All Forum Posts by: Kel S

Hmm, wasn't sure where to put this post. Sorry if i picked the wrong area. Anyway, I thought I'd share our before and after pictures of the kitchen in our REO that we purchased. I think it's really looking great! The cost for the cabinets, counters, fridge and stove all came to appx $1100. We bought the unfinished cabinets at Home Depot on clearance. I did look on Craigslist to see if we could find a used set in great shape but couldn't find anything so had to buy new. All we have left in there is to put some trim around the window over the sink and a section of trim wood between the cabinets there at the top over the sink.

P.S. Hubby and his freind have been working on this house. Almost every night. If we get another one that needs this amount of work he's going to hire contractors. It's just way too time consuming and I think I've seen him for maybe 8 hours in the last month :cry:

Kitchen Before (completely gutted)


Kitchen After

You can look through the listings on: http://www.homepath.com/

We definitely have had a lot of calls just from our yard sign alone. I'll probably post also on Craigslist this weekend. I'm hoping between those two methods we can avoid the high cost of newspaper ads, but we'll see.

"I agree with Jon. 15 X 9 is WAY too small to make into 2 bedrooms. I think you'll do better with the 2 bedroom rather than a teeny tiny bedroom that wouldn't even fit a leprechaun!"

LOL! I'm sure your right. I certainly wouldn't want a room so tiny. But if I had small kids, I doubt they would mind. Less floor space to clean up after. But yeah, we likely will leave it a 2bed and rent it like that.

Jon,

I found this info out:
"As far as the IRC code requirement is concerned the room must be a habitable room which means no less than 70 square feet in total area with no dimension less than 7'. "

So with that room split into two rooms it would be 9 feet x 7.5 feet. That would meet the minimum wouldn't it? The room as it is now has two windows and two closets because it was at one time, two bedrooms.

Thanks Scott,

We are pretty excited about it. I was looking at some comps and houses on the same street sold for:

2 bed - $88k in 2007
3 bed - $138k in 2008
3 bed - $91k in 2008

Of course the market isn't commanding those prices right now but nice to see that just last year some sold for decent prices.

By the way, that other rental...the promising tenant fell through. But that's OK, were getting a lot of calls on it so I'm sure it won't be too long before it's rented.

Sounds interesting and like something I really need. I bounce all over from Facebook, to Twitter and back and would be nice to see everything in one spot.

We just got word yesterday that our offer was accepted and we have the purchase contract back. Here's what happened.

I've had my eye on this cute little house that had been on the market for quite some time. It was listed at $59,900 to start with. Then dropped to $49,900 and recently dropped to $39,900. This over the course of about a year. This isn't a bank owned but rather an estate.

So the minute I saw they reduced the price again I called hubby and asked him to drive by on his way home. He did and ended up talking to the gentleman there for an hour and a half. He walked all through the house and chatted some more with the guy. It's he and his sister that are trying to sell the house. It belonged to their mother and has been in the family for years.

My husband offered him 29k and he said he'd sell it to us for that. That he would really like to move on and get on with his life and not have to worry any more about trying to sell the house.

About the house:

2 bed/1bath
Built in 1912
817 sq ft
Basement
large 2 1/2 car garage (detached)
I don't have data for what it last sold for because the county system doesn't go back far enough in years to show what it last sold for. The tax value says $78k. But doing comps in that area I'm seeing homes sold in the $60-99k range.
Rent would be $650-750 range depending on if we convert it to a 3bed or not.
We are going to actually finance this one through hubby's credit union. I was shocked to be honest that they would since it's a rental but she said no problem. The only thing he can't do is finance it through his LLC. It has to be through his name only. Weird...not sure why that is. But whatever...payments will probably be about $110/mo for the loan I'm guessing.

What do you think? Did we do ok on this deal?

Minimal work to get it rent ready. I'd say clean the carpets and paint. The roof on the house and garage are virtually brand new. The driveway is beautiful (can you call a driveway beautiful?) with new asphalt or blacktop...whatever that stuff is called. The porch looks new as well. The neighborhood is really nice and you can tell that all the surrounding homes are very well taken care of. Also in a awesome school district.

A question I have for you all is that this place has the 2 bedrooms like I said. One is 10 x 12 and the other one is 15 x 9. At one point the guy said it used to be a 3 bedroom house. That 15 x 9 room was actually 2 bedrooms but the wall was taken out. From a rental point of view I was thinking perhaps we should revert it back to a 3 bedroom even if the rooms are very small. I think people with children (especially the opposite sex) would want a 3 bed even if the rooms were smaller. What do you all think?

Well guys, our prospective "grandma" lady was too good to be true. She backed out, claiming that she can't get out of her current lease (she thought she could as she had been a tenant for 13 years there). I kept telling hubby not to get too excited about her that it may not work out. Gosh, when will he learn that I'm always right? That you can't argue with a woman's intuition??? LOL! :mrgreen: Anyway, so back to the drawing board.

We have had a ton of calls but only a few applications filled out. The next application is a 21 year old gal with 1 child. She works 2 jobs. My concern with her though is that she didn't fill out the application completely and left off the names of her last 2 landlords. So we asked her to complete that. If she does then we'll run her background/credit. My intuition on this one has the red flags at full mast, but can't descriminate based on age, etc., so will go through the process and see what happens if she fills out the app completely.

P.S. MikeOH, excellent advice and I printed out one of those deposit forms and we will use that going forward definitely.

I almost bit the worm on this one last week out of pure frustration. But I resisted. I have a 99 Jeep Cherokee that keeps overheating on me..Uhhgg! The shop thought they had it fixed but apparently not. So back it goes this week. Let me tell you though when you are going down the freeway with two children and the engine is suddenly at 260 degrees (highest it will go) and steam/smoke is coming out of it....and your about to pee your pants thinking the dang things going to blow up any minute before you can get pulled over and get the kids safely out....the idea of a brand new car gets more appealing by the minute.

I'd love one of those Chrysler/Dodge Aspen SUV's. But I just don't want car payments. So will drive the Jeep till it won't run anymore. Hubby drives a 2000 Concord with a bazillion miles on it. But hey, it runs and looks nice. Plus we just love the idea of no payments and lower car insurance.

I never did think the car for clunkers was a great idea just for the reasons you all said. Now people will struggle to pay their car payments and likely end up getting them repo'd.