Throwback Thursday: My First Flip!

I thought it would be fun to take you back to my first flip, which I completed before I ventured into this world blogging.

I toured this house the day it came on the market, and I wasn’t the only one. It was a hot commodity, especially since it was priced so low. We put our best offer forward, well above asking price but still with a good profit margin, and they took it. I remember when I heard I got it and having a freak out moment… what in the world had I gotten myself into?! There was so much uncertainty and we were putting a lot of money on the line, but thankfully the jitters were soon eclipsed by excitement. (Excuse the blurry photos – I don’t have much pre-reno!)

It seems every foreclosure has a story, and this was no different. The house had previously been a typical ranch on a corner lot. But the previous owners decided to add on a large living room to the front of the house. There was no longer a front door, which killed curb appeal, and now the main entrance was right into the kitchen. The new room addition was nice… very large with tons of windows and skylights and bamboo flooring. BUT… someone, somewhere screwed up the measurements… because the addition floor was about 4” taller than the main house floor.  D’OH!

Another wrinkle with the addition was that the building permit was never closed because the work didn’t pass the final electrical inspection.

The other really weird part was that the corner lot actually consisted of 2 parcels… the parcel with the house and bulk of the land, and another very thin parcel which ran between the main lot and the side street. For some reason, the bank didn’t foreclose on both, so the old parcel was still owned by the previous owners… oy. This was tricky because it was all part of the same yard… if we couldn’t convey it to the new owners, there would be this strip of land, with grass that needed to be mowed and a row of trees, that no one would maintain. And even worse, the well for the house was located in this lot. So we could dig a new one, or try to track down the previous owner and purchase it from him.

My agent tracked him down and negotiated with him, and we purchased the second parcel in the middle of the reno. From a cost perspective it was basically a wash when compared to putting in a new well. But more importantly, it took away this big cloud of uncertainty for future buyers. Now they would have the entire lot and not have to worry about what would happen with that strip.

We spent a while considering a couple of options for the new front of the house. We considered putting in a doorway in the dining room so that the main entrance didn’t dump you into the kitchen and also expanding the kitchen around the corner where the door was.  But we also felt it would be weird to dump you in the dining room too. We also considered adding an entrance into the addition/ living room. But this also felt awkward, and we didn’t think it would pay back. Ultimately, we decided to pull out the corner closet in the dining room to square it up, put in a window, which helped inside and out, and add a peninsula between the dining room and kitchen to provide additional cabinet and counter space and provide some definition to each of the rooms.

Outside there was a ton, and I mean a ton, of landscaping work to do.  Trees had been planted too close together, and vegetation was overgrown everywhere. The cleanout work was immense. To add some outdoor appeal, we added a small patio in the back.

Ultimately, this house taught me a crucial lesson in staging. We went on the market in December, and though we got good feedback, one big drawback echoed through each critique… the rooms are too small. I think that the huge new living room felt so large and open that by the time they got to the bedrooms, they seemed cramped. They really weren’t small for a house that size, so we decided we would put on an open house and add some staging to help it sell.

 

In the middle of winter, the staged house felt warmer and bigger and therefore much more appealing than the unstaged house. Adding beds and furniture to the bedrooms made them feel bigger! Soon after the staging, we went under contract, and I knew I would stage all future houses.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my first flip! I can’t believe I’m on my 4th now!

 

 

 

 

 

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