I call it my Pain in Painesville. A duplex that actually looks nice on the outside. Some hoarders lived there and the inside was a disaster. They were "remodelling", but that was just tearing down walls and not really putting anything up. They didn't bother removing the torn down walls either. And they had three kids there too. There were two boilers, but neither one worked. I don't know how they stayed warm in the winter right off the great lake up there. The east side basement wall is caving in. The garage was condemned, so I wound up having to tear it down. The police wouldn't go in to evict the hobos that were breaking in because the property was infested. So I spent money getting the pests removed. I tried to donate it to Home for Our Troops and Home for Our Heroes, but when they went in, they didn't want to tackle that project. I've got a close relationship with Code Enforcement there now. Not by choice. At least they've been nice with me and appreciate any progress.
I'm not done with it yet. I'm getting with a builder/broker. Instead of selling it to him, I'll just make him a partner and we'll split the profits. We just started that conversation and now he has left town and then when he gets back I'll be leaving town. So maybe we'll know if we are going to do anything by the end of the month. After that, I'll spend a month trying to get rid of it on Craigslist. Failing that, I'll donate it to the land bank and take the huge write-off. So that's my worse case situation. I'm in it for about 18k now and I'll be able to write it off for about 50k.
Aside from the condition of the house, the rest of my pain has been coming from the vendors up there. It takes forever to get anything done up there. Today is the day that the house is supposed to finally be cleaned out. That's been taking me 5 months and a couple of vendors. I was trying to fire the second vendor for taking his sweet time about things (and I mean it was taking weeks for hauling trash away from the yard) and I was telling the lady at Code Enforcement about the lack of service I was getting from the guy she recommended. She put me on hold and then the vendor was the phone. He was in the office with her the whole time. I don't know if it is a relation or not, but at that time I no longer felt like it was a good idea to fire him. So he's still on and still taking his time.
What's my lesson from Painesville? Listen to my Cleveland realtor who told me to stay away from Painesville. I wish I did. Two positive BPOs later, I quit listening to her and I am paying for it now.
I've had another lemon. That was in Cleveland. I paid for a company to winterize the house. They did, but didn't turn the water off from the main. Title issues slowed me down on selling it and while getting that cleaned up, the copper thieves came and stripped the house. Since the water was still on, the basement flooded. I thought I was going to loose money on that one, but I wound up making 10% ROI in the end. A lot less that what I was expecting in the beginning, but better than what it could have been.
I'm a lot more thorough now on my purchases. I probably wouldn't be buying that Painesville property again. That was a bad buy that could have been avoided. I have a partner on it. We've been doing business together for years now, so I'll make him whole and give him 10%. I'm making money on my other notes, so for me it's about the big picture and Painesville is just one of dozens. For him, it's about one of two notes he's on.
That Cleveland one though... I might still buy that one. That was just bad luck. Still made a buck though. :)
