Good Riddance

[Kalimah Jenkins]

Have you ever had a flip that is a thorn in your side at every turn?  I just closed on one today.  So happy to see this one go.  It was a pain from the very start.  

Bought on courthouse steps, owner still in property, took two months to get him out.  OK renovation, but due to owner, timeline blown with the property coming on the market at Christmas, without really being able to do anything to the outside.  The weather in GA has been so cold and rainy this season.  So, we put it on the market anyway and everyone pointed to the fact that it was beautiful inside but a mess outside.  The house also had other problems (low ceilings in the kitchen, small dining area, small living room, top heavy, driveway pitched down toward the house, only 1600 sq feet with no room to expand, and no basement).  It truly worked better as a rental, but I am not holding at the present.

We were hoping to find someone who could look past the lack of curb appeal.  Didn't happen.  Anyway, we took it off of the market and worked on the outside on any day that the weather was over 35 degrees.  It needed exterior paint, rotten boards changed, gazebo knocked down, fence powerwashed, deck boards changed, deck painted, sod, and pinestraw.  We had already removed 40 yds of garbage.

Put in back on the market mid-Feb and closed on it today.

Negatives:

Made 1/2 of the money but I was in all cash and needed to move on

Positives:

Phenomenal learning experience:  

1. I will never buy another auction house that is occupied because there is really no way to sneak around the place the same as a vacant one

2. Smart enough to realize the house wouldn't work well for a family and was better as a buy and hold.  So, I changed strategies and began marketing to buy and hold investors

3. Excellent school district still ensured tremendous demand (showings)

4. Houses with basements, even unfinished are more in demand and I will try and stick with those

5. Even though it was an auction house and I couldn't see inside, I should have paid closer attention to the pitched driveway and the exterior, which looked more like swampland than the outside of a residential property

6. I'm out of it and onto the next one

Just thought I'd share

Kalimah Jenkins

East Cobb, GA