Firebrand -- Brand New Listing 4/11/09

Welcome to an absolutely beautiful remodeled 1700 square foot, 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom home. It sits on a huge lot with awesome curb appeal, fenced off area in the back with fruit trees and tons of room for a pool or swing set for the kids. Great looking wood flooring through the upstairs, nice 15 inch tile down stairs, tile in all bathrooms and new carpet in two bedrooms. Double walk in closets in the master and double master vanity sinks. The kitchen has stainless appliances, slab granite counters and an undermount stainless sink. You will love the custom 3 tone paint job inside. We replaced every single door handle, hinge, door stop, bath/kitchen faucet, and light fixtures to brushed nickel. Every electrical plug and light switch was changed out to high end Decora brand. Oil Rubbed bronze ceiling fans and a custom fire place make this a house that is 100% new inside and ready for you to move in.

Larger version of the slideshow

Vista Way - Foreclosure Purchase, rehab and retail

Vista Way was a foreclosure purchase in Riverside County. I ended up buying this one through the listing agent for the bank. While it was sitting vacant prior to me coming along some kids got in, broke some water pipes and flooded the bottom floor. The bank removed the drywall and left it that way.

We came in with an all cash offer and picked this gem up on the cheap. I was originally going to keep this house as a rental however shortly after buying it we found out my wife was pregnant with our first kid so we figured it would be best to sell.

What made this rehab fun was after completing the job a worker made an honest mistake that resulted in a bottom floor flood. We had to turn around and do the exact same rehab a second time! This house is living proof that you make your money when you purchase a property, not when you sell it. After having to repeat the same job, almost doubling the original repairs budget we still made $19,000. We were in and out of this one in 4 months.

Purchase Price: $99,900
Repairs: $12,000
Holding Costs: $1,300
Selling Costs: $14,500
Sales Price: $145,800
Profit: $19,000

Here is a slideshow of the before and after pictures.

Wilder - Subject to, rehab and retail project

This was a moderately heavy rehab project. The house was in very rough condition due to years of total neglect by the owner. We purchased this property directly from the owner subject to a institutional first, institutional second and a hard money third. We closed in 7 days, with cash through an escrow company with title insurance and all the normal purchase procedures. This owner was in major trouble as the hard money third was in foreclosure, the institutional first and second were behind but not yet in foreclosure and there was an open code enforcement file for substandard condition and drug activity. This property is in an good quality family neighborhood in Los Angeles County and really "dirtied" up the neighborhood.

We remodeled this property from the ground up. The repairs were, new roof, new electrical panel and complete rewire, minor re-arrangement of interior walls to improve flow of house, gutted the kitchen and bathrooms and replaced all vanities/cabinets, granite and stainless appliances, new flooring of carpet in the rooms and wood flooring everywhere else, replaced every door, window and all accompanying hardware, four color interior and 2 color exterior paint, and front/rear landscaping. It was a brand new house from the ground up.

All in all it was a 6 month turn from acquisition to close of escrow on the sale.

Fun times on this project all the way around.

The numbers (rounded) were:

Subject to a $66,000 first, $48,000 second and a $110,000 hard money third. A total of $224,000 in existing mortgage debt. We wound up giving the owner 91,000 cash to her existing loans. The repairs ran us $55,000, the holding costs ran $14,000 and the sales costs were $42,000. The sales price was $499,000 which left us a profit of $73,000.

Here is a SLIDESHOW of the before and after pictures. I'm still working on my camera skills so bear with me.