I closed on this property about 2 months ago, but had to let it sit while I went to perform property maintenance inspections, on all the apartment properties in unincorporated areas of Gwinnett County, GA. (Great Contract another story)

The property includes 4 addresses, with a 2 story historic home approximately 3500 sf, a 2nd home approximately 1700sf, a commercial building approximately 2000 sf, a large metal building in the back, and another storage building in the back, easily another 1000 sf., and all of its contents. Purchase price $22,000.

Mobile is seeing economic growth. Amazon is building a large sorting and distribution center, Walmart is building a large warehousing distribution center, Austal received a contract for additional Litoral Battleships, a large federal courthouse is under construction, just had a groundbreaking for a new $50M apartment development, and announced another apartment development.

The Downtown commercial district falls inside a loop created by Broad and Bouregard St., which has received a grant to be reconstructed to include bike and pedestrian paths. My property is about a 1000 ft outside that loop.

3 of my addresses are facing Springhill Ave, and zoned commercial, while the 4th backs up to these parcels, faces Oak St. and is zoned residential.

The smaller house, commercial building and large metal building are owned free and clear. The larger house has an existing reverse mortgage in default. However, the banks legal description is for the lot at Oak St. My understanding is they are stuck, until they can rectify the title issues. This should buy me time and hopefully give me some leverage, in negotiating a short sell. I haven't done this before, so advice here is welcome. I called them yesterday and they claimed they had not received the authorization to discuss the loan, so I refaced the authorization and will follow up.

My 1st hurdle is dealing with the contents. The previous owner had the property since 1979. There is a ton of old financial records and such. I think they originally owned a tv repair shop, later got into computers and networking, and off and on were in the car business. Ironically, I bought my 1st computer here in 1994. I beleive it was a top of the line, custom built tower with a 486 intel chip. A week later the 1st pentimento chip hit the market. Anyway there are tons of old, outdated printers, monitors, fax machines, software, pieces and parts in the commercial building. The other structures are also packed with an array of stuff with no to little value, with the possibility of a rare find. Picture American Pickers dust and cobwebs.

I contacted someone who does estate sales and a junk hauling company. Found out Goodwill can take computers and monitors. Still working on a strategy.

The next hurdle and important step is getting the power on. Plumbing and HVAC have been vandalized for the copper. It seems like an electrical panel on every tree and wiring placed in plumbing conduit across the back of the property, obviously unpermitted work. I met with the electrical inspector yesterday morning. My electrician will be able to get power to one panel on the commercial building, and use it to start testing the power on the other structures.

My goal is to renovate the commercial building to expand our Architectural practice. I have a contractor that wants to rent the metal building, and not sure what I will do with the other property yet. Considering short term rentals with all the construction work coming.

To be continued...