Box Trucks and Paint Colors

March 13, 2010 by 10 Comments

Well it’s been another productive week in Springfield. We got two BPO’s done for short sales that we are working on, looked at a ton of houses, got an offer accepted on a nice REO deal, and yesterday we had lunch with a group of investors that came up to Springfield from southern CT for a little mastermind session. I know they read my blog so I want to thank you guys for lunch!! 

On the marketing front, we picked up a big box truck a few weeks back that we’ve been having our contractor use to cruise around town with. The truck serves two purposes; it’s great for our contractor to store all his tools and transport materials to all the various job sites, but more importantly we are using it for a bit of shameless advertising. Heres a look at it:

Sweet Box Truck

 

Now isn’t that a sweet ride!!!! It’s too bad our contractor is married with kids because I know he could be getting a lot of chicks driving around in a truck like that 🙂 

On the deal front we are going to be closing on the Giant Historic house next week as the title issues are finally cleared up. We spent today in Boston visiting a friend of mine who develops six unit condominium complexes. These are new construction buildings that he develops in existing neighborhoods. He builds them to look like older historic homes to match the surrounding properties. His buildings come out awesome and he uses some real nice exterior paint schemes. We visited a couple of his properties to get some good ideas for our exterior paint colors on the historic house. Heres a look at a few of his buildings:

House #1

This property has a darker sage green for the main body… almost an olive-green. The trim is a pale yellow and the accents are a burnt orange. I really like this particular look.

Historic Color Scheme 1

House #2

This house has a very deep red for the main body with a pale yellow trim and black accents. I think this may be a little too dark for what we are looking for.

House #3

This property has a lighter sage green for the main body with cream trim and a very rich/deep purple on the trim. I like this color scheme as well but I think I prefer the burnt orange over the deep purple.

Historic House Paint Color #3

House #4

This property has a lighter blue for the main body with pale yellow trim and burnt orange accent.

I’m leaning towards a sage green for the main body and I really like the contrasting look of the burnt orange accents. Tomorrow I’m going to go to Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore to look at their books and get some more ideas. We are suppose to be meeting with the local Historical Society on Monday so I’d like to have the exterior paint colors nailed down so I can show them what we are going to be using.

Let me know which of the houses you like or which colors you think look good. Leave a comment as any feedback would be greatly appreciated!!!

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Well that was Quick!! Ravenwood Finished

March 2, 2010 by 1 Comment

So I posted a semi-before video of the property at Ravenwood on Friday…. and now I’ve already got the after pictures for you to see. This renovation went real quick, and believe it or not it’s already sold and our new buyer has moved in.

We purchased this house as a short sale on January 21, 2010, had the renovation complete by February 12, and had our new buyer moving in on February 20th. That is lightning fast… but we did cheat a little bit. See ,we actually started working on the house about two weeks before we even owned it, a little risky, yes, but the rehab business is about taking risks. Also, we had been working with this buyer for a few months. She had wanted to buy our Plumtree Rd house and Lasalle St house but missed out on both those… so she was very determined not to miss this one. She saw Ravenwood before we were even done with the work and said she’d take it…. so it was an easy sale!!!

The house came out real nice… I’m not a huge fan of the color of the roof, but one half was brand new shingles (reddish brown color) and the other half of the roof needed to be replaced. So rather than tear off the brand new section we just matched what was there (the reddish brown shingle). My first choice is always a blackish grey shingle, this color looks awesome no matter what color the house is. The only time we really deviate from this is when we have to match an existing shingle… and honestly, I don’t know what some of these homeowners are thinking when they are choosing a roof color??? Shingle color is something I am very particular about, almost like a pet peeve, but I realize I am probably boring most of you so let’s get on with the pictures; (you can see the before pictures HERE)

Ravenwood St Springfield MA

Ravenwood St Front

So I just realized you can’t even really see the roof in these photos… just take my word for it.

Kitchen 1

Kitchen 2

Kitchen 3

Kitchen -- Again....

I took alot of pictures of the kitchen, I think it came out nice!! Check out the appliances, top of the line GE Profile… yes that is a Double Oven!!  We went even more over the top on the Fridge….

GE Cafe Series French Door Fridge

If you look hard enough you can see the little GE symbol on the Fridge is Red… this is the Cafe series…. and supposedly it is a step up from the Profile Series… which means it’s a real bad-ass fridge, almost better than Electrolux!!! Plus it’s a French Door Fridge… so that makes it even more awesome.

Kitchen Looking in from Living Room

Living Room

Dining Area -- Nice 18x18 Tiles on the Floor

Living Room from Kitchen

Bathroom

Tiled Tub Surround with Glass Tile Border

Shower Panel w/ Glass Tile Inlay

 We did the bathroom a little different here… We used a glass tile inlay and I think it looks real Sweet. You will see this in all our houses moving forward. Also we added one of those curved Hotel Shower Bars… a nice little upgrade.

Bedroom

Finished Basement

So, that’s about it for Ravenwood… In and Out in the blink of an eye, a real text-book flip. On to the next one!!

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Crazy Week + 37 Mansfield St Final Video

February 21, 2010 by 3 Comments

The week started and ended very good with us getting two more offers accepted, one on Monday and the other on Friday. The first deal is an estate property that was brought to us by one of the bigger REO agents in our city. The house is in a little rougher neighborhood than I like, but this will be the third property we’ve purchased from this particular agent in the last couple months so I’m viewing it as a way to further solidify our relationship.

The second deal is a short sale that we received an approval letter for on Friday. This should be a pretty sweet deal but we’ve got to clear up a few little title issues before we can close on it.

In other news, after only owning the house on Ravenwood St for a little over two weeks, we’ve got the rehab finished and our new buyer is already moving in!!!  I’ll have pictures and videos of this property coming up in the next week or so.

OK… to wrap it up I want to post our final walkthrough of the fire damaged multi family home we did at 37 Mansfield St in Springfield. You can see all the before pictures here, and our initial walk through video here.

Check it out;

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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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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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