One down!

[Ryan Coburn]

This project closed a couple months ago, but I thought I'd give my after action review.

Acquired a bank-owned ranch style townhouse. Structurally, it was sound, smelled like the animals were never let outside, small galley-style kitchen, very worn wood deck. Other than it being really gross, it was already habitable. 70% ARV financed with a hard money lender. I funded the ~5k in closing costs and the float between the time I paid the contractors and the time I was reimbursed from the HML's escrow account.

We replaced the windows, sliding glass door, demoed the "bar" in the basement, updated the bathrooms including tile surrounds in the shower and bath, and added new carpet.  We opened the back wall of the kitchen to allow access from different areas of the house which lost little and made it feel much larger.

My take aways:

• Not having a limit on my AMEX comes in very handy
• two 24" vanities cost a lot less than a 48" vanity and look okay when put side by side
• Neighbors were so happy to have the unit updated that they came over with plants and put them in themselves
• Super thick deck paint filled in the pits in the deck so we only replaced a couple broken boards
• Home Depot really has some good kitchen cabinets
• A crappy carpet install can mean a lot of rework to repair baseboards
• Dig the window well out 6" below the bottom of the window frame and make sure the window is sealed well.  During a thunderstorm I had a small river of water find its way between a gap in the frame.  The window frame was at the dirt level.
• The absence of an AC unit is not a deal breaker
• Kilz on the subfloor really helps eliminate pet odors
• Peel and stick tiles have come a long way and look good.  Get the ones which hold a grout line.
• Make sure you attach the anti-tip strap to the oven before the inspection
• Make sure you have some cash available to pay for the contractor while waiting for the draw amount to be wired to your account.  (this is proving to be key on my current project)
• The hard money lender will want to make sure that you have enough funds to cover the interest payments for at least a couple months, will use their own appraiser and fund based on that appraised value (using our designs to calculate the ARV).

We had a cash offer of our target amount ($165k) within two weeks.  Total profit was ~$20k.