After listening to a few podcasts, I am posting one of my success stories. This is a deal I did at the end of 2013. This was my first deal in quite a while. I had been holding rentals for several years, and was not making much money at it. After going several years without picking up a new deal, I decided I must be doing something wrong. That is when I found BP!

I began to educate myself here, and read plenty of books. I lined up my finances, started marketing, and looking for a deal... It. Took. Months. to find something I was comfortable with.

I got a call from one of my Craigslist ads. A caller from out of town wanting to offload his sister's house. After some back and forth we settled on a price of $48k. The house was a 3/2, 1400 sq. ft. and comp'd conservatively at $78k ARV.

It was pretty close to a 'carpet and paint job' with a few minor other repairs. The roof had been replaced recently, but that was about all. It needed new interior doors, minor drywall work, and the kitchen cabinets were ugly, but in good condition. The guest bathroom needed the tile surround replaced because it was dated and damaged. The fence needed some planks replaced, and the gate rebuilt. Yard was out of control. The house was pretty dirty, and cluttered, the way it would look if someone had lived there a while without giving it a deep cleaning. After I walked the house, we inked the contract and were off to the title company.

Closing went well, there was a slight miscommunication over who paid title. I ended up paying, it was only $500, so we closed the deal in about two weeks.

I got possession and started work immediately. Things were going great, as planned. Then, I get a knock at the door. The man says he is the roofing company, and has not been paid for the job he did on the house. He is requesting payment from me. He said the now-previous-owner was not talking to him, so that is why he stopped by the house. I gave the only information I had, and crossed my fingers. I never heard back from him. Needless to say, I was a little stressed, and got lucky! I certainly hadn't planned an extra roof in my budget!

The project went pretty smoothly from there on, with the only surprise being a refrigerant leak in the AC system. It was $400 to fix, and back to working like new. We removed a deteriorated concrete pad which was actually a planting bed that someone had filled in. We cleaned up the front yard, and mirrored the planting beds to both sides of the front entry. New countertops in the kitchen, and painted the existing cabinets. We scraped the popcorn ceiling throughout the house. Repainted every wall and the ceiling too. New carpet in the bedrooms and hall. Tile in the kitchen, dining, and laundry room. One final thorough cleaning, and it was ready for open house!

We completed repairs pretty close to on time. I had added a few things which put us over schedule and over budget, but I feel we got the value back in the end. We held our own open house, and had two offers the first week. We were able to sell without a realtor, and got $82k. From the day I signed the purchase contract, to closing day of the sale, we were just under 90 days.

Here are the numbers:
$48,000 Purchase
$11,630 Repairs
$1,301 Buying Closing Costs
$550 Utilities
$403 Loan and Interest
$2,925 Selling Closing costs (we paid 2k of buyer's costs)
$64,799 Total Costs
$17,201 Profit

Before:

Deteriorated concrete pad, paint on the bricks, and overgrown and dying shrubs.

Hard to see the house from the street.

Some tile damage, and a very dated knob and drain set.

Yes, that is a pale green wall color. Oh, and when you open the upper cabinets you better hope you remembered to shut off the ceiling fan.

We had gathered a lot of the stuff seller left behind. You can see my baby daughter in the carrier there too. We start 'em early. ;)

These holes were in several places in the house.

After:

At the time of this picture, we were in stage 4 drought restrictions, and not allowed to water unless by soaker-hose at certain times. So the 'grass' is actually all weeds, and there isn't much we can do about it.

There's the front door!

New guest bathroom shower tile. Clean!

New countertops, microwave, lights, and paint!

Standing in the living room, looking past the front door at the dining room.