My FIRST deal has turned into a nightmare

[Ashley B.]

After 8 months of research and preparation, I finally closed on my first deal - a SFH in a decent neighborhood. I’ve been waiting and working hard to achieve this dream since I graduated from college 10 years ago. This property exceeded my minimum requirements so I thought it would be the perfect property to begin my REI career. I anticipated putting about $4000-$5000 into it to address a few safety issues, make a few repairs and get it rent ready. My inspector didn’t note any serious issues besides the fact that the toilet was leaking into the crawl space. He said it would be about an $800 fix. I was concerned that the seller wouldn’t repair it properly so my realtor suggested that we just take it off the purchase price. I asked for $1000 off the purchase price which also included the cost of putting a couple of GFI’s in the kitchen and we called it a done deal. Since taking possession 9 days ago, I’ve had nothing but problems and bad news. I discovered that there are flooring issues in one of the bedrooms so the contractor will need to cut the floor up to see what’s going on. Apparently the seller had to replace the floors a few years ago due to issues with the joists but didn’t take care of the bedroom. My contractor said we might have to pour some concrete down there but we won’t know the extent of the fix until he opens up the floor. The next issue the seller chose to ignore was that the hot water heater has been leaking for quite some time. We shut off the water and drained it last night but I walked in this morning and it was leaking out of the bottom. I had to make an emergency call and I’m currently waiting for a plumber. At the beginning of last week I unplugged the fridge and left the doors open. Thought this was a good idea since the fridge isn’t going to be used for a few weeks. When I walked in yesterday the laminate in the kitchen was buckled from water damage. There was water all around the fridge. I never saw that one coming. Now I will will also be replacing the kitchen floor. A couple of weeks ago we bought a new washer and dryer for our home so we could swap out our old washer and dryer and put it in the rental. The washer and dryer hook-ups are in the garage. My husband just noticed today that there are no pipes connecting to the hook-ups because lo and behold, they froze at one point because the garage is not heated. My realtor was the listing agent as well and I made a comment about the washer/dryer hook-ups as we did our walk through. He never said they couldn’t be used. Shouldn’t that have been disclosed? Now I need to figure out how to make it work because I can’t have a SFH without a washer/dryer. I’ve received one estimate so far from a general contractor and it was $13,000. That’s if the leaking toilet didn’t cause more damage than a couple of floor joists. That also didn’t include whatever water damage the hot water has caused, the floor issues in the bedroom and the fix for the washer/dryer hook-ups. The entire place needs a fresh coat of paint so I could be looking at putting close to $25,000 into this place. I feel like I’ve made one of the biggest mistakes of my life right now. I understand that there are so many unknowns when it comes to real estate and nothing is easy, but I didn’t anticipate this scope of work for my first deal. I was hoping to land a decent house that only needed a few thousand dollars worth of work so I could get my feet wet and start being a landlord. In 8 days this house has become a money pit and has completely squashed my desire to ever invest in real estate again. Is my situation pretty standard or is it just bad luck?