The Before – Springfield Ranch

Cherokee Dr

Cherokee Dr

 

Here is a look at the before of our little ranch rehab we did at 218 Cherokee in Springfield.

This was a pretty serious rehab that saw us do a new roof, new siding and a full gut of the interior. After looking at these photos you will see why all this was necessary!!!!

We purchased this property at auction. The bank didn’t clean the house out so we bought it “as-is”. The bank did have a company come and clean up the yard…. however all they did was take everything from the yard and throw it into the living room of the house!! They then took a picture of the clean yard and sent the bank a bill for their “professional” services. Lol!!

 

So now the living room was full of lawn chairs, pool supplies, plywood, trash bags, trash cans, yard debris and who knows what else. We cleaned the house out and got to work.

Here is a look at the before photos:  you can see all the after photos HERE

Springfield MA Rehab House

Springfield MA Rehab House

Cherokee Dr Before

Cherokee Dr Before

Cherokee Exterior

Cherokee Exterior

Living Room full of Yard Debris!!

Living Room full of Yard Debris!!

 

Needs Some Work

Needs Some Work

Kitchen Before

Kitchen Before

Kitchen.... Ceilings not doing too Good

Kitchen…. Ceilings not doing too Good

Not Very Clean

Not Very Clean

Bathroom-- Surprisingly not too Bad, except for the rotted Floor

Bathroom– Surprisingly not too Bad, except for the rotted Floor

Bedroom

Bedroom

 

So, needless to say the roof was leaking like a sieve and brought down the ceiling in several spots along with messing up the hardwood floors and the exterior sheathing on the house.

Here are the after photos again for your viewing pleasure; Amazing After Photos

Damn, what an incredible Transformation this one was!!!

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

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P.S.S.   Want to learn to flip houses like a pro; check out our real estate investing Mastery Coaching program. We’ve teamed up with Than Merrill from A&E’s Flip this House to offer this amazing coaching program. Check it out here:  http://masterycoachingmatt.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morton St Finished – Flipped in a Flash Part 2

Here is the follow up to the last post I did about our Morton St house flip in Springfield.

We were about half way done with the rehab…. pretty much at the rough stage, when we found our buyer for this home.

The buyer came through a referral from a mortgage broker we do some business with. This buyer was one week away from purchasing another house when that deal fell apart….. and she needed to find a new home fast!! Dominic showed her our completed Fayette St rehab , she loved the finish work but she needed a little bit larger home because she ran an in-home daycare. He brought her over to Morton St and even though the renovation was only half way done, she could see the finished product based on the other properties we showed her and she wanted it.

Now for the fun part, she had to be in the house within 2 and a half weeks, and we were only half way done with the work….. so it was all hands on deck as our contractors worked overtime to get this one wrapped up in record time!!

Within a week our crew had most of the work done (after working night and day!) and we were scheduling home inspections and appraisals as we worked to close with our new buyer. Everything went relatively smooth and we even let our new buyer start moving in prior to closing.

Here are some pictures of the finished house flip:

Completed House Flip

Sweet Looking Kitchen

Kitchen

Open Floor Plan

 

Similiar to our Ellendale and Fayette St house flips, we ran the Bamboo hardwood flooring throughout the whole space including into the kitchen. This gives the floorplan a nice flow by running one continuous flooring throughout.

 

Dining Area

Living Room

Beamed Cathedral Ceiling

Bedroom

First Floor Bath

Bathroom

Master Bedroom

Bedroom

Bath 2

Finished Basement

Finished Basement

Finished Kitchen

 

There was no need to stage this one or put it on the market as it was sold well before we were even finished.

In typical Hampden Homebuyers fashion; it came out looking awesome!!!

 

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

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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!!!!

 

P.S.S.   Want to learn to flip houses like a pro; check out our real estate investing Mastery Coaching program. We’ve teamed up with Than Merrill from A&E’s Flip this House to offer this amazing coaching program. Check it out here:  http://masterycoachingmatt.com/

New Fix and Flip – White Birch Leicester MA

We have started a new house flip in the beautiful town of Leicester (pronounced Lester) MA. This home is a big ass ranch that we bought as a short sale. It’s 3 bedrooms 1 bath right now, but we are going to be changing the layout a bit by adding a master suite complete with a nice new master bath.

House Flip

163 White Birch

 

The house is pretty big, I think it’s right around 2,000 square feet and it sits on 1.19 acres of land.

One of the bigger challenges with this house is that it has a large unpermitted addition built off the back that we have to fix and bring up to code. On top of that we’ll be gutting out most of the interior to open up the floor plan, doing new electric, new plumbing, new boiler, new roof, new siding, new windows, new kitchen, new baths, etc…….

Rear View White Birch

As you can see there will be no shortage of work needed to this property.

The town of Leicester is located about 50 minutes east of Springfield, which is a bit outside our normal area, however this property was brought to us by another investor that had negotiated the short sale on it and was looking for a partner to help fund the deal and assist with the rehab. So we are partners on this deal.

 

Here is the initial video walkthrough we did of the house:

 

 

So that is Dominic, myself, and our partner Ray Tower.

This is our first partnership deal but we are looking to do more with other investors in the area, so if you have a deal in MA that you need help getting funded and rehabbed just let us know.

 

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

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Reader Questions – Rehabbing a Fire Damaged House

We’ve rehabbed alot of houses that have fire damage, because of this I get quite a few questions from our readers on renovating fire damaged homes.

These types of properties can seem very intimidating to the new and experienced investor alike. You have multiple issues with fire damaged homes; not only are you dealing with the burn damage, but there is also smoke and water damage that come into play when renovating these houses.  Because of this trifecta of potential problems we usually just look at most fire damaged properties as full guts…. this way there is little question as to what we can save and what we need to replace….. we just replace it all!!!

Below are two recent questions I’ve recieved from visitors to the site along with my responses. 

Matt,
I was curious if you could give some tips on rehabbing a fire damaged property. I am making an offer on one today and would like to hear from you about any ‘gotchas’ or unique requirements from buyers, lenders, fire departments, municipalities, etc.

Thanks!

My response:

Hi,

Alot of it depends on the extent of the fire damage. Was it contained to one small room, or did the fire spread throughout the house?

We generally budget for a full gut rehab with all new mechanicals when doing a fire job. Once you have the house gutted out it becomes pretty easy.

Make sure you pay close attention to any burn damage to structural beams and joists. These usually will have to be sistered or replaced depending on the extent of the burn damage.

You can walk the building inspector through before you start the project and he will point out what he wants fixed and corrected.

Also be sure to work with a very good contractor that has experience with full gut rehabs and knows alot about framing and correcting any structural/support issues.

Good luck with your offer!!!

And now the second question:

Hey Matt

I live in Baltimore and am looking to do some similar things to what you and your partner are doing up in MAss. Can I get any tips on renovating a burned out place…Is there anything specific I need to do prior or during renovation? How do you deal with the smoke smell, do you guys like wash them down inside or once the drywall goes on it kind of encapsulates all that? Any kind of special testing group I need to bring on or anything?

And my response:
Hi,
Most of our fire damaged renovations are full guts. So we rip out all the sheetrock, carpeting, electric, ductwork etc…..
The smoke smell is tough to get rid of. We encapsulate all the burn damage with an oil or shellac based primer/sealer like Killz. We are usually tearing all the sheetrock out so this is done to burn damage that remains on wood framing, ceiling/floor joists or the roof rafters. On one project we did the fire was contained to an upstairs bedroom and hallway. So we kept some of the sheetrock on the first floor. However I did notice that on really warm days I could still smell some of the smoke left in the walls.
Make sure you are working with a good contractor that really understands framing and building codes.

Hope this helps – Matt

Obviously theres alot more that could be said on this topic and each fire damaged property is going to be unique. The best ones are when you are dealing with a small fire that only burned a couple interior rooms. The more questionable ones are when the fire really spreads throughout most of the house and does damage to the exterior walls and burns up through the majority of the roof. I’ve found that some of these can’t be fixed or it doesn’t make sense economically to rehab them, as the potential rehab cost far exceeds what the house will be worth when finished (especially in areas with lower priced homes).  
You’ll notice that in both responses I made sure to recommend using a good contractor, as this will make or break your rehab, especially when your dealing with fire damage.

Preselling Rehabs – 8 Bosworth St Update

Things are wrapping up at our rehab on 8 Bosworth St in Springfield. All the construction is finished, the home inspection was completed last week and we are waiting on the appraisal now.

This is an interesting property because we sold it just a few days after we initially purchased it. The buyers went through our property at 53 Fullerton St and fell in love with that house. We ended up getting multiple offers on 53 Fullerton and they  missed out on it. We told them not to worry because we had a few other houses in the pipeline that would be as equally beautiful.

We took them through Bosworth St, and while we had only been working on the house for a couple days, they were able to see through all the mess and picture our finished product. They wanted it to look just like Fullerton St…. which wasn’t a problem because we finish all our homes in a very similiar fashion.

So long story short, we bought the house on April 20th and had an agreement to sell it by April 27th.

Here are some of the pictures of the work wrapping up: (you can see the before pictures HERE)

8 Bosworth St Springfield

Bosworth St Kitchen 1

Bosworth St Kitchen 2

Dining Room with Shiny Hardwoods

Living Room

Fireplace

First Floor Bath

Master Bedroom

Second Floor Bath

Shower panel with BodyJets. Glass Tile Inlay

 

We’ll be testing the new FHA seasoning rules on this house, as we haven’t owned it anywhere near 90 days, so I’m hoping we won’t hit any snags there.

So, lesson learned here, if you receive multiple offers on one of your houses, don’t let the losing bidders get away… those are “ready to go” buyers, and if you have other inventory try to steer them towards that.