All Forum Posts by: Carey Madigan

Purchased a BRRRR duplex with carpeting throughout that smells very musty, it has barnwood type floors underneath, do i refinish the wood or put in vinyl plank?

Thanks David, we will see what happens

Hi Michael, thanks for the encouragement...working on refinancing the house and buying something else...problem is finding anything right now that makes sense. 

Thanks Jarrod,   Well i think the biggest drawback on the Victorian style homes are all the peaks and valleys on the roofs, luckily mine appears to have a new roof in the last few years, but even so i have found some drainage issues with flashing, gutters and such.  Next i would have to say all these older houses have lathe and plaster instead of drywall which in some respects are easy to repair in the case of smaller dings and holes but when you get whole walls that are in need of repair we found it easier after much trial and error just to tear it out and drywall it.  Plumbing can be another issue because of old pipes that get rusty and electrical issues as well with old fuses instead of circuit breakers, but again i lucked out and there were updated electrical and quite a bit of newer plumbing in the home i bought.  Buying at auction sight unseen other than a walk around, I was stunned to see when i finally did get inside that the home had forced air heating and central air conditioning.....really lucked out there...it appears to be original because it had these big old cast iron floor grates. I did not know they had forced air heat back in 1900.   I can tell you that the house next door which is 1930's vintage and is a big old farm house with 4 bedrooms and a couple bathrooms and had a oil boiler with radiators was just retrofitted with a gas furnace and vents run throughout the home so they can also add central air and they were quoted $24,000 by a local HVAC company.  The owner ended up finding a licensed HVAC company that did it for around $14000 so it pays to shop around.  My house had aluminum siding but i had to sand, scrape and repaint it which probably cost me $2500 doing it ourselves.  I bought a Graco sprayer at Home Depot for about $500, figured i could use it for future projects.  i think it would probably have run $5-6K if i had gotten a contractor.  The home is two story 1400 sq. ft. with basement. Oh ya mentioning the basement that is another area to really check out on these old homes, i lucked out there again as it appears mine had some waterproofing done at some point....all in all i think i really dodged a bullet buying this old of a home at auction from what i have seen of other homes in the area...most were total rebuilds.   Good Luck with your Victorian Jarrod!!

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Racine.

Purchase price: $27,000
Cash invested: $40,000

4 bedroom 2.5 bath Victorian SFH with 2 car garage...purchased at online auction for $27000 (its in a somewhat more rundown part of town however there are nice victorian type homes in the area and its near the lake and downtown. I remodeled the house for about $40,000 (assessed at $80K in 2016) including new flooring, new bathroom remodel, converted unfinished storage room in to 4th bedroom, new appliances. I am charging $925 per month but will probably bump the rent to $1100 in May

How did you finance this deal?

I had cash from a previous condo that i renovated and sold

Lessons learned? Challenges?

I had my GF's brother live in the house and help with the remodeling...not a good idea as I probably could have had a contractor do the job for less and in half the time so i lost all that rent money.