My 3rd deal! This was the 1st deal I bought from driving with the DealMachine app (I made this app btw). I found the house with a tarp over the entire roof driving one day and added it to the app. From that point, a postcard was sent to the owner monthly with a pic of the house on it. Four months later the seller called me and I bought this house for $4782. I financed the renovations with no-interest credit cards. It is now my first full-time Airbnb. The first 30 days on Airbnb brought in $1826.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I couldn't find any deals on the MLS at the time, so I looked off-market for a property that I could buy with instant equity.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

I found this one driving specific neighborhoods where I wanted to buy a property. I added all of the properties that looked like they needed maintenance to the DealMachine app, which automatically sent postcards to the owner every 21 days with a pic of the house on it. This owner called me after the 4th postcard. I used list source to pull recent sales for the area and presented the lowest ones as comps (this house was in bad condition).

How did you finance this deal?

I bought the house $4782 cash. I financed the rehab with 4 no-interest credit cards. I found the best cards on nerdwallet.com with the "no-interest" filter. I applied for the cards back to back on the same day. I kept applying for more cards until I had the amount of credit I needed.

How did you add value to the deal?

This was a total transformation! We changed the roofline to add a vaulted ceiling and reframed the interior to add a lot of functionality including a 2nd bathroom, a laundry nook, an HVAC closet, and a hallway. (Previously the house had no hallway, you had to go from room to room).

What was the outcome?

I'm all-in under $70,000. The first 30 days on Airbnb brought in $1826 (I paid $200 in cleaning fees). That's my second property that meets the 1% rule (almost 2% on this one!).

Lessons learned? Challenges?

My mistake was forgetting to build in a late fee to the contract. Halfway through, months passed with no progress. The renovation should have taken 3 months and instead it took 9 months. My contractor kept saying he'd start up again soon. I ended up finally firing the first contractor. When I found a 2nd contractor we got the rest done in 6 weeks. This taught me to put the scope of work in writing, let the contractor pick the due date, and attach a fee to that contract for every day it is late.

I bought a house for $5k and used credit cards to renovate it!

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