Hoarder House in Denver

[Heather Rudy]

Hi fellow Denver folks and anyone who might have experience with a hoarder house.  I would consider doing the cleaning/repairs myself, but also curious if anyone can recommend a local cleaning company or provide an estimated cost?  This is a 3/2 with about 1300 sq ft.  There are dead mice, mouse droppings covering most of the visible carpet, piles of books/papers/stuff everywhere.   Dishes and food in the sink, a spill (perhaps soda) that's deteriorated a good portion of the kitchen floor.  A very unpleasant odor as you might imagine.  Also, any potential problems to be on the lookout for if I enter into contract (i.e. how to structure contingencies or ways to manage the stuff that is in the house?)  The listing currently states "as is."  How does an inspection work in a situation like this when an inspector obviously can't get a good visual on huge portions of the space?  My realtor has been extremely helpful in answering some of these questions, but just want to know if there's anything I'm missing and how I can reasonably estimate the cost to get this property either move-in ready or sellable.  

Thanks for your thoughts/comments as I navigate whether or not this is a good territory for me to jump into.

[Account Closed]

Sounds like my kind of house.

1) Everything salvagable left behind gets put on eBay.  If it's not salvageable then strip the copper, aluminum, etc. out of it so you can sell it to Atlas Metals.  Books get sold to used book stores.  Dishes get thrown out or donated to ARC/Goodwill for the tax write off...one man's trash is another man's treasure.

2)  ALL CARPET GETS REPLACED.  Seriously...carpet is cheap (stay away from Home Depot - there are better options...and carpet is cheap).  Mice and droppings go out with the carpet...in fact, once you remove the food source, mice generally go away as well.

3) An inspector doesn't care about huge portions of space and honestly, if it's sold as is, an inspector is no different than a contractor that comes in after the fact...I would also go as far to say if you have any experience with construction/rentals, you're wasting your money with inspectors - it's being sold as is...the only value an inspector is going to give you is to tell you what you need to do to sell it to someone else - if this is a rental property, the new tenants aren't going to care about the same things an inspection is going to reveal.

Based on your post...this sounds like your first deal.  My general comment that I argue with people all the time about is that in real estate, your money is made up front - not after the fact.  I don't care if you're considering this for a flip or as a rental, if you're looking at a house in this condition, it needs to be priced at 60-70% of reselling market price.  In other words, if it can sell for $100k, you need to pay between $60 and $70k.  The difference will be repair costs...and they should be much less than $30k.

Carpet is cheap, paint is cheap.  When valuing this property look for low hanging fruit...do you need a new furnace?  Do you need a new roof?  Do you need to replace the sewer pipe to the main (big deal here in Denver)...etc.  Is your objective to rent it or flip it?  What are your goals?