Pickerington, Ohio Single Family Auction 203k - Jessica Bolin

[Jessica Hood]

I am starting this a bit late, but am excited to share my experience.  I am going to post comments with photos in chronological order to catch up!

I found this foreclosure home in Pickerington, Ohio on Hubzu.com.  It was Spring 2015.  It was listed as an online auction with a low starting price.  1,320 sqft split level (4 levels).  4 bedrooms, 3 baths, formal living room, family room, unfinished basement, 2 car garage, and a fireplace.  It had sat vacant for a year.

I checked it out with my realtor and knew immediately that it had that cheap "ugly duckling" potential.  Ugly house in a very nice neighborhood on the edge of the city.  It sat at the end of a large  quiet cul-de-sac.  Good sized yard and well kept houses in the neighborhood.  Even the landscaping was quite nice.

My only real concern was that there were some foundation, wet basement, and mold issues.  That is enough to scare most people away.

I had a structural engineer come out and tell me how bad he thought the foundation was.  We had some inward movement of the walls due to hydrostatic pressure.  Horizontal cracks in the walls and water seepage.  I was informed that all we needed were 15 steel I-beams installed for reinforcement.

I knew the other basement water issues would be fairly easy to solve.

I was not concerned about the mold as I have dealt with this before.

The outside of the home was hideous.  Some of the wood siding and trim needed replaced.  The roof had three layers of old shingles.  Plus typical cosmetic stuff.

The inside was worse.  Nearly everything had that old 80s/90s dark and dreary look to it.  It smelled horrible.  Animal urine soaked carpet in many rooms and mold in some areas of the lower levels.  Broken and non-functioning various small things.  Bad seals on some of the windows.  Condition of the plumbing was unknown.  Breaker box needed to be updated.  Some electrical needed to be replaced in the basement.  HVAC appeared to work.  Water heater looked newer, but didn't know if it worked.

For the price, there was nothing scaring me away.  I got my property specific pre-approval for a 203k renovation loan and started bidding on the property.  I only had one other bidder who I later found out was actually a neighbor!  Haha!  But I quickly outbid him.  

I was the high bidder for quite a while and could have stopped bidding below the reserve, but I did not want to lose the property and continued bidding until I hit the reserve.  After two years of fighting fierce competition on other properties I lost, I wasn't about to lose this one.  I won the bid at $93k.  Having looked at comps and the analysis from my mortgage lender and realtor, I KNEW this house was worth more.

This was the start of a new adventure and one heck of a crazy ride!!  More to come... stay tuned... :)