All Forum Posts by: Anthony Conway

Allot of toledo is a war zone so please be careful where you pick. Also in the rust belt where jobs and city growth are minimal. around toledo college is your best bet. I use to live in Cleveland, OH and did not realize how dismal the economy was there until i moved away.

Started going to the foreclosure auction in 2007. I was bidding on around 10 properties every monday morning and not getting any because the banks where there covering there ***. Finally after a month or so of bidding and learning the process i found one that was a family member foreclosing on a family member. I am thinking score in my mind, went and did a drive by of the property and it was occupied at the time so i could not get inside at all, curtains where closed so i could not see inside. So that monday comes around and i go to the auction and BAM! i get the property for minimum bid ($112,000) which was 60% of the appraised value. I figured ok there is no way that this house can take up 40% overall value in rehab cost, so i should be good to go. Finally get the tenants evicted out of the house and get to do a inside inspection. Well the 400 sqft addition on the back of the property was in shambles and had to be torn down and replaced, wood floors where wasted and kitchen and bathrooms where wasted. During the whole due diligence period before hand i was thinking well people are living there so it can not be to bad inside, well that is not the best way of thinking either. So i rebuild the addition from the foundation up, kitchen, bathrooms, roof, landscape. By the time i was ready to sell it was 2009 and the housing market was bottoming out. I had a overpriced house in a underpriced market and the house was not selling. Finally decide to take the house off the market and wait it out, well the market took a long time to rebound and it took me even longer to lower my price.In 2011 i lowered the price and re listed it and sold it the first week. Luckily i was able to turn this flip into a primary residents and live in it for 3 years, but the time i lost during this holding process was worth more then the money i saved from holding the property. Hope that makes sense.

Mistakes

Do not assume anything about a house.

-just because someone is living in it does not make it livable.

-just because there is a addition on the house does not mean you have to rebuild that addition. I would have been better tearing the addition off the back of the house and leaving it off. The time and money it took to rebuild blew my budget by around $ 35,000 and time by a year.

-Know when to hold em, know when to fold em. I would have been better lowering my price to begin with then holding it for years to come. I had almost all my money tied up in this property and was unable to buy more properties until i finally refinanced my money out of this property.

Purchase price $112,000

Rehab cost $42,000

All in price $156,000

Sold for $170,000

6% commission -$ 10,200

Profit $3,800

= Bad deal

Bad deal on my books, but i never look at anything as a failure because i learned a lot from this deal. Got to build my first complete addition from the ground up, i did everything from digging the foundation,electrical, roofing, plumbing to the finishing touches on the bathrooms and laundry room. Did not hire a single contractor for this project. Dealt with city inspections and city codes.

If knowledge is worth money, it was a great deal. But it is not

Hello,

Welcome to BP it is a great site and there are plenty of us active on here from Charleston and close surrounding cities. I have not been able to make it to any meetings yet either, but maybe tomorrow i can make it because it is presidents day. I would also like to meet up with as many people around here to see what they are doing and was thinking about starting a small meet up in the area. Maybe just a couple people get together for coffee or beers and talk about what they have going. I am going to try and make it to the REIA meeting in the morning to see how it is.

@Jason Merchey as of this week i just called to make sure there was a check written out of escrow to Progressive home insurance for FEMA flood insurance for 533.00 per year. I think as long as the property is cash flow positive with flood insurance then buy and hold is fine. I personally think in Charleston just banking on appreciation in the next 5-10 years we should be safe. There is so much growth coming to this city in the next 20 years the main thing that scares me is the city infrastructure not being able to handle it. But i know it is frowned upon to base a deal on appreciation, so i have been saying as long as it cash flows with different exit strategies then hold on for the ride.

Ahh,

Just getting use to buying properties in flood zones and dealing with all the codes and regulations. It is not as bad as everyone makes it sound, but it is an extra step in the process. We assumed someone else's flood insurance when we bought are last PR and thought since it was grandfathered in it was a good flood insurance plan and probable the cheapest we could find($1500 per year). After realizing that this was a huge$122.00 dollar extra payment every month i started to look into it more. Dealing with insurance underwriters i started to learn exactly what they wanted to make the property look better in the insurance or agencies eyes. So the main thing they want here in Charleston is proof that there are flood vents in all lower elevations. For that it meant giving them pictures of the flood vents in the crawl space and adding a couple of $125 flood vents in the garage. This simple process did not cost us much but saved us around $1000 dollars per year on insurance. So yes it is an extra step, but just like anything else once you learn the step, it is just another step in the process.

Yes i have most of our colors matched at home depot, because products like Benjamin Moore moonshine are a bit pricey. I was buying paint at home depot yesterday and got some random idea in my head. someone should start a company that makes paint strictly out of old used paints that people don't want. I painted the whole garage of the current project i am on with left offer paint that the seller left in the garage. Every house we buy it seems like there are at least a couple of paint cans left over in the garage.

Nice light grey color, with clean white trim and crisp ceiling.

Berh - Bay Breeze

Berh- Ultra pure white high gloss for all trim

Berh- Ceiling paint for all ceilings.

Nice grey color to the green, with crisp clean ceilings and trim

Benjiman moore -Moonshine

Berh- ceiling paint

Berh-Ultra pure white high gloss on trim

We use Moonshine for almost every room of the house.

Yes standing seem metal roofs can be a nightmare to find leaks. Also have to keep up with the caulking and maintenance on them more then anyone says to. I have chased leaks 200-300 feet on big Costco roofs before. It is amazing how water will come in at one point and then run on the bottom of the metal sheet 50 ft away and then drip there. In Charleston, SC almost all roofs where done in 1989-1990 after a large hurricane came threw the city, so in every property we look at a roof has to be in the budget.

Where is the property located at in town. Funny i am looking at the same problem right now with my current house. Just seeing the market getting hot again is making me want to hold on to some properties also. But the more i look at this renovation i am on ,we overdid it with high end finishes (stainless, granite, tile bathrooms). I don't want to renovate it again in 5 years when its time to sell. So I am just going to sell this one and really plan my next couple buys around the thought of buying and holding for 5-10 years and then flip and sell them. this way i will not have to worry about tenants ruining high end finishes. But i also see a market for high end rentals to all the people following big companies here, this group of people do not want to buy a house here because they will only be living here for 2 years while they help get Boeing off the ground

@markupdergraff Nice website .