weekend to do all the sheetrock and we should have finished walls by next week.

Heres a video of how things look:

Things are coming out real nice at this house and the finished product is gonna look great!

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82 Lasalle St Update

January 11, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Our project on Lasalle St in East Longmeadow is almost done. All thats left to do is the tile backsplash in the kitchen and bringing in the appliances. We are going with all stainless steel appliances in this house and we scored a really sweet deal on a high end Bosch fridge.

This was a pretty easy job for us and I think we may already have a buyer for the house. You can see the before pictures here.

I hope everyone is having a great New Year and you guys are closing some deals. This week we should be selling the property on Mansfield St and purchasing a new short sale that we got approved before Christmas.  Also we’ve got two meetings with a couple new private investors… should be a good week!!

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