Hell or Heaven ??

[Uwe S.]

I found a 15 unit (5x 2bed, 10x 1bed) house on the west side of Cleveland, vacant needs complete rehab, good outside (brick), boarded-up. The seller says: "you pay nothing for this house if you assume the back taxes and the city code violations". The only costs is for a QCD $295, the house is bank owned. I calculated the ARV, approx $390k.
The house has $36k back taxes, no lien.

Can this deal be a hell or may be a heaven??

-Uwe

[Jason S.]

Originally posted by Uwe Siegert:

I found a 15 unit (5x 2bed, 10x 1bed) house on the west side of Cleveland, vacant needs complete rehab, good outside (brick), boarded-up. The seller says: "you pay nothing for this house if you assume the back taxes and the city code violations". The only costs is for a QCD $295, the house is bank owned. I calculated the ARV, approx $390k.
The house has $36k back taxes, no lien.

Can this deal be a hell or may be a heaven??

-Uwe

Sometimes a code violation shows up at the last minute with title - talk to code enforcement to determine fines. I know you said "no lien" but I have had it happen where title did not pick up on it until the end - your seller mentioned "code violations" so I would make the call just in case. Had an $80,000 house in Riverside the other day with $60,000 in fines - hope yours is not the same.

Also - even if not yet "liened" or "fined" the code violations can still be extraordinary or things you do not already have included in your repair numbers. Just offered on another one in Riverside - 1200 sq ft by assessor - but - code violations and no fines. Looked into it deeply and discovered only 744 sq ft of the home is legal and that is not including the illegal detached garage. Nothing salvageable all needs to be torn down. So even though the surface looked one way the violations changed the dynamic significantly.

By the way , I know you are experienced and probably have these things covered but .... just in case.

Good Luck.