All Forum Posts by: Justin Shelton

@Douglas A Lewis I spoke to my realtor at first as well as looked at comps before starting the major portion of my reno. Plus a house recently sold that is a similar square footage to mine. I was even able to look at the house via open house lol. But if I din't have a recent sale like that, then I would have had an appraiser come out to my house and spoken to them about what to do with regards to increasing my house's value.

Also that sounds like a solid deal! congrats. May I ask what part of Oakland county you bought in?

Yes and no. I bought this house before I found out about bigger pockets and real estate investing, but I knew it was a good deal primarily because of comps in the area and that it had room for a lot of improvement. What I'm doing now is working to finish the renovation and get it appraised to cash out refinance, and then take the cash from the refi to go and get into my first full BRRRR. Numbers as of now are purchase price of 198k (this included some immediate updates in the mortgage like siding and some minor plumbing). I've invested probably 40K into the property and I'm thinking it's going to appraise at ~315k.

For drywall, I talked to a fellow named Yasir.
https://www.homeadvisor.com/rated.YasirDrywall.49527509.html

I'm the person in the green shirt, in both pics. This is just a before and after (All he did was drywall, I've done everything else myself) I was basically exhausted after laying the hardwood flooring and all the demo/electrical/sub floor repair. I gave in and quoted for drywall, and Yasir and his folks blasted through the work quickly. 

There was also a MASSIVE plumbing job that was beyond me. I talked to Thornton and Groom for that. They handle literally every type of plumbing situation. They literally moved a waste pipe from one side of my house to the center. (It's the pipe to left of me in the picture). It was a $4,500 job, and worth the cost in my opinion. It meant a difference of having a pipe running up through the middle of my counter tops vs having a neat soffet, which you can see above my head in the first picture.

I wanted to ask about the process of buying a house and renovating it. I've found a single family property in Michigan, not far from where I work that looks like it could be a good investment. I base this on the calculations I've done with BP's calculators and some honest rehab estimations. 

I'm thinking it would be best to buy the property fully cash and then use an investor friendly lender to put a mortgage on it with about 30k to rehab the property. Based on the neighborhood and comps I think the property would be at/around 100k in value after an additional 30k in reno. And rent's in the area for similar square footage appear to be over %1 of property value.

However, I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't be better to go through financing first and use a loan to buy the property, and then use my cash to rehab it. I would think that my original way would be smarter because in the event of an "oh sh#t" discovery in the property during inspections, I could tack it onto the rehab loan  (if the cost of the fix is worth it still of course.)

I was also wondering which method would be better for someone like me who is very capable of doing a lot of work myself. Ex, I knocked down a wall in my kitchen, ripped up tile and replaced it with hardwood, sanded/stained, assembled/installed cabinets/appliances, did all electrical, etc (everything was approved by the city of course.) I just mention this because I want to show that when I say I can do a bunch myself, I mean more than just back splash or install a switch.

I would really appreciate anyone's feedback on this, or your own experience. This will be my first investment property :)

@Jason S. and @Account Closed

Thank you both for the feedback. And yeah the yard hasn't overgrown or anything. I have a mowing service and the property still has it's curb appeal to my eye. I just feel it's probably best to get the feedback from others more experienced, as I don't want to pay for another appraisal. 

And I've definitely maintained and updated this house with a lot of my own sweat equity and cash...so I don't want someone to just jump to that conclusion. I'll push the appraisal back so I can spend a couple days in the yard.

Hello Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone could speak on the impact of landscaping on getting a home appraisal? My house does need some landscaping updating, like some weed pulling and some new mulch. Nothing major like removing old tree stumps, digging out boulders, digging out hills, etc. 

I'm basically house hacking, and I want to get my house appraised so I can cash out refinance to get a down payment for another house, as well as wipe my credit slate clean. But I digress...I basically want to know if I should landscape my house more professionally before the appraisal. (New mulch, some light weeding, some new plants/bushes).

Anyone have experience in this sort of thing? And again, this is only for the appraisal, not to sell. I know that I would need it to look nice and pretty before selling, which I don't intend to do anytime soon. And I'm living in Farmington Hills Michigan if that matters.

What kind of contract work are you looking into? Do you mean plumbing/electrical/construction? I'm in Michigan but I'm in Oakland county. I've found good contractors with Thumbtack based on reviews. Thornton and Groom for plumbing/HVAC. They do outstanding work and can handle pretty convoluted plumbing jobs. Not sure if they're out in Monroe though.