Lola's Property

This was a crazy weekend. I worked 36 hours straight: 12 at the depot, 12 at the bank, then back at the depot for another 12. The best part was having Monday off, in which I slept most of the day and watched episodes of Seinfeld. As I lay there, I realized that out of the 365 days of this year, I have worked 362 of those days at either or both jobs. Crazy stuff.

On Saturday I met my real estate agent, Lola, at a property that she owns. It used to be a shelter for battered women or something, but it had been abandoned for quite a while once the shelter moved to a different location. She first emailed me pictures of the property and I realized that it was a place I had looked at when I had first moved to Smalltown. I drove by it on Thursday just to get a look at the neighborhood, which wasn’t bad. When I first inquired about her property, Lola thought I was kidding. She had already informed me that the place was ransacked by vandals, the windows were busted out, and the copper plumbing was all but gone, but I still wanted to see it. She warned me and yet I still wasn’t prepared for what I saw.

The exterior wasn’t bad, but it is NOTHING like the pictures above. Those two bushes in the picture above aren’t there, the grass looks like shit, and the windows are all boarded up. The interior was an absolute wreck. Half finished work combined with the vandals looting everything from the bathtubs to the sinks made it a disaster area. But I decided to look at it as an investment and it’s not bad. If someone knows what they are doing, it can be a very profitable investment. It's a four 2-unit apartment building with an extra unit in the upstairs that is completely done. I love extra units! The rooms are big, the ceilings are high, and most of the work that needs to be done is standard construction work.

I told her that I had never done a rehab of that magnitude and wanted to get some experience in renovations before I seriously consider purchasing it. If everything goes well with rehabbing the short sale property, I’ll have no problem purchasing her property. If I can get the rehab to be less than 13k per unit along with the 35k purchase price, then it would be a good investment that would yield at least $2000 a month in pure profit. Lola was surprised that I was still interested and told me to tell my bank that she would be willing to hold the mortgage. That would mean that THIS would be the first property I buy in 2012, and I don’t think I want to do that. The first property I get in 2012 has to be easy money. Lola’s property has very good potential, but it would take at least 2 months to get that place rental ready. I’ll have to do my research, but right now I think I’d like the easiest property first.