All Forum Posts by: Chelsea Ziss

Hurray for Ohio! Probably the first time in history that's been said...

Anyway, welcome to BP!

Yeah, I think if we're going to do any contracting it will probably finishing stuff - it drives my husband nuts for the same reasons lol.

They have various time lengths for the loans, it depends on how much you take out. We did a three year loan because it was lower interest than the five year, and we could still afford the payments even if there was no one renting. When we have renters, it should a a small cashflow even if we can refinance. We just financed the purchase.

 We are contacting out the basement,  and we will also have my father in law helping us - he retired early and is super bored, and excited to help. (He used to be a contractor and has pretty extensive electrical and plumbing experience.) With any luck, or time line should be closer to March, but I don't want to count on that for sure. The basement is the biggest variable - I have no idea how long g it will take.

I just purchased one at auction, we'll see how it goes...

I would think the only way to get it beforehand would be to seek them out by searching the county's records and just look for people who have three years+ back taxes and no mortgage. If you find a better way, let me know!

Glad to see you have some success - especially with prosper.com, since that's what we're doing too lol.  

Zillow values it at $78,000 with estimated rent of $825

 the foundation is completely shot - bowing in and cracked. It's a pretty common problem here because of our clay soil, but this is about the worst I've seen. Some people will patch or straighten the walls with I beams, but we will have them completely rebuilt - it will cost $20,000. 

We are planning on completely redoing the kitchen & bathroom, as well as painting and putting in new flooring. 

Peer to peer financing is just and unsecured loan backed through people - we used prosper.com.

 I'll post pictures as soon as we can get to the property! 

It was built in 1950, which is pretty normal for this area. We're estimating around $30,000 for repairs, which includes completely redoing the foundation / basement walls. The house is tiny, so most things we should be able to do ourselves. 

ARV should hopefully be $75,000-80,000 (comps in the area are 70-90.)

We should be able to rent it for $750-800 per month - zillow's rent estimate is $825, but research shows that to be a little high.

Sine we are doing most of the renovation ourselves, we are hoping to have everything done and a renter in by may 1st. The basement alone will take at least a couple months.

 We ended up doing peer to peer lending for the house.

I love reading these, so now that I am in the big (well, minor) leagues, I thought I'd start one too.

On September 8th, I, my husband, father-in-law, and 6 week old son made the trek down to the county court house for the tax delinquent auction with an envelope of cash. I had spent months convincing my husband that this was something we should try. He was all for it, but felt that it was too soon, and that we should wait another couple years before diving in. We came to a compromise - if we didn't get the property I'd had my eye on, we would wait. I was wound tighter than a violin walking into the courthouse; I'm surprised the officers at the entrance didn't frisk me!

We went into the room where they do the auction, and didn't look as out of place as I had originally thought we would - I had attended an auction as research before, but it was a regular foreclosure auction, and there were a bunch of lawyers dressed like what I assume actual adults are supposed to dress like - ties, pants suits, etc. I felt like an imposter. At the tax delinquent auction, almost everyone was dressed like me - jeans and a t shirt. There were however, no other newborns...

The property I was interested in was near the end of the list. It was a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house in a A-/B+ neighboorhood, surrounded by single family homes in a great school district. We know there are major foundation issues, but if we can get it cheap enough it would be worth it.

Halfway through, the baby starting fussing, so my husband took him out. The house I wanted came up, and I made my father in law do the actual bidding - I knew he would sound more confident than me! (He was only there for moral support / living vicariously through us.) We won the bid for 26,000 - about $1000 higher than I wanted to go originally, but I was okay with it. 

My husband came back in to do the paperwork with me. I asked him - "So, how do you feel?" His response? "We weren't supposed to win!" Oops. Haha. He looked simultaneously terrified and elated. We put the $1100 deposit down and left. They said they'd get in touch with us in 30-60 days once everything was done, and then we'd have 30 days to bring in the payment.

Now all we needed to do was come up with $25,000 to buy the house.