First Impressions

Yesterday I got to take a look at the prospective property Charlie that my mom Rita also wanted. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I figured that, since it’s a short sale, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

The real estate agent, Lola, arrived and I gave her my pre-approval. My pre-approval is bullshit by the way, but it’s not taken seriously. It’s just a piece of paper that lets an agent know that they’re not wasting their time with some loser that has no money. So I generated a fake one given to me by Sha’s wife, Sonya, when she worked as a broker in Queens, NY. Lola wasn’t cute so I didn’t bother flirting with her and we got straight down to business.

The neighborhood is pretty quiet. There’s a 3 unit next to the property, followed by a 4 unit next to that one. It’s usually better to buy in an area that has a lot of single family homes, but sometimes the good outweighs the bad. The building itself is half occupied by immigrants. It was tough getting into the apartments that were occupied because the tenants barely spoke English, but kindness prevailed and they let us in. The apartments themselves weren’t bad, but I could see that they were going to need a lot of work. Firstly, there was carpet EVERYWHERE. I fucking hate carpets for rental properties. So it’s either I rip up the carpet and finish the floors underneath it, or rip up the carpets and put a floating floor on top. The other issue was the walls. They were all panel which is another thing that I hate. I like Sheetrock much better for the insulation and the easy repair. There also needs to be a new roof. I didn’t get to see the basement or the unoccupied apartments because we didn’t have the keys.

When we left, Lola was surprised that I still wanted the place and I signed the contract. I couldn’t put an offer on the place yet without seeing the other apartments, so she’s going to get the listing agent to show us the rest of the place, hopefully on Monday. I’m gonna try to bring Alfonso along so that he can give me an idea of how much it will cost to make the repairs that I want to do. This may have to be a rehab loan so I can add it on to the price. Right now, my best guess is that I’ll need a loan of 75k: 53k for the property and 22k for repairs. Wells Fargo offers a rehabilitation loan program that will give me 75k for 20% down payment, so I’ll need a total of 15k, maybe 18k altogether. I should have that by the time the bank and the seller signs off on the short sale.

I told Lola to email me similar properties or commercial properties for 110k or less, and then we parted ways. I didn’t bother going to the REIG (Real Estate Investor’s Group) meeting last night. I just wanted to go home and sleep, not taking the chance of ruining my night with bullshit. With that place under contract, I’ll have to look for a good property to purchase by March of 2012. Being out and about looking at the property felt good. It gave me a taste of what I’m going to be doing a lot of next year: looking at a property, careful evaluation, and then putting in my offer. I feel like an investor again!