All Forum Posts by: Daniel Mills

@J. Martin Thanks for the tip!

@Paul Timmins Thanks for the suggestions!

@John Moore Thanks, same to you!

@Jon Klaus The house next door just sold for 18K so that is my target. I got to see the inside of that one because the neighbor invited me in. I hope to do at least as well since it was nice but not that nice. Okay, obviously nice is relative in this price range!

I am not sure about the rental rates there since I plan to sell it. My goal is to clear 10K so I am going to try and back into my budget that way. (Possibly not the best method, but I had to start somewhere.) The only major expense that I am aware of is that the fake concrete "stone" facade is pulling away from the brick wall at the front of the house. Other than that it should just be a matter of cleanout, patching walls, replacing carpet and painting. I am not sure yet about the Kitchen, but it isn't very big and shouldn't be too expensive.

Unfortunately, the copper pipes were just stolen, so now I have to get those replaced too. Oh, and the property has an incorrectly filed/invalid $2,600 water lien that I need to challenge.

I figured that was what you were doing. :) I hope it goes well for you and look forward to seeing your progress!

As a wholesaler you might not be doing much in the way of rehabbing, but you could always hire someone the first time and watch them do it. In my experience people are pretty happy to explain what they are doing.

Hi everyone! I have been visiting this site for the past few months and have really appreciated all of the insight shared. I just purchased my first property the past week and thought I better sign up and start interacting. My main business is graphic design work with some sustainable farming on the side.

This is my first experiment into real estate investing, but I have been interested in it for as long as I can remember. I am fairly handy and so my goal is to find properties in need of rehab, fix them up myself and then re-sell them.

I don't like borrowing money for personal reasons and so I am hoping to start at the bottom and work my way up to more expensive and profitable properties. I purchased a row home in Reading, PA this past week from a bank for 1K. The house next door just sold for 18K so I think I have the room that I need to fix it up and still make a profit for the next deal.

I am currently rehabbing a row home in Reading, PA. The first floor is on street level at the front, but there is a walk out basement with three windows in the back. All three basement windows were covered with vinyl siding before we purchased the property.

After closing last week I went by the property and the front door was frozen shut due to a leak in the front facade. I went around back but the door was barred from the inside. I did notice that the siding was coming off of one of the windows revealing a sheet of plywood that had been nailed over the window. I had some commitments over the weekend and decided to come back on Monday to "break in" by unscrewing the plywood on the window.

When I arrived on Monday I found that over the weekend someone had beaten me to it. They ripped some of the plywood off the window, climbed in and unbarred the door. They then proceeded to steal all of the copper pipes smashing the bathroom fixtures in the process.

The plywood that was torn out was very thin ~ 1/4". I have now boarded up the windows with 3/4" plywood and I don't think anyone will be able to knock it in without a great deal of trouble. My question is, if I remove the boards and replace the windows how do I keep them from being broken out again? Window bars don't seem to be legal, but I would assume that having boarded up windows will hurt the final sale price. I also seems to defeat the idea of improving the neighborhood.

Has anyone else faced a similar situation?