Currently living in the land of the terminally busy, but a few quick updates:
1) The Wee House is basically done and just waiting on our certificate of occupancy, as far as passing the final inspection.
Had a few false starts and stops as far as tenants, but a lady who lives just down the street is set to move in at the end of the month and has already paid the security deposit to hold it for her and signed the lease at $500/month. I probably could have talked her up a bit on rent but that’s what I was hoping to get for it, and I’d rather be done with it and get on to the next project.
One nice thing about renting to her is that she’s lived in the neighborhood for years, knows Crazy Larry, and is, umm, not at all timid and shy. When I brought up the Larry situation she just laughed and said if she sees Larry her response will be: “Crackhead! You’ve got ten seconds to get off my property or I’m calling the police!”
2) The only thing not done on the Wee House is installing the heating/cooling window unit. All I have to say about this is that Home Depot is the devil. The devil. It should arrive in 6-8 days, so hopefully no harm, no foul, as far as the orange devil making what should be a simple transaction a very, very difficult one.
3) We’re set to close Monday morning (tomorrow) on the Creek House, and all systems are go there. I was a little nervous meeting with the bank about buying that property last week, as they have to approve any purchases and repairs I do under the line of credit. No worries there, though, and we’re in the process of rolling the purchase and repair money for the Wee House out of the line of credit and into a 15 year note.
The bank is handling it all in-house so there’s a minimum of fuss there, and the SVP I work with said to not even bother with the appraisal, as the rent amount and finished product itself will easily support rolling it over into a 15 year note.
Total cost for purchasing and rehabbing the property came ot just over $31,000, well over my budget of $27,500 (boo) but not too terrible for a 2-1 that’s rented at $500/month, and would appraise for $45,000-$50,000. The monthly payment on the 15 year note (including taxes and insurance) came out at about $275/month, so not a bad little rental to have in my back pocket moving forward.
4) As far as the Creek house, still putting the budget and overall plan together. We did a pretty thorough inspection last week (and talked to the owner a bit when he dropped by) and it was a mixed bag, slightly more on the positive side.
On the positive side, the plumbing was professionally re-done a few years ago, so it’s all good to go. We’ll be adding a bath and laundry room, so there’s some plumbing expense there, but we at least don’t have to wrestle with old original galvanized plumbing, etc. The roof is also just 4 years old, so that’s good to go as well. Tugging on flooring here and there showed that the hardwoods throughout look salvageable (but we won’t know for sure until the entire carpet comes up) and the living room has beadboard ceilings hiding underneath the ugly ceiling tiles.
On the sucky side, while there are registers and returns throughout the house, there’s absolutely no ductwork leading to any of them. Odd, that. And there’s absolutely no insulation whatsoever in the attic. None.
5) A bit frustrated with the Larry House, as apparently the law firm that handles the tax deed sales for our county is absolutely dragging their feet and hasn’t yet recorded the deed in my name, despite the fact that the gladly took my $7,000 back on February 2nd. Getting anyone there to call me back has been a pretty fruitless endeavor so far. This sucks because the 6 month redemption period starts when the deed is recorded in the new owner’s name, not when the property is actually auctioned off, so the 6 month redemption period hasn’t yet begun, despite the fact that I purchased the deed back on February 2nd. I’m in no real hurry to get to work on that place, as far as waiting for the redemption period to expire, but the sooner the better.
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