2017 90-day challenge success story

[Jackie Dickson]

Thanks to @Brandon Turner's 90-day challenge, I FINALLY picked up my first fix-and-flip property on Dec 27th, 2017. I have held rentals, but no flips. The property was found on Hubzu, and I had made a low bid in the past, but lost to another bidder. When the property came back on the market, I was lucky that the bank was hitting year end and lowered their reserve significantly.

In the end, I won by $1000, purchasing 1973 home in a good suburb of Cleveland (at $113k, all in including fees. It appraised during lending for $145k as is, and $180k ARV. I anticipate renovations at $30-35k with contingencies - mostly cosmetic, kitchen, baths but I will definitely replace the Federal Pacific panel and need to replace the driveway in the spring.

I did purchase and finance in an entity (LLC) name.

I'm going to do the bulk of the general work on this property in order to learn the process hands on, but I don't anticipate that I'll continue that in the future. [IMO, some contractors still like to think women are gullible...my grandfather was a GC and a union carpenter, so I know my way around a toolbox. I feel I need to know exactly what should be expected in terms of effort and schedule in order to be comfortable handing over to contractors in the future]

There's a possibility to make a living space in the lower level into a 4th bedroom with en suite as there is appropriate egress, so I'm going to build in a closet and add a door to allow this space to be used in a flexible manner. Comps suggest that the market could bear a price closer to $215k with that option, which would make me VERY happy, and it's super cheap to implement. Fingers crossed.