First single-family investment

[John Kula]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $330,000
Cash invested: $16,500

We purchased in 2021. The price was $330,000. We lived in the property for two years while we slowly renovated interior, landscaping, as well as resurfacing the pool, and added privacy with a new fence. The market value is currently sitting near $600,000. We moved out and rented it to a couple and now seeking new tenants.

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

Wanted to enter the real estate market while we had the opportunity too.

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

MLS listing. We saw it the night before it listed. We put in an offer immediately. The owners were in the middle of a divorce and were happy to part ways with the property.

How did you finance this deal?

We had personal savings and put down 5% with a conventional loan.

How did you add value to the deal?

We added value by repainting interior, new floors, new roof, resurfaced the pool, added a fence for privacy, upgraded the landscaping, sealed and painted the exterior, added central A/C with new unit, upgraded the irrigation system, added gutters, added security cameras, added hurricane proof front and rear doors.

The roof and the floors were not huge costs to us the buyer, as the seller filed an insurance claim for water damage just prior to our offer closing.

What was the outcome?

Value has increased by ~ 40%. We did the upgrades over two years to reduce the burden. Easy to maintain now, with little headaches from the current tenants.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

We were forced to have flood insurance on the home and that was the best investment we made because of a storm that wrecked havoc int he neighborhood last year.

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

Silvana Silva was our agent and Ricardo Lima with Fair Mortgage Lending.