New member - analysis feedback

[Zane O.]

I'm a new member and would love some feedback on our recent purchase and analysis.

We bought a residential property in an upscale neighborhood.  It was built in 1999 and has 3,824 square feet.  They added an in-ground swimming pool in 2004, but otherwise the house was not updated/improved over time.  We bought the house for $98/ft and the average sales price for the area at the time of purchase was $130/ft.  Our plan is a "long-term" flip.  We are making updates/improvements and living in the house.  We plan to put it back on the market within a year.  We were able to finance the property as a commercial loan at 4% with no cash out of pocket.

$371,500 purchase & closing price

$35,000 (projected) improvements

$28,102 holding costs (property taxes, insurance, and debt service)

___

$509,900 projected sales price

$15,297 sales commission split (3%, my mother-in-law is our broker)

$3,500 closing costs

With round numbers, we are looking at $50,000 net profit assuming 1 calendar year. I've calculated our ROI as 13%. The cash-on-cash is somewhat skewed because we're essentially rolling everything back into the line-of-credit/commercial note and spending almost nothing directly out of pocket (104% if we paid all holding costs out of pocket).

I have a detailed spreadsheet, but I'm not sure if I can upload that here.

How does this look, and what other analysis could we be making to continue making sound decisions?

Thanks,

Zane

[Bob E.]

With the price of oil down 50% I would be leery of holding anything in Texas right now.  I remember the last time oil crashed after a boom and it was bad, really bad, in Texas.

If you are living in the house while doing the rehab I would rethink your holding costs in calculating profit.  I am not sure how you got a commercial loan for your primary but you might be able to deduct interest, again not sure because you stated this is a commercial loan.

Check with your tax person but I don't think you will be able to qualify for the capital gains exemption if you are in the house for a short time, i think it needs to be 2 out of the last 5 years as a primary residence, again the commercial loan might hurt you here.