Flipping 101, Part 2

In Flipping 101, we were exploring the posibility of buying this little house to flip.

Yes, you guessed it. We are not going to buy this little house.

We could not get the numbers to work. We are just devastated.

Here is the original foot print. This is a modest, 1963 ranch with a carport and an outside entry laundry room, 1000 square feet. We were going to convert the carport to a bedroom and turn the laundry into a bath, adding 200 square feet.

Here are a few Things we did not count on:

• Rewire the house - $4-$5 per square foot - $4,800 to $6,000.
• Install an LVL- that's a beam.
• Plumbing costs- about $5,000

Add that to demolition and framing, about $12,000

That's over $20,000 and now there's

• interior painting
• exterior painting
• kitchen cabinets and counters
• some HVAC work
• bathroom tile work
• some landscaping...

We were going to do some of this ourselves, but there's still cost of materials.

We had a contractor give a preliminary estimate. He  said "Moving Plumbing is easy''. I heard  "Moving Plumbing is cheap''. ..

He gave an initial estimate of $15-18k and that morphed to - mid twenties! Then the final came in at $35,000!

So, we can't buy the house, because as a flip, the numbers don't work. If your going to live there, it would be fabulous. And actually, you may he able to buy it with an FHA 203K (not KS) loan. You can't do the 203ks because there is some structural work and that loan type does not allow for structural.

Moral of the story: insist on full, accurate figures before you buy the house. We had a due diligence period in order to check everything out and, unfortunately, had to terminate the transaction prior to the end of the due diligence because of our budget.

It would have been nice, don't you think?

The measurements are pretty accurate -just trying to give you a quick visual.

Flipping 101, Part 1

I've watched all the rehab shows. So have you. Flipping Boston,  Flipping Las Vegas, Flip or Flop - more titles than I can remember. Hours and hours of TV- ideas, successes & major problems.

I am a real estate agent. I've been in hundreds of houses. I've been through countless inspections, I'm a major DIYer. My good friend Essie is an excellent decorator & loves "the idea" of doing a flip. We looked in earnest for a couple of months last year & couldn't find anything.

Then there it was. Another friend listed this little, old house-only 1,000 sq.ft. I looked at it for a client. It was a sad little house, my client didn't like it. It hung around. My friend had some nibbles, but no one bought it. The owners eventually lowered the price & after much thought & planning Essie and I decided to buy it.

We are being careful. She talked to her financial planner. I researched the market. I talked to an appraiser. I had a contractor look at it to see if we could make the changes the house needed & still make the numbers work. Possible sales price minus purchase price minus rehab costs, should give us SOME profit. It SHOULD work.

So, we wrote an offer. It was accepted! YEAH!

Contactor called ... he thinks he is off by $3-5K! what???

It's O.K. we got it for a good price. Had the inspection today. Went pretty well. Found out the HVAC is pretty new -YEAH! Found out we might not be able to remove some walls
without extra support, yikes!

It's O.K. still in due diligence phase.

Stay tuned. It's going to be so pretty when we're done! We're refinishing hardwood floors, new cabinets, granite counters, new windows, adding a bedroom & bath. Oh my goodness!

I really hope it works, it will be so pretty when it's done....

See Flipping 101, Part 2

Make your House Store More

I live in what I consider to be a very nice home.  Just under 2400 square feet.  It's just me and my husband, so we don't use two of the 3 guest rooms.  One room is a home office/kid's hangout room/sewing room. (Ths will be featured in a future post). The other two are truly reserved for guests.

Check out more pictures below!

I hate it when the whole house is junked up with stuff and there is no room for guests.  So, we have made a conscious effort to leave open space in the closets in the guest rooms and to keep the dressers empty.

With that said, we had become busy in our jobs and a little disorganized.  My house was built in 1999. In all closets, the builder had the top-most shelf at 29" from the ceiling. That is an incredible amount of wasted space! My husband is a gem!  He added shelving for me in all the closets.

The coat closet (located in the kitchen area) now has room above the coats for seldom used serving items, the bread maker, the electric griddle and other sundry kitchen items.

The linen closet now has room for all the linens plus other items that need a home and don't get used much. Those have been relegated to the top shelf or two.

The first guest room's closet has lots of open hanging space for guests and holds the few board games we keep for the grandchildren and it houses wrapping supplies and artificial flowers that I change out seasonally.

The second guest room closet has now been maximized and is now the best (second only to my closet - will be featured in another story)!

Over 18" of space inside the closet on either side of the door

add a 16" support - made out of  a 2x3 cut to size

2 x 3 supports on each side, painted the same color as the walls

add melamine covered 16" deep shelving

Top shelf - placques we want to keep and not hang. Other shelves to store items for gifting
andstored for swapping out seasonally.

Added top shelf - some dead storage, seasonal items, linens for this room;Lower shelf haolds craft supplies

Lots of open hanging space for guests

Right side has hanging space for shower curtains, table cloths....

So, this whole project was done for $42 plus about 4 hours of cutting, painting, screwing into the wall.

If someone was "living" in this room, the side shelves could hold sweaters, hats, purses.  And, if this was the case, I would change up the middle section to have one ventilated shelf (where the top melamine shelf is) and have half for long hanging clothes (dresses) and half for for short-hanging clothes (shirts/pants) and would add a lower ventilated shelf at the appropriate height for this purpose.

I guess the whole point is - you have to re-think what the builder gives you and tailor the storage for your needs!