BRRRR in Seattle, Washington (with before/after pics and numbers)

BRRRR in Seattle, Washington (with before/after pics and numbers)

Investor · San Jose, CA, Bellevue, WA · Member since 2016 · 327 posts · 257 votes

I just finished a BRRRR just outside of Seattle, Washington. This deal had all sorts of complexity. It was an out of state deal (I live in the SF Bay Area), where I 50/50 partnered with a contractor, and got a private money loan before the cash-out refi. I'll walk through details (including pictures and numbers) below....

Purchased a short-sale property on 3/3/2017 for $218k. 

I had been flying up to seattle 3 weekends in a row looking at properties without luck, then this place came online on the MLS on a thursday with listing notes saying offers must be in by end of day friday to be reviewed on Saturday. We had under 36hrs to put in an offer so I had my agent swing by and we did a facetime video tour. That was good enough for me so we submitted a cash offer. List price was $169k, we offered $190k cash no contingencies. Saturday morning comes around and we were 1 of 11 cash offers. Selling agent kicked offers back 3 rounds, we came up and up and eventually got the deal. Its a 3br,1ba small, single story, SFH. We estimated $40k rehab and a $320k ARV.

Partner and loan structure: 

  • Private money loan for 90% of purchase price
  • Contractor partner and I each paid another 5% of the purchase
  • Contractor partner and I split rehab costs 50/50
  • I handle project management / design / financing / finding the deal/etc; contractor partner handles doing most of the rehab work (we subbed out plumbing/electrical and hired day labor for help with roof/paint/landscape/etc) (this is the 4th deal my contractor and I have worked together on, but first time being partners)

We spent 

  • $218,000 purchase
  • $41,500 on the rehab 
    • total gut + permitted electrical service change, plumbing, roof, landscaping/etc
  • $4,000 on holding costs
  • All in at $263,500
  • Estimated sale price if we were to list would be $330,000 
  • So we would net around $306,900 (7% to sell) minus  $263,500 = $43,400
  • Divide the above by 2 since my contractor and I partnered, we'd each net about $21,700

I went back and forth about selling vs BRRRR'ing and settled on the BRRRR since my long term goal is to get to 10 cash flowing properties, so I offered to buy out my partner from the deal, he was happy with that, so adding that to my costs, my total investment comes out to $285,200

I got an 80% loan on the new $330k ARV which allowed me to get back $265k, which means I net net DID NOT get all my money back out (very hard to do in seattle), and thus end up leaving about $20k of my own capital in the deal. So I have 20k invested in a $330k property with a $265k loan at 4%.

We're expecting it to rent for $2,200/mo. My holding costs (including maintenance/insurance/tax/etc) is right around $1800/mo

Here are some before pics; place was a dump! We had to wear masks for the first couple weeks

We spent 2 weeks simply on the demolition. Total project end to end took 14 weeks. I got the team custom T-shirts for moral! 

goodbye kitchen!

Had to mop the grease off the ceilings before we could prime! Ended up replacing a lot of drywall. 

bathroom in progress

Laser perfect

322sq ft deck!

And here are the final pictures....

My business partner and I on the last day!

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Investor · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2016 · 577 posts · 240 votes
9y

Christian. I grew up in the Bay Area. Love your story and what you have done up in Seattle. I have been doing BRRR's for the last year in Memphis and Cleveland. Would love to connect and learn more about what you are doing and see if we can maybe do something together in the future. Great work!

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  • Surveyor · Hemet, CA · Member since 2015 · 797 posts · 112 votes
    9y

    Why did you pay above asking? Because everyone else wanted it to? I am seeing dumps down here in this price range..... I can't put the two together??

  • Investor · San Jose, CA, Bellevue, WA · Member since 2016 · 327 posts · 257 votes
    9y
    Originally posted by @Robin Boyer:

    Why did you pay above asking? Because everyone else wanted it to? I am seeing dumps down here in this price range..... I can't put the two together??

    The way I think of buying relative to the asking price is that the asking price doesn't matter. I work the numbers backwards from the ARV, rehab, etc to get to what my max purchase price is.

    We had to come up on the purchase price on this deal because there were 11 competing offers. Selling agent kicked the offers back to everyone to come up higher 3x until we were the last offer standing. 

  • Commercial Real Estate Broker · Snohomish, WA · Member since 2015 · 2 posts · 0 votes
    9y

    Christian ~ thanks for your generous sharing.  I will check out Pius for sure. 

  • Surveyor · Hemet, CA · Member since 2015 · 797 posts · 112 votes
    9y

    @Christian Wathne yea lot of other investors out there.  Your doing a great thing helping us newbies out there. I am preparing myself for my first flip. I am wondering how far I can stretch 500k in socal at once. Maybe 3 flips at a time?

  • Investor · San Jose, CA, Bellevue, WA · Member since 2016 · 327 posts · 257 votes
    9y

    Thanks @Robin Boyer. 

    Re your question about what to do with 500k; there's a million ways to answer that....just depends on your goals; I'm preferential towards long term buy  hold via brrrr; that amount of capital can get you into some nice neighborhoods 

  • Surveyor · Hemet, CA · Member since 2015 · 797 posts · 112 votes
    9y

    @Christian Wathne I was thinking maybe go half towards brrrr to supplement cash flow and support my dream of a farm and a RV park in wine country. Then other half go towards flipping? So I can start building that Capitol.  My project of a rv park with civil engineer and the county permits is a half million dollar project it looks like.  So I need Capitol asap with that 500k.   Are you in interested in flipping together? Apartments homes? You have the know how I will have the bank!

  • Investor · San Jose, CA, Bellevue, WA · Member since 2016 · 327 posts · 257 votes
    9y

    @Robin Boyer, good luck to you! 

    When you say wine country are you referring to Napa and Sonoma?, or are you talking closer to LA?

    I'm not currently seeking other partners; instead staying conservative and doing a 1 or 2 per year on my own. I would be more than happy to chat and/or meetup sometime though to swap ideas

  • Surveyor · Hemet, CA · Member since 2015 · 797 posts · 112 votes
    9y

    @Christian Wathne friend request sent I am looking at wine country near Temecula. They say it will be bigger than a napa! Bring on the appreciation and cash flow! My new idea is tiny homes! Affordable living less carbon foot print start get back to real living not mansions and 5 cars LOL.

  • Jersey City, NJ · Member since 2012 · 93 posts · 32 votes
    9y

    That turned out great. The house looks amazing! Very inspiring story. Thanks for sharing!

  • Everett, WA · Member since 2017 · 10 posts · 4 votes
    9y

    I love looking at these transformations. It looks absolutely dazzling! Great job!

  • Investor · San Jose, CA, Bellevue, WA · Member since 2016 · 327 posts · 257 votes
    9y
    Originally posted by @Stu Basham:

    That turned out great. The house looks amazing! Very inspiring story. Thanks for sharing!

     Thanks @Stu Basham

  • Investor · San Jose, CA, Bellevue, WA · Member since 2016 · 327 posts · 257 votes
    9y
    Originally posted by @Lisa Sanders:

    I love looking at these transformations. It looks absolutely dazzling! Great job!

     Thanks @Lisa Sanders!

  • Olympia, WA · Member since 2016 · 45 posts · 8 votes
    9y

    @Valerie Howard This is a BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

  • Surveyor · Hemet, CA · Member since 2015 · 797 posts · 112 votes
    9y

    @Christian Wathne i threw your commercial property on the market had a million dollor cash offer in the first few hours. That tells me we have it listed to low. Can we change the price now what is your recommendation? It has not been appraised yet I am thinking we should?? One more question my mom will have about 550k liquid possibly in our exchange to buy our new properties. The thing is that she doesn't qualify for a conventional loan. Do we buy houses cash what do we do thank you!

  • Investor · San Jose, CA, Bellevue, WA · Member since 2016 · 327 posts · 257 votes
    9y

    @Robin Boyer, I'm not really understanding the question 

  • Surveyor · Hemet, CA · Member since 2015 · 797 posts · 112 votes
    9y

    I am selling a commercial property in Southern California and we listed it at 1.1 million and got a million dollor cash offer the first day. Do we adjust the price? We will sell and buy new properties but my mom doesn't have income. So how do we qualify for a loan? Sounds hard money is the way to go or a no documentation loan? Thanks

  • Seattle, WA · Member since 2016 · 16 posts · 3 votes
    9y

    @Christian Wathne Awesome job, and great project summary. I'm in So Seattle, so feel free to connect, I'm always looking to partner on deals.

  • Investor · San Jose, CA, Bellevue, WA · Member since 2016 · 327 posts · 257 votes
    9y

    Thanks @Sue Willoughby!

    Update; I signed a lease as of Mid July with a great tenant at the price I was originally shooting for, $2200/mo

  • Surveyor · Hemet, CA · Member since 2015 · 797 posts · 112 votes
    9y

    I will be in San Jose San Ramon area on the 20th and 21st of this month if you are free for a coffee or lunch!

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