My First Sheriff's Sale

[Megan Balarezo]

Investment Info:

Condo buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $155,000
Cash invested: $185,000

My partner had experience in Sheriff's sales in the past so we heard about a beach condo up for sale last fall, and actually won the bid! I got to experience the whole process, and learned a lot. Positives: We have a 2 bedroom condo 2 blocks from the beach now - yay! Negatives: The HOA is a mess, the building needs a lot of repairs, and we have a lot more work to do to rehab the community as needed which we didn't know before getting into it, but we're investing!

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

The location is fantastic.

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

Looking online at auction sales.

How did you finance this deal?

Profit from my other company.

How did you add value to the deal?

Rehabbed everything - new floors, windows, gutted the full kitchen and bathroom.

What was the outcome?

We got to enjoy it for this last summer, and now are putting it up for rent which will cash flow $1500/mo back to the business account.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Do research on the HOA you are buying into, know that refinancing might cost you more than you anticipated, and demand open communication from your contractor about what steps they're taking. Our contractor was actually terrible and did things out of order making more work for us in the end.