Extreme Historic Rehab

[Tom Soranno]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment in Roanoke.

Extreme rehab and resale of a fire-damaged 1919 built historic district house.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

During 2008-2015, our team was a leading contributor to repairing distressed single family homes in our city's historically protected neighborhood. Restoration of this vacant, distressed property contributed to the overall neighborhood improvement plan in which we were participating.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

This particular house was part of a partner investor's portfolio which we agreed to joint venture, bringing rehab capital as well as our design and project management experience to the table to save this property.

How did you finance this deal?

We funded it through a combination of cash, private lender capital, and bank financing.

How did you add value to the deal?

We took the house from a burned out shell to essentially a "new" home with vintage details inside of the restored historic exterior.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Obviously the biggest challenge was stabilizing the interior of the structure prior to building back out. About 20% of the first floor joists were structurally compromised by the fire damage and needed to be surgically replaced. We strategically opted to use an open floorplan on the first floor due to the amount of structural that needed to removed.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Shout out to Cox hardware in Texas where we got over 1200 board feet of wood siding to match the original materials we salvaged. Great resource if you are willing to set up your own shipping logistics and job site offloading.