All Forum Posts by: Mark Reed

I have a 2-story, 3 bed/1.5 bath house that is at the beginning of rehab (going to use it as a rental). On the top floor, there are 2 nice size bedrooms, 1 small bedroom (7x8), a full bath (7x8), and a deep linen closet next to the bathroom. On the bottom floor is a living room, dining room, kitchen, small 1/2 bath, small sun room, and a storage room with a sink in it.

My original plan was to use the upstairs linen closet as a laundry room with stackable machines. No problem on space there, and the cost is water line, drain line, and 240v electrical. Easy. Nothing complicated.

New thought: extend the upstairs full bath into the linen closet, creating a large full bath. The only extra cost there would be moving some water and drain lines, but the full bath would be significantly bigger. My thought here is that, since the house has only 1 full bath, I could make it more spacious for tenants. This would eliminate the linen closet, but there would be plenty of room in the bathroom for shelving. I could easily move the laundry room downstairs into the storage room that has the sink by using that water line, or at least tapping off that drain and maybe even putting in a utility sink in place of the small sink that's there. Electrical would need to be added for the appliances, but I was going to run electrical into that room, anyway. This would make a whole utility room.

Thoughts? I think the cost/time difference for each of these options is nominal.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions. I look forward to hearing from you all. I've gotten some great pointers and things to think about from here before!

Wow, I had no idea I would get this many replies! So, piggybacking off another idea from @James Hamling to save money is forego the dining room, make the big eat-in kitchen, and keep the current kitchen as a large mudroom, which could also be doubled as a utility room. All the hook-ups are already there for laundry, so that won't be too bad.

@Amanda McAvena @Lukas Vanagaitis I will take a look at the other comps/properties in the area and how they look. That's a good idea.

If I were flipping the property, I think building the bigger kitchen would be the way to go, but you all have given me a lot to think about. Thank you again! I'll keep checking back!

Thank you everyone for replying! Good stuff! I guess I didn't think about the rental value of the home going up, only the resale value. I think I'm going to keep the kitchen where it is and build it out. Everything else can remain the same, with a few upgrades here and there. Thank you again for the replies! It helped the thought process!

@Sarah Brown, bought it for $62k, and I believe the ARV to be somewhere between $100-120k.

OK, so I have a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom house that needs a rehab, then I'm going to rent it out, hopefully. The current kitchen is a small, dark space, and needs to be torn down to the studs to be rebuilt. I also think it was used as a laundry room. The dining room in the next room is huge, bright, and doesn't need anything but a fresh coat of paint and the floor refinished. The 1/2 bath on the 1st floor is next to the kitchen, but under the stairs. Weird tight space. I had an idea. If I made the current dining room the kitchen, I could put a full bath and a separate utility room where the old kitchen was, and turn the space under the stairs into a storage space. Problem is, this removes the dining room altogether. The dining room is big enough to make an eat-in kitchen, but still no dining room. There is also a sun room right next to the dining room, which will probably fit a small dining table. What do you guys/girls think? Does a house need a dining room? Also, if there are no bedrooms on the 1st floor, does a house need a full bath on that floor? Leave cost out of the discussion, please. I just wanted to see what people thought.

Hasn’t gone through probate yet, and I don’t have any other details. Hopefully, the local pro helps out and all will be good. Thanks everyone for the support! If there are any updates, I’ll put them in here.

@Will Barnard it looks like Option #1. The house is in shambles, so there’s no chance of a rental, and he doesn’t have enough money to fix it or keep it. They have reached out to someone local to help, so hopefully everything goes OK. I’m wondering if a subject-to mortgage might be worth taking a look at.

Sounds like a short sale is the way to go on this one. There’s so much damage to fix and cleanup to be done. He doesn’t have the money to take over the mortgage AND take over the rehab.

@Will Barnard, thank you for your reply. What are his options now?

I'll try to be as detailed as possible here, with approximate numbers. My co-worker had a death in the family, and in turn, inherited a house. The house is still owned by the bank, and it is still mortgaged for about $245,000. The bank has told him to make a cash offer on the house to clear the mortgage, even if the offer is lower (essentially a short sale). Problem is, co-worker doesn't have the money, and doesn't qualify for the money right now. Separately, he has received several calls from investors offering cash offers for the house. Any advice on what he should do? Can he act as a wholesaler between the investor and the bank? How will this work? Any info/questions would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

@Cortez Norman I'm looking to start investing in Lynchburg. I'm from Stafford VA, but everything up here is so expensive. Do you know the good and bad areas in Lynchburg? Looking for flips and rentals.