Flipping Full-Time in NJ: #8 Complete

Back in June of last year, we got our eighth flip under contract in my hometown of Toms River, NJ. This was a property that I did not think we had a chance in grabbing as the first thing the neighbor said when we pulled up was: “Are they giving away free cars at that house? There’s been a ton of activity there!” After hearing that, I had little faith that we’d be able to tie the property up but that’s never discouraged us enough to quit before, so I decided to throw in a number. The house was listed for $142,500 so we put down a full price offer (after running our numbers and deciding we could make that work).

About a week later we found out that the house was listed for the wrong price and should really have hit the market at $164,900. There was no way we could possibly make that figure work so we decided to move on, however, our agent wasn’t as forgiving and continued correspondence with the seller for about a week or two afterward. After much discussion and to our surprise, they accepted our offer and we were back in the game! I scheduled the demolition of the interior finishes for the following Monday.

We were met with a nasty surprise that Monday afternoon. When our demolition team had finished demolishing the inside, they mistakenly left a water valve on in the upstairs bathroom. This, coincidentally, was also the day that the power company decided to turn on our electric, engaging the well pump in the crawlspace after the demo guys left and proceeding to completely soak the entire upstairs. We got there around lunchtime to grab some measurements when I heard water blasting from outside the house. I bolted into the front door to see a waterfall coming down the stairs. After quickly turning off the valve, we assessed the damages. We estimated that about $2,500 worth of damage was done but luckily, the demo team made good on it and came back to perform all of the repair work. This was not the only surprise though…

We later found out after running the boiler that the house was not winterized properly (which was a chance we took after a failed pressure test during our inspection). The chance we took did not pay off as there were more than a half-dozen broken copper lines hidden in many of the walls and floor joist cavities. Lesson learned.

All in all, we put roughly $45,000 into the house and it came out fantastic! My sister and her fiancée were looking at houses at the time and weren’t having much luck so after seeing our final product, they decided to purchase it from us (at a nice discount, of course). This project came with a lot of lessons regarding the plumbing, but we will definitely not be making the same kinds of mistakes on the next house. You can be sure of that.

Check out the pictures below for some renovation shots. Unfortunately, the “after” pictures were deleted by accident so I’m hoping my sister can send me some updated shots at a later date (which I will upload). For now, here are some of the repair shots, including the aftermath of that second story bathroom flood, courtesy of our demolition team : )