A "You live and you learn" experience!

[Steven De Lange]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment.

Sale price: $336,000

A "You live and you learn" experience!

My wife and I bought a 135 year old home in down-town Conway, SC with the intention to live in it while we fixed it up, and rent it out as a STR once it was ready. The house is very charming, in a very quiet area at the end of a dead-end street, yet within walking distance of a vibrant downtown area with stores, bars and restaurants.

We learned fairly quickly that a home this age comes with a lot of liabilities, being badly insulated, more prone to animal infestations (palmetto bugs, bats, squirrels, etc). Homes this age do not have a sub floor - in our case, It had the original Brazilian pine floors from 135 years ago! and often we had to deal with flooding in the crawl space.

We decided that the upkeep of this old home would be much more of a headache (for it being a rental) than we anticipated or wanted to deal with and ended up selling the home as a fix and flip, making money off the deal!

So we successfully did a Fix and Flip, although that was not our intention!!!!

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

We thought it was an ideal house to STR - and it would have been just based on the location, and perhaps the experience of staying in an old home.

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

An open-house - and we were able to negotiate the price down by $41.000

How did you finance this deal?

Fannie mea

How did you add value to the deal?

Refinished the original floors (massive value increase), fixed the heating and air system, painted all rooms, cleaned up the yard for curb appeal

What was the outcome?

Sold the home within a week - making money!

Lessons learned? Challenges?

a 135 year old home needs a steward, someone who takes care of the home - at the time as a fairly new investor I misjudged the situation - the "location, location, location rule" does not alway go up! haha