First home purchase that led to many others

[Hilary Lockhart]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $97,000
Cash invested: $2,910
Sale price: $330,000

Purchased first home in 1997. Because of the increase of value of the home, we were able to pay it off and get a HELOC to allow us to start flipping. Because of the HELOC, we were able to squeeze our financer out and not pay 50% to our hard money lender. This was the best investment of all because it was our first, which allowed us to get into flipping with no other investors.

Bought the house for less than $3k down and put in roughly $40,000 over the course of the next decade.

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

It was a 2600 square foot home for less than $100k.

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

Had a real estate broker

How did you finance this deal?

FHA mortgage

How did you add value to the deal?

Put in a pool, added new flooring, paint, updated doors, and trim.

What was the outcome?

We had so much equity, we were able to pull cash out to start flipping.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Wish I would have held onto it for another year - they sold it a year later for another $160k and did not do anything to it.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Broker but do not remember their name.