151 Mechanic Street, Fitchburg, MA

[Aaron Steeves]

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment in Fitchburg.

Purchase price: $55,000
Cash invested: $120,000
Sale price: $245,000

151 Mechanic Street was the second investment property we bought. This was roughly one-year after I purchased my first 3-family at 86 Cleghorn Street, Fitchburg. We bought the house for $55,000 as a four family, expecting to have to do minor renovations....we were newbies! Low and behold, when we started chasing wires, we found orange home depot extension cords connecting the electrical panel to outlets. It was a COMPLETE GUT. I started the project prior to having my CSL...good idea? Nope. We dealt with the building department, the health department, architects, engineers, the court system, and everything in between before it was over. The building dept even shut us down because we didn't have a licensed GC...so I had to STOP WORK, study and get my license! We budgeted $10,000 for paint and cabinets planning to fix and hold the rentals, and ended up spending $120,000 over 2 years! We learned every real estate lesson the hard way on this one...

The good news: We were eventually able to refinance and pull all our initial investment back out. In 2018, after several years of rental income, we also sold the property and profited nearly $70,000.00. In the end, it was a great investment -- and we learned a ton.

That is 151 Mechanic in a nutshell, if you want a good nightmare story, get in touch with me!