Smoky townhome in Virginia Beach

[G. Emerson Zollos]

Investment Info:

Townhouse buy & hold investment in Virginia Beach.

Purchase price: $196,000
Cash invested: $50,000

This house was pretty rough when we bought it. 20 years of smoking in it left a film of tar on every single surface. They also had 6 people living in it with only 3 bedrooms (think multiple blow up mattresses tucked into corners). This was the first heavy rehab that I was a part of and it definitely taught me a lot about scheduling and how long it takes to get appliances or granite cut.

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

Saw a great value add and the price point was perfect for our budget

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

MLS, initially listed at 220, used the inspection and fact that it was more tar than house to haggle down

How did you finance this deal?

Investment loan

How did you add value to the deal?

The project was a full gut. We updated and upgraded literally everything.

What was the outcome?

500/month cash flow and basically no maintenance thus far.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Definitely learned about removing tar. Also we waited way to long to schedule our kitchen remodel. I'm relatively handy, however, I'm not in the granite cutting business. We waited until the last two weeks of the rehab to call our cabinet company and it ended up extending out our deadline by a week. In the future we are going to be getting plans drawn up immediately after demo.