Potential First Home/Flip

[Mark Smith]

Long story, but I'll try to condense it as much as possible!  One of my girlfriend's family members passed away several years ago, and left her house to two of her children (my girlfriend's aunt and uncle).  The water was not shut off in the house, and needless to say, there were several pipes that burst.  A company came in and took out all of the sheet rock and flooring (down to the plywood), due to all of the water damage.  

The house would also most likely require a new heating system with all of the cracks in the copper, and we see a lot of other pieces that have expanded.  It is currently gas hot water, but I want to have a few companies give me an estimate on a new (potentially different) heating system (very open to suggestions).  Unfortunately, I don't know the square footage of the house.  What I can say is that it is 5 bedroom, 2.5 bath, with a good size living room, a dining room, and a kitchen on the smaller size.  The house was originally 4 bedroom, but part of the garage was converted when the grandmother could no longer climb the stairs; we would take this bedroom out to restore the garage space.

There is also part of the cinder block foundation that needs repair as it is cracked and slightly bowed in; that has been given an estimate of $7k.

We are not sure what the family will ask for the house; they have homeowner's insurance that they will be collecting, but there are back taxes on the house, and we just have no idea if they will give it up and be done with it or if they will want every penny they can get out of it.  We estimate (very very roughly) that the house could be worth $225k to $250k when renovated.

I guess I'm not sure what the point of this post is...maybe words of wisdom, advice, and I just want to talk about it!  We plan to live in the house, however there is flip potential (live in flip?).  We have our first general contractor coming to take a look on Saturday and give us an idea of renovation cost :)