As far as a quick reminder before photos and commentary, I bought this house for $9,500, and it was basically a shell of a house with one bedroom and 505 sq. ft. I added a bedroom on the back to bump it up to a 2-1, 640 sq. ft. house, spending about $23,000 on the renovation and holding costs, with the goal of keeping it as a rental and renting it for $500/month. It’s currently rented at $525/month, with the tenant signing a one year lease and moving in on 4/1/2009. I’ve got about approximately $32,500 invested in it total, and PITI comes in at $255/month.

We had a decent amount of exterior work to do, as far as replacing asbestos siding here and there, removing the old door entrance on the side where the driveway went, painting, and adding the new columns and railing on the front.

I ended up doing the railing and columns on the front, and was pretty happy with how it turned out. Everything used was basically scrap odds and ends that we had left over, as far as some 1×6, 2×4s, shoe molding, doorstop, and baseboard trim, so it was a pretty cost effective way of dressing up the front of the house a bit.

The bottom two photos above are the before after of the main room as you walk in, with the top two looking out from the kitchen to the bathroom area.

Obviously a pretty big change, and I was pretty happy with how the vaulted ceiling turned out, and the tile (when it’s clean and not messy, as it is in the photos) and French doors that lead to the addition.

For a wee little rental house, going with the tile and French doors and vaulted ceiling was a little spendy, but I think it definitely helps make it seem bigger than it is. The addition is a pretty small space (about 140 sq. ft.) but again, seems bigger with the French doors, and it’s more flexible as far as being a living room/office if a single person is living in the house, or a second small bedroom for a kid, etc.

Similar shot on top, but the bottom two are the existing bedroom, before and after. The door in the bedroom photo leads to the bathroom, and the shot is taken from the bedroom door that opens to the living room.

I was worried about the existing hardwood floors, as they were pretty rough, but I was really happy with how they turned out. Instead of sanding them down to near oblivion, I left some of the original dark finish in the lower spots, hoping for a more distressed look. I stained them with Waterlox Original tung oil, which is my stain of choice for old pine floors like this.

More bedroom photos, including one of the entry from the main room, one of the closet and the door leading to the bathroom.

Again, lots of work here, as far as the top being the before and after of the bathroom space, and the below being the kitchen area. Both are pretty straighforward and not that exciting, but functional enough for a rental property. The cabinet finish not matching the other stained wood bugs me a little, but that line of cabinets was on close-out at Lowes recently, and I got all of those solid wood upper cabinets for about $200 total, so it was hard to pass that up.

The stove is the same one that came with the house (which amazingly was new and actually works), and the sink/sink cabinet/stainless countertop/integrated sink came from Ikea for $300, which I thought was a pretty decent durable option. I hated losing the window in the kitchen but the addition took up that wall, so I put the little diamond mirrors up to catch some light from the windows at the front of the house.

Some shots of the addition, as well as a few looking back into the main area of the house. This is the only carpet in the house, hopefully easing maintenance moving forward.

And a few shots of the breakfast bar we added, which pokes into various shots above. Most of the materials here were also culled from odds and ends for other projects, and I think it turned out all right, as far as providing a bit of separation in the main living area, as well as some more storage space.

In many ways, this one was a mixed bag, as far as my feelings on the project. Given that we started with an abandoned house in need of serious, serious work, I’m pretty happy with the finished product. It’s not fancy and won’t be featured on any tour of homes, but I feel like I made the most of what I had to work with. Most people who’ve seen it after it was finished were shocked when I told them that it was just 640 sq. ft., which is exactly what I was shooting for.

I’m not happy, though, with the fact that it took us nearly 12 weeks to wrap this one up, as that’s far too long for a house that size, even when factoring in that it was basically a complete gut remodel, in every way. Plus my original budget was at $27,500, so a pretty big miss at there. Part of that is my fault for under-budgeting a few things, part of that is from not knowing we’d be forced by the city to add a driveway, but a lot of it was simply from labor cost with the project dragging on for some long, which can’t happen with the next one.

But, all in all, I’m happy enough to keep this one as a rental, and it should be a nice little property to hang onto for awhile. While I’m disappointed with the ballooning budget and timeline, at the end of the day if this exact house came up for sale at $32,500 I’d buy it in a heartbeat, as it’ll appraise at $45,000-$50,000 and rent pretty easily in the $500-$550 range, as it’s hard to find small houses for rent like that, at an equivalent price to what people pay for a 1 bedroom apartment.

On the bright side, we’re in the home stretch of the Wee House rehab, and it should be completely buttoned up and done by next week. I’m going to be about $1,500 over budget (boo) and about five weeks over schedule, (double boo), so that sucks. That’s mitigated a bit by the fact that I ended up doing more of the work myself than planned, which caused the timeline to balloon, as I made a conscious decision to abandon the timeline in order to keep the costs down.

So most of the blame goes to me for underestimating the scope of work, and I’ll take my medicine there. It’s still very much a learning process for me, and we’re still working the kinks out with our contractor, as far as what his crew can do, what reasonable expectations are, etc. So far my total carrying costs have been about $275, so it’s a good project to work kinks out on, due to how cheaply I picked up the property.

As far as the house itself, I’m pretty pleased with how the rehab turned out. Pictures coming soon, when it’s all completely done, but it turned out nicely. If anything, too nicely, as I did a bit more work than absolutely necessary for a rental (tile flooring instead of vinyl, decent solid wood cabinets instead of cheaper options, some decorative trim here and there), but it should pay off in the long run, when I do sell the place.

With the upgrades and the bedroom addition, I’m going to ask $500/month in rent, with PITI estimated at about $225/month when it’s permanently financed. It should appraise for $45,000-$50,000, and I’ll have about $30,000 total invested in it, so not a bad little rental, and, like I said, a good learning experience.

As far as Larry updates, he did wander by the property when I was there the other day, and told me that he’d signed off any interest in the place, that he was done, that it was all mine. I’m guessing this is more mental than legal, as there’s really nothing for him to sign, as the redemption period on the tax sales properties has to run its course on its own, but good news in general I suppose.

While there are other family members involved with the estate that perioviously owned it, I spoke to Larry’s aunt back when I bought the deed and first encountered Larry, and she said that none of them had either the money or the inclination to get the property back. I haven’t posted many photos of it but it’s in really rough shape, so there’s really no appeal for anyone other than myself to want to own it, as it’s very close to a tear-down in its current state.

Despite the fact that it’s 99.9% likely that no one will redeem it, I’m still just going to let it sit and wait it out. Especially since I may have found the next project yesterday, when my realtor called me up about a property he’d just seen that he thought I might be interested in.

Indeed, I was interested, and told my agent to put in an offer on it this morning, despite the fact that I haven’t even seen the interior. The house is a 2-1, built in 1935, but it’s nearly 1600 sq. ft., and has a hip roof with a lot of attic space and 10-12 foot ceilings thoughout inside.

The real selling point, though, is that it’s on a .4 acre lot that’s practically downtown, has big huge old trees, and with a creek running through the property, complete with wooden footbridge and a 700 sq. ft. workshop on the back of the property, accessible after you cross over the footbridge. Just a really beautiful big lot that you rarely see for a property that close to the downtown area.

As far as the house itself, it needs a lot of work. From peeking in assorted windows last night (the soonest my realtor can show it to me is on Saturday) and what our realtor said about it, someone was trying to fix it up but apparently gave up. They did a lot of the demo work, had some ductwork run, and other assorted odds and ends, but didn’t actually complete much of any work.

It doesn’t have central air or heat and the electrical is a mess, as there’s just bare Romex running out of the electrical panel and stapled to the outside of the house, etc. I imagine the plumbing is in similar shape.

As odd as it sounds, though, I’m not that concerned about the interior, as I’d likely turn it into a 3-2 anyway, so there’s going to much re-arranging of walls and existing framing as it is, new sheetrock, you name it. The exterior siding is in really good shape and the roof seemed to be in decent shape, with most of the work focused on the interior.

The reason I’m so hyped about it is that it’s listed at $35,000, which is way, way underpriced given the lot, location, and house size, even for a house that needs a total interior rehab. Like $20,000-$30,000 underpriced. It’s also “listed” by an older real estate agent/broker in town who basically works part-time these days, and he doesn’t list any of his properties on the MLS or even put a sign in the yard, just relying on contacts he’s built up over the years to sell his properties. It’s effectively not even really on the market, as far as possible competing offers.

So we’re going to go ahead and submit an offer of $33,500 and take it from there, giving it a good walkthrough on Saturday. I hesitate a bit making an offer sight unseen, as far as the interior, but we’re asking for a 7 day inspection period in the offer, so I’m only out the $50 option fee if they accept the offer but I then back out after seeing it.

Honestly, though, given the location and lot and exterior of the house, I’m not sure what I could possibly find inside that’d scare me off. Two similar properties vey close to thos one (on much smaller lots, though) just sold for $110,000 and $117,000 in the last month. I can’t see the rehab going over $25,000-$30,000, so even picking it up at full price of $35,000 would leave a lot of meat on the bone, as far as a potential flip. Renting it would be an appealing option as well, as 3-2s in that area typically rent for $1,000/month.

So, you know, fingers crossed. I’m not sure I’m quite ready to leap into another project but, if everything checks out, this one is just too good to pass up.

That’ll just leave refinishing the hardwood floors in the existing bedroom, then exterior painting, as far as gigs I signed myself up to tackle. I’m a little bit beat at the moment, as I’ve been putting in 15 hour days since last Friday, but I have to say I’m pretty happy with how it’s all coming together.

This is the first project that I’ve pretty much designed from scratch myself, and I think it’s looking pretty good, especially considering the fairly limited budget. Nothing fancy at all, as it’s just a simple little rental property, but I feel like I got a lot of mileage for each dollar I spent. It definitely helped finding the exact shade of ceramic tile I wanted at Lowe’s on closeout for .58/sq. ft., and I was able to use a lot of material from past projects that I’d been storing for a rainy day.

Photos coming soon but it’s close enough to being finished that I decided to hold off a bit, plus the last thing I feel like doing when I’m trying to finish up a project is to stop and take time to snap assorted photos.

We’re still probably 10-14 days away from completely finishing up, as my contractor just got started on the addition yesterday, but the finish line is definitely in sight.

No more Crazy Larry sightings, so at least he seems to have gotten the message to steer clear of the property. As dumb as it sounds, I keep forgetting that I actually own the deed to the property next door. My contractor moved some leftover building materials over there (sheetrock and some lumber) to store it and get it out of the way, and I was like “Hunh, yeah, that’s actually a good idea, as we might as well put it to some use.”

I was also pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get liability coverage through our insurance on the abandoned Crazy Larry house, as our agent was able to extend $300,000 worth of liability coverage to that property, for a total added cost of $14/year. That’s just for liability and there’s no coverage for the structure itself, but I was surprised how painless and cheap it was, even for just liability coverage.

On a complete tangent, this just popped up for sale on Craigslist locally for $3,500. 1946 Chevy truck in running condition, new motor, carb, etc. Me. Want. Badly.

No disastrous news to report, just not much progress at all, as our contractor only really got started on sheetrock yesterday afternoon, with not much at all getting done on the house the rest of the week. For some reason, the city keeps finding nits to pick with the addition plans, despite it being pretty much the simplest addition in the history of humankind.

They also basically nixed the paver driveway plan, as they were requiring a documented and demonstrable high psi in any paver I used, which was going to jack the price up north of $2,500 for the driveway, so we’re in the process of getting quotes for an asphalt drive. A local concrete guy also gave us a bid of $1,900, but I’m hoping the asphalt ones will come in a good bit lower than that. Asphalt isn’t ideal at all, and the least durable/attractive option, but I should be able to find someone who will do it for $750-$1,000, if various estimates I was told are correct as far as what to expect per square foot for an asphalt drive.

The sheetrock delay was the most annoying thing, as we’d already paid for the sheetrock with the sole building supplies store in town (a local hardware store and not a huge big box type retailer), but they apparently had a big order that wiped them out and didn’t set any sheetrock back for us. They promised to get more the next day, then the next day after that, then the day after that, so our contractor finally had to just get a refund and go buy it at a big box store about an hour’s drive away.

Trying not to get too frustrated but it’s going to make life harder on me, as far as tackling all the tiling and painting. On the bright side, I had to make the first interest payment on the line of credit used for this job, which was a whopping $80.73. Granted, any interest payment sucks and is lighting money on fire, but one nice thing about this project is that it doesn’t require a huge outlay of cash, nor hefty payments each month for holding costs, something I need to keep in mind when getting worked up about delays.

I have to keep in mind, too, that weeks like this are inevitable, especially given the fact that we live out in the sticks and the contractor I’m working with. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy with the work done so far by our contractor, as he’s willing to tackle jobs like this and, frankly, is a lot better suited for this sort of remodel than many contractors. He doesn’t run a huge crew and does a lot of the work on the job himself, but he does good work and has been doing this stuff long enough to pretty much figure out a solution to anything that crops up. And usually an affordable solution, as he’s more the type to fish a perfectly good door out of a dumpster for use later than insisting on everything going into the house being brand new, high end stuff. I wouldn’t use him to build a $300,000 custom home but for projects like these he’s perfect.

But the flip side of that is we’re just going to lose some days here and there, whether it’s one of his workers missing for a day or two because he and his wife are fighting, broken-down trucks, waiting on sheetrock, whatever.  That’s not to say I don’t ride them a bit when things grind to a halt, like this week, but that it’s important to keep the big picture in mind. I could scream and rage and throw tantrums like Armando of tv flipping fame, and maybe finish up the project 3 or 4 days sooner, but in the long run I need him for more jobs like this in the future

“Addition” sounds scary, but this is about as simple as additions get, as we’re just adding a rectangular 150 sq. ft. room on the back of the house, to get the house up to a 2-1, and/or to add a little more space for a single person living there. I’m hoping we’ll be done with sheetrocking the main house by Wednesday, and then another week to finish off the addition, and then a few extra days until the end of the month for odds and ends.

I’m managing to hold the budget line, barely, but opposing forces of evil keep threatening to break through on multiple fronts. And the only reason it’s barely holding is due to all the stuff I’d squirreled away in storage from past jobs, as far as insulation, joint compound, a bath vanity and vanity top, backerboard, a ceiling fan, old brass doorknobs I’d swapped out on other jobs for something less brassy, etc.

There’s definitely a fine line between keeping too much crap and smartly storing and later recycling functional stuff for future jobs, and I admittedly tend to fall on the keeping too much crap side, as I’ve also taken the opportunity of having the rolloff dumpster for trash to throw away about four truckloads of crap I’d kept (carpet remnants, old sinks, tile scraps, random lengths of wood and pieces of siding) in our storage unit.

But there’s definitely something to be said for saving some of the common things that pretty much always go in houses, especially if there’s any chance you might acquire some rental properties in the future. That functional but not snazzy ceiling fan will work just fine in a rental, and save you $50 or so, as can doorknobs, lights, and other stuff, using them somewhere that functional is good enough, at least for the time being.

Once I get the spare refrigerator out of the storage unit and into The Wee House, I think we’re going to ditch the storage unit entirely, as part of the point of spending the money to enclose our carport last summer and turn it into a two car garage was to be able to do away with spending $60/month for the storage unit. Hopefully that force me to be more selective with the packrattery moving forward, as the garage is already quickly getting filled up.

Of course, I’m cheating a bit when I say the budget is holding firm, as I already know I’m going to be at least $1,750 or so over budget, due to having to add off street parking for two cars. I’d assumed that a gravel driveway was acceptable (as it was for the last project I did), but they’re apparently making a point to not allow that moving forward. The cheapest acceptable option we’ve found so far is to do the driveway in brick pavers, which is what we’ll probably go with. Nothing fancy at all pattern-wise, set and jointed with sand, for the minimum 320 sq. ft. drive they’re requiring.

I went and looked at a couple of properties with my realtor yesterday, and one is actually a surprisingly good candidate for a quick flip, despite the fact that it’s a REO that has been listed on the MLS for over 100 days. It’s a brick home built in 1994, in a good neighborhood close to schools, and is a 3-2, very large two car garage, with about 1150 sq. ft. It was originally listed at $95,000 but it’s down to $75,000 now, and has been sitting at that price for nearly a month.

I’m a little baffled that it’s still on the market, as it’s well-built, has tall 9 foot ceilings throughout, and tray ceilings in the master and kitchen. All the major elements (roof, furnace, electrical, and plumbing) look to be in good shape. The major work to do (and why it hasn’t sold yet) is that the flooring has been removed throughout the house, except for some cheap vinyl flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms, and all of the fixtures, lights, and ceiling fans are cheapo builder-grade. It just gives off a very empty and half-finished vibe, and the bedrooms are all on the small side, so there’s little in the way of immediate appeal to your average first-time homebuyer.

If I could get it for around $65,000, though, it might make for a decent little quick flip, and a nice break from the major rehab work I’ve done on the last two properties. Crown molding and paint would go a long way on this one, hardwood floors in the dining and living room, tile in the bathrooms, and carpet in the bedrooms, as well as upgrading fixtures and appliances, adding a privacy fence in the back yard, painting the exterior trim, and a little landscaping.

Similar 3-2s have been moving in the $100,000-$110,000 range of late, and I think I could get a relatively quick sale if I listed it at $97,500. I’d probably spend about $10,000 renovating it, so I’d be in it for about $75,000, which’d give a final net profit of something along the lines of $7,500-$10,000. Not a huge profit, obviously, but it’d make my contractor happy as far as keeping him in work, and any extra money is, you know, money.

One potential issue could be seasoning for any FHA buyers, as I could honestly get in and out of this one in 2-3 weeks, as all the work needed to be done is cosmetic and wouldn’t even require permits (except for the privacy fence). Selling it before I’d owned it for 90 days would potentially exclude FHA buyers, which is definitely something to consider, but I don’t think to the point of excluding deals like this from consideration, as you can’t see the future and know only FHA buyers would be making offers.

The other option with this property is just to paint it and get flooring down and rent it as-is, as it’d probably rent for $850-$900. That’s more in my line of thinking as far as hunkering down for 2009 and looking to only pick up rentals, but this property is a bit unique in just how little it needs to get it fixed up and ready to flip. I wouldn’t tackle a project like this if it required a major rehab, for a payoff of likely less than $10,000, not knowing what the economic environment might be 3-4 months in the future when I try to sell it, but this one is a bit of a different beast, as far as quickly getting in and out.

The other property we looked at was a horror-show. It was a 4-2 2000 sq. ft house out in the country on 4 acres, that was a foreclosure that was just listed at $44,000. Sounded great and didn’t look too bad from the driveway. Until, that is, our realtor got the front door unlocked and opened it up, and we both just stood there. I’ve never seen that much black mold in a place, as it literally looked like the sheetrock in the living room that we could see was painted black, with the carpet pretty much covered in mold as well.

I never thought I’d say this but I was like “Umm, yeah, I’m not going in there” and he expressed relief that I said that first, as he had no desire to venture in himself. I know you can remediate pretty much anything if you have the money and motivation, but not the sort of thing I ever want to tackle, when other prospects are available.

A few days back I wrote a big honking post on the subject which Wordpress somehow managed to eat, but the short version is that I’ve been running at about $500/month in income from flipthyhouse.com and a few other spin-off sites I maintain. That comes from a mix of private ad sales, text link ad sales, Google Adsense revenue, and sales generated through various affiliate programs.

I’ve been involved with affiliate marketing/SEO/SEM for many moons now, and it’s something I wax and wane on from time to time, as far as actively building out sites, getting involved in other projects, actively working at it again, etc. It’s a nice, easy way to make some passive income, but it’s hard to keep the nose to the grindstone, especially with other projects sucking up time and energy.

One of my resolutions for 2009, though, is to get more serious about developing this site, so the silly challenge is designed to help with that. I’m going to start reporting each month the income generated by this site (along with some tips along the way for anyone with a REI-related site looking to make a few extra bucks), and keep a running total of the income generated. If I can hit paydirt with any of the letters I’ve been firing off to owners of abandoned homes, it might be possible to eventually buy one of them using only the proceeds from my assorted REI websites. Which isn’t necessary, really (and kind of silly, as I’m not keeping the income generated in a coffee can buried in the back yard, with funds completely segregated), but I like the symmetry and challenge of trying to make enough money babbling on about real estate investing to actually, you know, invest in real estate.

Twiddling our thumbs a bit with House #3 at the moment as we’re waiting for the inspection for all of the rough plumbing and rough electrical before we can insulate and sheetrock, and we’re waiting on the surveyors to do their thing so we can finalize the addition part of the building permit, and get started on that. It’s a little frustrating when you live in the boondocks and there’s only one surveying company within three counties (and they fully know that and work on their own glacial schedule), but them’s the break sometimes. We’re still slightly ahead of where I thought we’d be at this point, and still looking good to finish up by the end of the month.

The county finally published the list of tax deed sale properties for February and the abandoned house next door was on it, with a minimum bid of $6,770. I’m conflicted as to whether to go after it or not, as it still has multiple liens on it from the city for mowing and securing the property (which I need to investigate at the court house), so the minimum price to pick it up is probably more like $7,500-$8,000.

That’s pushing it, as it’s in worse shape than House #3, and it may simply need to be bulldozed. I need to, umm, be strategically located next to the door tomorrow when the plywood it’s boarded up with, umm, magically somehow becomes unscrewed from the house, allowing me to get a better idea of what the interior looks like. If it can’t be salvaged, with the clean-up I’d be into it for close to $10,000, and the lot is maybe worth $5,000.

That’s obviously not an attractive deal, but getting rid of it would easily tack on $5,000 to the value of House #3, so in the long run it’d be a break-even proposition, and I’d have a lot to possibly build on in the future if I do ever take a stab at new construction.

Another way to play it is to go to the tax deed sale with the funds to buy it, if necessary, but not bid on it as long as no one else does, either. If no one bids on it, it goes back to the county and is put on the struck off list, which means that the county can then take any offer for it that they deem acceptable, even if it’s less than the back taxes owed on it.

Or I could simply let someone else buy it, assuming they plan to renovate or knock it down themselves, as they’ll likely check out the property and see I’m fixing up the house next door. Depending on who buys it, there might even be room to somehow work with them on renovating it or splitting the costs to demo it, as my main motivation is to see it gone, more than anything.

Regardless, though, it’d be at least 6 months before I could do anything with it, as the owners legally have that long to scrounge up the back taxes plus interest and penalty payments and get the deed back, so you really can’t start any renovations or demolish it until 6 months have passed.

Assuming the liens on it aren’t too pricey, I’m leaning on trying to buy it myself, as that way I at least control the destiny of it at some point in the near future, as someone else might buy it but have no immediate plans for it, as it can’t really depreciate in value any further than it already has.

The only hiccup so far is the electrician is being a bit squirrelly, but he tends to be squirrelly, especially on a job like this that he can knock out in a day, so I’m not too worried about our contractor eventually cornering him and forcing him to get all the rough electrical finished.

It’s been a welcome change so far to be able to be pretty much hands-off with everything personally (other than some of the initial demo work I did), but it’s going to catch up to me with a vengance in a week or two, as far as the stuff I plan on tackling myself (tile and paint and refinishing the hardwoods) all coming due at pretty much the same time. But it could definitely be worse, and it’s easier for me to motivate myself for such things if I know I can knock it out in a week of insane work, as opposed to dragging out stuff over several months of working on weekends, etc.

Very pleased so far with the line of credit I set up for this purchase, as it’s been a very smooth process so far. I was worried about delays in getting reimbursed from the line of credit for money I’d spent on repairs, as the process we agreed on was that I’d foot the initial bill out of pocket, submit receipts and invoices to the bank for approval, and then get reimbursed from the line of credit when the invoices were approved. Which was fine, but I was slightly concerned about approval dragging out and being out of pocket for the repair costs for an extended period of time. So far, though, it’s taken less than 24 hours for the bank to approve the repairs and transfer the money from the line of credit to my personal checking account, so no complaints at all so far with handling the purchase and renovation of this property through the line of credit.

Our contractor and his main helper Will were working on Saturday to knock out some stuff and I dropped by to check out progress. We got to talking about the first contractor I used on House #2 (before giving him the boot after way too many excuses and too much unfinished work, who shall henceforth be called Deadbeat Contractor), who is also Will’s ex father-in-law.

I had found out later that Deadbeat Contractor had spent time in prison in the past for getting busted too many times with cocaine (and also pawned his wife’s car on two different occasions to keep himself in coke), but he’s also apparently had warrants out for his arrest for years, mainly for stupid things like driving on a suspended license, not paying speeding tickets, etc. His business has apparently dwindled down to the point that he’s got no crew and is just doing odd jobs himself, about to get evicted from the house he and his wife live in, and is considering turning himself in to serve his time and not have to deal with, you know, jobs and rent and bills and crap like that.

Which is both kinda funny and kinda sad, but I suppose more funny than anything. I just find it pretty amusing that when he first started working with me he was spending big bucks for a full page ad in the local paper, had a new shiny truck with his company logo, name, and phone number plastered all over it, custom shirts for himself and his crew, and was too busy getting calls and giving bids for bigger jobs (such as doing work for the town’s mayor) to finish my project, which was the real breaking point more than the work itself that he did. And, all that time, he didn’t even have a valid driver’s license (and hadn’t for years), with multiple warrants out for his arrest.

Maybe there is something to that theory of hiding in plain sight after all…

I was pretty happy with both the plumbing and electrical bids, as they came in at $2,000 for the electrical (which includes installing all fixtures, ceiling fans, and outlets) and $1,800 for the plumbing. It’s a very small, simple house, so I was estimating $2,000 for each job, but that involved a bit of guesstimation based on past jobs, so it was nice to get those nailed down at about what I’d budgeted for them.

No major surprises after demoing out the rest of the interior, other than more ridiculously shoddy work. It was kind of frustrating as almost all the demo work was undoing the recent feeble attempts at renovation, with the net result being a lot of dirty grunt labor and wasting of sheetrock, as we had to open all of the walls anyway for electrical work and getting inspections approved.

It always baffles me that people will be so half-assed with work, as far as taking the time to frame and stud out walls, add new electrical boxes, and sheetrock it all, but not replacing 60 year old electrical wire, or using super-cheap 1/2″ sheets of insulation in the walls you’re sheetrocking over, instead of spending a few extra bucks for decent insulation. I mean, I get why people do half-assed work, so I could totally understand someone leaving old electrical boxes in place, not adding any insulation, etc., and calling it good, but it’s baffling to do 90% of the work somewhat correctly, using a good deal of effort, but half-assing the remaining 10%, necessitating ripping it all out.

My favorite “renovation” was where the guy added a new round ceiling electrical box for a light fixture in the living room, but didn’t have a stud in the ceiling to nail the box to, at the place where he wanted the electrical box at. Instead of using blocking or something similar to give himself something to nail the box to (which he obviously knew how to do, as he did it elsewhere), in this case he just decided to create a huge, basketball-sized mass of spray-in foam, which when hardened bridged the gap to the stud about nine inches away, and sort of held the ceiling box in place and in position. Quality craftmanship, that.

On the annoying and/or frustrating side, the city wants us to add parking space for two cars (a 9′ by 18′ space for each), as that’s apparently required since I’m adding a bedroom to make it a 2-1. It also has to be asphalt or cement. Very much overkill in this case, as the house small, is on a dead-end street, and is the only occupied house on that side of the street. There’s a dirt/gravel driveway to the side of the house that people have obviously used as a driveway in the past, but it’s unclear how much of it straddles the vacant lot next door, so I’m likely going to need to have a survey done, especially if we have to pour a concrete drive. Which isn’t the worst thing in the world, as I’d thought about having it done anyway, but I hadn’t planned on the added expense of providing paved parking for two cars.

All in all, very happy with progress so far, as I didn’t expect to really get rolling until January on this project, so we’re getting off to a good start and already a bit ahead of the game.

As a reminder, here’s the beaut of the house I just bought (and the obvious tilt in the first photo is camera pilot error, as the house and foundation are surprisingly level):

It was fairly amusing talking to the seller, as she’s a realtor based out of Austin, and kind of a piece of work, as she seems to mainly buy houses to flip herself, in all sorts of cracked-out neighborhoods in and around Austin.

She did have a lot of useful info about House #3 in general and the status of the abandoned houses to either side of House #3, as her handyman who’d been trying to fix up House #3 talked to the neighbors a good bit. It’s sounding more hopeless as far as trying to buy the adjacent abandoned pink house right next to House #3, as it’s involved in various suits and liens, and the estate that owns it consists of like ten million kids, half of which are in jail, and it’s apparently been sold once at the tax deed sale but that was rescinded as all of the estate wasn’t properly notified, etc.

I think I’m going to try to start the process of simply getting it condemned and torn down by the city, as they’re apparently good at acting on such matters and it should be an easy enough case to make, as there’s not much left of the house, people have obviously been hanging out there and getting high in the not too distant past, there’s a church and an elementary school less than three blocks away, yada yada yada. Just having the eyesore next door gone would probably improve our property value by $5K, so it’s more than worth jumping through all of the necessary hoops.

The seller also had heard that the guy who owns the empty lot on the other side and the other abandoned house on our side of the street apparently wants $30,000 for both, which is, how shall we say, wildly optimistic. The house was apparently built by midgets, as it has 6 foot ceilings throughout, and is half-collapsed as it is, so the only real value is in the two lots, which are reasonably worth something like $8k-$10K. I sent the owner a letter a few weeks back, offering to buy them, but never heard back. He’s a couple of years behind in taxes, though, so that’s one to definitely keep an eye on, as far as potentially picking it up at the tax deed sale.

Our contractor is already at work on House #3, which is a welcome change from projects past. While I might be half-crazy for tackling House #3, it’s a world away from where I was last year at this time, in the midst of trying to get House #2 done. While the House #2 saga ultimately ended well, I’m pretty thankful to not be entangled in a similar project this time around, as far as sinking a ton of money into a house that I’m praying I’ll be able to sell, (and one that’d only marginally break if I had to rent it), working with a contractor that I trusted about as far as I could throw him, etc.

‘Tis a much different story this time around, which I’m very thankful for. Not that House #3 won’t have the inevitable bumps and snags, and I’m sure I’ll be sick of it by the time we’re finished with it, but it’s nice to have a solid game plan going in, to the point that I’m already looking for the next project, instead of hoping and praying the current one works out.