Denver Highlands Duplex Flip

[Bill S.]

So here it is. I got a call from one of my direct mail sources from a lady selling her mom's duplex. We talked a bit and when she stated her price, I thought it was a good deal so I asked to meet with her. It turns out she and her brother were living in the her mom's duplex for free. I didn't know it at the time but they failed to pay the mortgage so it was in foreclosure. I was meeting with her March 6, I think it was, so I was considering about a 30-45 day close time frame. She said, no we need to sell by March 21 because it's going to be sold at the foreclosure auction on the 24rd. So I had about 2.5 weeks to get this deal closed. I got my hard money lender on board and we closed on the 22nd. It turns out the hardest thing was getting the pay-off from the bank. I ended up renting the property back to them for 2 weeks while they found a place to move to since they needed the cash from the sale to get into a new place. I think they bought their own places. 

This was a duplex on a nice block in the Highlands neighborhood. They are all brick bungalows. I paid $450,000 for this property. My strategy was to flip the property as two separate units. I hired an attorney to draft a party wall agreement (Thanks Paul Ballew from here on BP for the referrals) and a surveyor to do the survey. I created separate legal discriptions and sold each unit (this split process took about 4 weeks but I marketed and put the properties under contract before it was finalized - a bit risky). Both units were mirror images of each other except that one had a detached 2 car garage. I actually had to close on the property without seeing one of the units. I was very nervous about that as I have found those usually turn out badly for me. In this case it was good. They had done some upgrades and it was nicer IMO than the side I had seen. 

I got the surveyor and attorney in motion and work began when they first side was vacated. It actually took an additional week for them to get moved then was in our agreement fortunately I had written into the agreement that they would pay me rent in the amount that covered my hard money loan costs if they overstayed their welcome. I was not able to collect it all but it certainly motivated them to get out.

The work I did to the first side was to do the trashout, add a separate water service and replace the carpet. I didn't have to add the water service in Denver so technically I wasted $6K but made the property lots less headache for the future owners. There was probably about one thirty yard dumpster worth of trash. I would have like to have refinished the wood floors but they had been covered with glued down partical board so I didn't want to try and finish them. I also installed a light in the bed room. Before I listed it, I had it staged as well. My stager did a great job as you can see from the pictures. I listed it on Friday night at $320,000 and had 12 offers buy Monday. I chose the highest price at $351,000. While I listed it as is and as a fix up, I gave some consessions and we closed at $350,000. I ended up replacing the common sewer line from the house to the main. This cost $7k plus about $1,500 for new concrete. 

The second unit was a bit more work. I had the nasty carpet ripped out and the floors sanded. I had it cleaned repainted. I hung a sheet in basement to separate the dirt crawl space from the full hight unfinished basement. This unit was staged as well. I listed at $309,000 and we went under contract at $346,500. Again 8 offers over the weekend. Again through the negotiation process they wanted all kinds of consessions and it even came in under the appraisal because the other side had a two car garage. The buyers came up with the funds per the contract and we closed. I did have to pay an abatement contractor $2,000 to remove the old duct work that was likely covered in asbestos. It was under the regulatory limit so it didn't require the full permit process but it followed the same protocol.

Numbers are as follows.

Purchase Price $450,000

Hard money costs $16,000

Holding costs 2.5 months $10,000

Repair costs $21,000

Lot split (survey and attorney) $5,000

Real Estate Commission on Sale @ 6% of sale price $42,000*

Sale Prices ($350,000, and $345,000) = $695,000

Profit before taxes = $151,000. 

*Since I am an agent I kept about 50% of this but that is a separate company.

Note This deal made me more money than I did in a whole year at my previous w2 job.

Thanks go out to @Joshua Dorkin for this sight. Many of the items key to this deal came from BP. I learned about direct mail marketing from @Michael Quarles. Thanks for the great time together each month. You are an encouragement and inspiration to me each time we meet.

I posted this one because finding flipping deals in Denver is a bit challenging and I thought there were a number of components (150,000 of them :) ) that made it special.

Just a shout out to all those folks that say there aren't any good deals in Denver or Colorado to be had.

[Bryan O.]

Awesome job @Bill S.!! Next beer at the meetup is on YOU  ;)