Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Got it! First House Purchase

It's been busy since my last post!  We settled on a price and closed the purchase.  Here's the update.  The house below was listed at $99,900 and we put in an offer and negotiated per the prior posts.


It was a really FAST process.  We put in the first offer of $85k (they listed for $99,900) on a Tuesday and by Friday, we had an agreement on both sides to buy the house for $91,000.
Then what?  Well, this was a purchase from a bank (REO - real estate owned), so there were virtually no contingencies.  Nonetheless, we had to schedule an inspector just to make sure we were estimating make-ready costs correctly and addressing all matters that would need addressing prior to putting a tenant in the home.

What we found was interesting.  Most of the house was as we thought it would be - we knew that we'd have to replace carpets (but had somebody check to make sure we couldn't just clean them first - nope), paint throughout and add a kitchen range and refrigerator.  What did we not expect?  The window blinds were shot throughout the house and some minor things, like the sensor in the garage door and a ceiling fan that didn't work.

But it was the smell in one of the bedrooms that was the most unexpected - a handyman that we got a bid from (we hired him) said that he knew exactly what had happened because he'd seen it before:  his guess was that the prior owners ripped up the carpet upon moving into the house and made that bedroom the "animal room".  The stains on the floor and the smell confirmed it.

Fortunately, the fix is to triple-seal the floor with an epoxy, which is less expensive than ripping up and replacing the subfloor.

All in, our make-ready will be about $6,500 and the closing costs were $1,250.  So, assuming no more surprises, we're all-in for $98,750.

We've got a sign in the yard and an ad in Craigslist for $1,150 rent, which we think is just under what it should rent for.

Work should start this Thursday and complete next week.  Have 2 showings already scheduled for Friday evening.  When we're rented and all make-ready is done, I'll update with final numbers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Many congratulation on your first house purchase..
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