First House

[David O]

I purchased my first property from a tax auction. My dad and I went in on it (my mom also helped quite a bit). The house was built in 1941. Around 750 sq ft with a recently renovated exterior. 2 bedroom and 1 bath. The house is on a crawlspace (with about 2 ft clearance - not fun). It was a pretty interesting project. Read on.

The property had been vacant for three years and it had water problems. The hot water tank exploded and water was sitting in the utility room/kitchen for quite awhile. The second bedroom also had the window busted out for about a year (the city boarded it up after a year) and was exposed to a lot of water damage. I knew it was gonna take some work, but it got real pretty quick.

The kitchen floor had stick tiles, then 1/4" lauan, then 3/4" original hardwood, then a 3/4" plank subfloor. I started removing everything and realized how bad the damage was. I had to remove everything down to the joists. The floor was so damaged that once I got it down to the plank subfloor (I was planning on keeping this if in good condition), you would fall through the floor. My mom actually fall through the floor into the crawlspace...luckily the crawlspace is only about a 1-2ft from the subfloor, so she was okay. The joists were in decent condition, I had to sister some of the joists.The sill running along the wall was in pretty good condition as well.

The second bedroom had carpet that we removed. Under the carpet was hardwood (hardwood was throughout the house, original from 1941). The hardwood was pretty badly warped. We ripped this floor up as well. This one was in really bad condition. There was mold all over the joists, they were rotted. The sill was rotted as well. We had to totally replace all the joists and the sill.

Once we took up the floors I had to go in the crawlspace and remove all the mold. I removed it all and put a sealant over it. We nailed down new plywood subfloors. Carpeted most rooms and installed laminate in the kitchen. The walls were somewhat challenging. They were plaster and both my dad and I never worked with it before. We needed to patch a few areas (second bedroom was the worst because of water damage). We installed all new cabinets. My dad handled the plumbing.

Both of us are handy, but we've never worked on anything like this before (I didn't even know what a joist was before this project). We did all the work ourselves and we also both have full time jobs. We received the deed on 12/05/2013 and completed it in 32 days. Purchase price was 13K and rehab cost was just under 5K. The house passed inspection this week and a renter is moving in next week. Rent is $600 a week. When I cash out refi this property, I expect the appraisal to come in around 35K. All in all, it was a great learning experience and big confidence builder.