First Sale Sept 2015

Hello everybody,

I'm brand new to the BP community and new to the REI community. I will tell you my first story of success. It started out a year and a half ago when on a whim I was bored at work and decided to look up homes in my area out of curiosity. I had always wanted a home and being 32 and with a brand new good secure job but also double digit debt plus school loans I was unsure if I would even qualify for a loan. I also didn't have much money for a down payment either. But I found a home that was appealing and I called up the listing agent. He became my relator and showed me a few homes. He showed me roughly 10 homes. I was intent on buying a great home with lots of character right out of the box but after he showed me what my $120k budget would buy, it wasn't much and the older homes I was looking at had lots of charm but had bad layouts and were cramped and very much outdated. He then showed me a 2800 sq. ft.5/3 on .25 of an acre with an attached 2 car garage and fully finished basement. It was an 80's sprawling ranch and exactly what I did NOT want! No character and quite blah in my opinion. I told him no immediately but after a few more homes we came back to the same home and then that's when I really looked around and thought what a great neighborhood, on a cul-de-sac, in the middle of town great schools, near shopping etc. So what if it didn't have any character and needed updating, luckily it was pretty much all cosmetic. It was a foreclosure and the auction ended that night. So I put in a full price bid of $115k (my relator had sent me to a local broker and had got me pre-approved for a VA loan which doesn't require any money down) and lo and behold it was accepted. Fast forward a year and a half later I had put in all new appliances and painted, new fencing, partial new flooring, updated 2 bathrooms and other minor additions. I accepted a position in another state and was moving in a month and half! That was the push I needed to finish the kitchen update and install new carpet, my last 2 remaining projects. After all was said and done I was sent a check for $32k at closing. This didn't include paying 9% of the selling price (157k) which includes 3% to each relator and 3% to the title company from the money I had made which totaled out to an additional 13k.

Out of that 32k I had put in roughly 15k of my own money to update and rehab my first home all on my credit card. After I sold that home I was able to pay off all of my debt and also invest in my new home here in Yakima WA. Of which I am currently living and rehabbing myself and getting to know the locals at all of the home improvement stores quite nicely! :)

The bottom line to my story is this, I wasn't trying to make a bunch of money on my sale I was simply updating it to try to sell it as fast as possible! I was more concerned about paying on two mortgages then how much money I was going to make. In the end the buyer said she loved my style (repeatedly). I also utilized some of the people I worked with and paid them in cheesecake- seriously! It was a win-win! I learned a lot from my first sale and by buying the right home and being smart about my choices, just because something costs more does not mean you will get more for the more costly update. I was smart with what I knew how to do (which wasn't much at the time) and when to ask for help from people I trusted and knew could help me. I also did everything myself except for a few complicated electrical jobs which saved me a lot of time and labor and headache!  

In the end the last 2 weeks I took off from my full time job allowed me to focus on finally completing all of those random projects that I had put off. It was a ball-busting 2 weeks and I thought I was going to die of sheer exhaustion but I did it! I'm extremely proud of myself and motivated to get my new house fixed up and sold!