Accidental live-in flip!

[Chris Goodall]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment in Webster Groves.

Purchase price: $305,000
Cash invested: $30,000
Sale price: $378,000

3 bed 1.5 bath 1932 Cape Cod

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

We bought this as our "forever" home with the intention on rehabbing the property and staying. We spent about 6 months rehabbing this place before we actually moved in. Highly desirable and absolutely amazing neighborhood (I would argue the best neighborhood in St. Louis)

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

MLS. This was a few years ago but even a competitive market back then, especially this area. We looked at the house the day it came on the market and made a low offer figuring what the heck, if we don't get it oh well...if we do, wow! The seller met us halfway!

How did you finance this deal?

20% down conventional loan

How did you add value to the deal?

We removed a wall between the kitchen and dining room, updated the kitchen, gutted both bathrooms, paint, refinished hardwood, updated plumbing and electric and did an unbelievably large amount of landscaping (English Ivy AND Honeysuckle...c'mon!).

What was the outcome?

When we bought the house we know one of our kids bedrooms was kind of small, but we figured we would take out a loan later when he was a little older to build a small room addition.  Later came, and we began interviewing contractors.  This happened to coincide with me reading Rich Dad Poor Dad which messed my head up!  I struck a deal with my wife, she would read Rich Dad Poor Dad and I would finally read Harry Potter. After we both finished the book we knew we did not want to work to see all of our money go towards our house.  We didn’t even really want to work, we wanted financial freedom!  We decided it would be best to sell and move to something more affordable that we could grow into.

We listed the house and multiple offers over asking price later, we took our profit and moved on.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

I did a lot of rehab on this place myself, A LOT.  So I learned a ton. Also met some awesome contractors (floors, plumbing, electric) that I used on my second flip.

Challenge was leaving the area we've always wanted to live in to pursue wealth and financial freedom. It was really hard walking away from this neighborhood but we're hoping it was for the best!