I'm a newbie with distressed property opportunity. What to do?
Hi,
Just to give some quick background on me, my wife and I currently have one rental property that we purchased a few years ago that we did some minor repairs to (floors, paint) before renting it out. We've had success with that property and decided to reach back out to our real estate agent to look at some other properties and to keep us in the loop on any distressed properties she tells other investors about. Long story short, she recently presented us with a property in The Woodlands area that someone out of state recently inherited and is trying to get rid of. Won't even make its way onto MLS. We walked through the property yesterday, it's 1200 sq ft, was smoked in, needs new floors and paint on everything (walls, ceilings, cabinets, doors) will need new exterior doors, AC vents were all corroded so not sure what issues we could find in there, the roof seems ok but will likely still need replacing, small kitchen that needs new countertops, and the house was built in 1970. It's not in flood zone and ARV would be ~125K. We have never done a major renovation before and don't have a contractor on standby to simply walk the house with us and tell us what's what. I'm also very inexperienced with the issues an older house like this could present. I've read about plumbing and foundation issues that start to arise in homes from the 70s. I also don't know what electrical issues arise in older homes or how easy it is to fully get rid of the smoke smell. Our REA has two other investors that have made offers and tonight is the deadline before the seller chooses someone. I don't think opportunities like this present themselves very often, but with our inexperience is it best to just walk away? If the house were built in the 2000s and wasn't smoked in, i'd feel more comfortable jumping in with an offer based on my own expectations of repairs, but it being nearly 50 yrs old leaves a lot of doubt for me.