Assuming Mortgage of Deceased Grandmother's House For BRRRR?

[Mark B.]

This one is a little complicated but I'll try to be as brief as possible. My grandmother passed away last year and the title transferred to my father and his brother and sister equally. My aunt still lives there, my uncle has basically washed his hands of it and has no interest other than hoping to maybe get some money out of it eventually. My father has no interest in the property at all and we've talked about me getting involved. The property is very distressed, it's in pre foreclosure, no payments have been made for over a year. It will likely need a gut rehab. But it's in an A neighborhood, Zillow estimates put it at $168K, recent comps speak to that. Obviously that would be in good condition, in the shape that it's in they'd be lucky to sell it for maybe $50-75K to an investor.

That's where I come in, my aunt is in the process of seeing if she can assume the mortgage and be responsible for it as long as my father and uncle sign off on their interest in the property. Problem with that is my aunt is more or less disabled, on SSI and brings in ~$733 a month on assistance. The mortgage alone is $450 a month so I'm doubtful the bank would sign off on her assuming the mortgage anyway with such a high DTI and especially given the fact that she's the one responsible for the home being in pre foreclosure in the first place.

My hypothetical scenario would be to come in and try to assume it myself, I'm more than qualified financially and I own 6 other properties already, have very low DTI. I've read that if a mortgage is assumed by a relative that it may not trigger the due on sale clause on the mortgage. That would be optimal obviously. I would consider giving each of them (dad, uncle, aunt) somewhere around $5K to wash their hands of it. And my aunt would hopefully use that money to find a cheap apartment while she looks for government assisted housing which is all she's ever going to be able to afford anyway. My logic for the family payoff would be that's probably the maximum they would get if it foreclosed and was sold for more than was owed anyway, but likely would end up with next to nothing at all.

I would then pay the holding costs to bring the mortgage up to date, pay the liens (~$10-15K for nursing home and something else), and then come up with hard money or private lending to do a gut rehab of the house in order to rent it out. Market rent would be $1,300/month. Gut rehab would probably be somewhere in the range of $40-50K. Once that's done I'd probably refinance out to pay off the hard money/private loan and be left with a loan for $100K or so with an appraised value of $168, so that would put me comfortably at about 40% equity. The numbers make sense, I think it could all work, it's just a matter of getting everybody on board, I have a good relationship with all of them it's just more the ability to make it work for all of them. My dad has said he wouldn't take any money from me, but I wouldn't feel right about that, to my uncle $5K would be life-changing money, and to my aunt hopefully $5K would be enough to stabilize her until she can get permanent section 8 or something to that effect. I know she would rather stay in the house but that seems utterly infeasible given her situation.

Numbers would be something similar to this:

Remaining Mortgage: $35K

Cost to Make Current: $8K

Liens: $10-15K

Family Payoff: $10-15K

Gut Rehab: $40-50K

Total Project Cost: $103K-$124K

ARV: $168K

Refinance @ 60/40 LTV: Pull Out ~$68K/Remaining Loan $100K

Property Tax: $2700/year

Insurance: $1000/year

PITI @ 5% interest: $845

Post-Rehab Gross Rent: $1,300/month

Obviously could go lower on the LTV to pull out more cash if necessary, but this scenario would put me at $35K-$55K out of pocket which is essentially the same as a 20% down payment on the similarly price property but it'll be completely renovated so should make for a great rental with very little CapEx and maintenance early on. This would give me ~9-13% COC return. Which is what I'm getting from my rentals in a C neighborhood with very little appreciation chance. But this is in an A neighborhood where the property values have appreciated ~25% in the last 5 years on average. Positive cashflow after would be in the $300-450 range per month I'm guesstimating. Obviously less including CapEx, maintenance, vacancy reserves. Would probably self-manage.

Has anyone gone through something like this before? I realize it's a lot of hoops to jump through, but to me it's not really much different than any other fix/flip scenario other than it could be as good a deal if not better. Are there any hitches that I'm not seeing? Are my rehab costs way off? I've heard $25-35/square foot for a base level gut rehab but I don't know if that's accurate. The house is ~1,500 square feet. Obviously I'd need to get contractors in to assess the property to see if it's even possible because it's been very much neglected over the last decade. I didn't factor in holding costs or hard money/private loan costs for the rehab portion because I'm unsure of those right now. But at a base level, does this kind of endeavor make sense? Or is it as close to a wash as possible that I'd be better off just buying a property without so much work required? Any help or tips or assistance would be much appreciated. Thanks so much!