I have good news, and bad news.  The first buyer on House #26 fell out of escrow, although, they seemed very strongly qualified I think they could not qualify for the loan.  They never really gave a very clear answer, but I got the idea I should find another buyer quickly.

The good news, is we had a cash buyer as a Backup offer.  I was not real comfortable with their original offer, because of the way they wrote it (not the price), but after speaking with the agent and countering some of the things I didn’t like out of it, the Buyer agreed and we where in escrow again.

14 days later they closed and now own the house.  The escrow went really smooth, they removed contingencies and everything.

Purchase 53.8%
Repairs 12.1%
Purchase + Repairs 65.9%

Overall, that is a pretty great deal, especially considering we only owned the property about 3 months. We also sold the value 10% higher than our appraisal, 4 months ago, which is great too.

We are really out there looking for properties right now.  Not finding a lot of exciting stuff, but we are just starting to look aggressively again.  Have a good weekend.

House #26 is our most expensive purchase to date, we started the list price kind of high to feel the market out, after feeling things out a bit, we lowered the price a bit and now we have multiple offers on the property.  We made a decision and opened escrow with a buyer, with one big contingency, their appraisal contingency must be removed by Monday (Jan 25).  They are willing to pay over appraised value, but it depends what the appraisal comes in at.

We’ve owned the property for about 60 days now, so I am hoping we can get it wrapped up, closed and sold after owning it 90 days.   Obviously, as this is a bigger loan the pre-qualification process is a bit different than our typical $180,000 sale.  I spoke with the lender at length and this client is the president of a large company in Orange County that is looking to move his kids into a school in Riverside.  They where in escrow on another property, but the appraisal came in 160,000 less than the agreed price.

I will keep you updated on the process, but I am hoping we can get this sucker closed quickly.

Does anyone read the blog anymore?  It sure has been a while since I’ve made any posts, hasn’t it!  I have been busy with so many different things, a couple times I have logged in with the intent to make a post, but got side-tracked or ran out of energy mid-way through.

The holidays are in full swing and I’ve been busy trying to close one of the four sales escrows we have open, rent and refinance one of the 9 rentals we have somehow amassed in the last six months and the most challenging part, figure out how we can buy more properties in this competitive environment.  All that being said the blog has suffered a little bit, but the new year will be better.

Now to the post at hand!  House #26 is all but done and boy did it turn out great!  Our cleaning lady comes in Monday. Somehow we’ve already had a lot of action on it and we haven’t even listed it.  I would estimate 10 agents have done private showings and somehow on Friday 3 tour buses with buyers showed up, we aren’t even done.  No offers yet, but we haven’t even listed it, so I guess they don’t even know how to submit an offer.  I want to go take a final video tour and list the property Monday evening.  Hopefully we will have it under contract early in the new year.

Here are the before and after pictures:

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After (not finished cleaning yet)

Before

After

pic coming soon…

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Things are really rolling along for House #26.

• We got workers to fix and replace the cabinets for the kitchen and the built in media center (total cost $1,200).
• We have three or four of our workers fixing the electrical, they are probably 75% done after to days of work.
• We got a deal on some used wrott iron that is going to work pretty good (total cost $7,000).
• We are working on used appliances that is going to be one of the more expensive projects – they’re probably $10,000 new.
• A pool guys has given us a quote to replace some equipment, fix the under ground leak, clean and pressure wash the pool for $2,400.  The pool alone takes 4 motors I guess.
• We got all the doors hung and pulled all the plywood of the windows, that didn’t need any replacing.
• We are going to start patching the drywall tomorrow
• Paint should start Friday, or so, the painter can start in sections that don’t need as much patching.
• The cement in the toilets didn’t make it to the pipes, but someone poured cement down the master tub, which we fixed and the master shower drain (we might have to cut into the downstairs ceiling to replace some pipe to fix this).

Overall, we are extremely pleased with the progress, so far everything has gone quite smooth.  Here is the latest video walkthrough.

I got the new iFlip MinoHD camera so I could start to add some video blogs to the web site.  The video is pretty shaky but it should give you a good idea of what the house looks like and the damage done.

Video of the Inside

Video of the Pool Area

Let me know what you think.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This deal was kind of confusing, so I did not mention it on the blog until we closed escrow, earlier today, just to make sure we actually got it.

This property isn’t even close to what we normally buy, it was built in 2003, it is over 4,000 sq ft and it has some very impressive upgrades.  We met the old owners today, by chance, and they mentioned they spent over $700,000 in upgrades in the back yard.  The appraised valued the entire backyard all about $40,000, that is so sad.

Some of the features, just outside:

• Beach Walk-In to the Pool
• Cave Spa (it’s actually under cover) with a waterfall that flows into from the roof
• Bathroom hidden in the saves
• Three Koi Ponds
• Covered BBQ area
• Live Size Chess Board
• Sand Pit / Volleyball Court
• The whole place is rigged for surround sound
• Video Surveillance System with 10+ cameras

Inside is a whole different story.  This property got majorly damaged while it was vacant.

Look at the View

The Pool Area:

The Spa

As you can see the property was majorly damaged along the way.  So much stuff has been stolen.