House #2 – The 4 level house

Well, it’s been awhile so I guess it’s time for me to write about the next house that we have rehabbed. This is the second house that we renovated and it turned out pretty well! If you missed the first house recap, you can go read it HERE.

Pre-purchase

Mt. Vernon Rd before

This was a 4 bedroom 3.5 bath house located in South Hills. It was a really nice home in a really nice neighborhood. We call it the 4 level house because it literally has 4 large levels. It is a really big home with a lot of space. You walk into the home on the main floor and it of course has an upstairs. You then walk down the stairs and you are in the basement.

Normally, this is where most houses end. But this one, you can walk outside the basement onto the deck, walk down the steps and then you are at the sub-basement. This sub-basement is HUGE. The seller had an air gun target, a heavy punching bag, and a hot tub down there. Yes….a hot tub. It even had a 12 foot ceiling down there. Pretty unique for a glorified crawl space.

The house had been well cared for and just needed a number of things updated.  The sellers had moved out of the house as they had decided to downsize and already had another house to live in. They had listed the house for several months and at one time, actually had it under contract. Unfortunately, it was found out that the home had a serious structural issue. At that point, the buyers, I’m sure were scared to death, and backed out.

The sellers, as you can imagine, were crushed. They were tired of paying the mortgage, maintenance, taxes, and utilities for this house that they no longer lived in. They just wanted it gone…..like yesterday. They actually just found my website, input their info, and then they called me. Although we were currently working on House #1 at the time, we went and viewed the home that day. We quickly realized that it was something that we would be interested in. We viewed the home again a couple of days later and was able to come to an agreement on price with the homeowners. We signed a contract, dropped it off to Elmore Law, and closed 9 days later with a cash transaction. The sellers were happy to have finally sold their home and we were happy to have another project to complete.

The Rehab

This house was located in a really good neighborhood where people tend to buy houses, but we had a lot of work to do. My partner, Steve, and I made our budget and then got to work. Although the home had good bones, we realized very quickly that we had a ton of work to do before this would be ready for a family. Here is a list of items that needed to be done:

• The roof was in decent shape, but we needed to replace it anyways. We try to add as much value as possible to all of our renovations.
• The house had the old aluminum siding, so we needed to have new vinyl siding put on
• The structural problem needed to be addressed and repaired by a reputable structural repair company. We chose United Structural Systems. They are great to work with and were very diligent in repairing this issue.
• The carpet, while nice, was blue. So…..it needed replaced.
• The kitchen needed an update. We kept the corian countertops that were already in place and painted the cabinets a nice, flat white. We added stainless steel appliances,a butcher block, and a colorful backsplash.
• We put new tile in the bathrooms and shower walls.
• The basement had a lot of space, but it was rather cut up. So we decided to add a couple of walls and make a 5th bedroom to add some value.
• The house needed a new coat of paint.
• We did a little landscaping in the front yard.
• We brought the electrical up to code.

The Sell

This project took us approximately 8 weeks to complete from start to finish. We placed it on the market and had an accepted offer in 10 days. The buyers were excited to have gotten the home and we were set to close in  a month. They had just retired from the DC metro area and wanted to come back home to West Virginia. However, during the home inspection, it was found that we needed to make a few extra repairs to the structure to satisfy the inspector.

At this point, we could have declined and placed the home back on the market. But it all goes back to doing the right thing. We wanted to sell the home, but even more, we wanted to sell the home with it being totally repaired. So we did what we had to do,spent an extra few thousand dollars to complete the repairs, and therefore were able to close on the home. We really enjoyed working on this home and were very pleased with the results.

Take a look at the before and after pics below!

 

 

4 level house before 4 level house after

 

4 level house before 4 level house after

 

4 level house before 4 level house after

 

 

4 level house before

 

4 level house after

 

 

Like this recap? Head over to read about our first flip HERE if you missed it.

 

Also, if you have any interest in learning more about the local real estate market and networking with other real estate investors, please consider coming to one of the Charleston Real Estate Investors Association meetings. We currently hold the meetings at Boom’s in Kanawha City. Here’s the link to the Meeting info page.

Do you need to sell your house FAST? Simply fill out the form below. We may be able to help!