As my dad always says "if it was so easy then everyone would do it" this saying rings true with real estate investing. We are all accustomed to hearing and reading about all the successful real estate investors but no one seems to tell the stories about the not so successful real estate investments
Today I sold a two family home which we purchased out of foreclosure on August 28th 2009 for $55,000 4
Four and half years later we sold it for $84,000. One might say OK, great! you made a little bit of money not bad.... right? We’ll let me tell you what was involved in this "small" two family home.
Rehab Pictures
Rehab Pictures
Let me give
you a quick overview as to what happened between purchasing the property in
2009 & selling it March 7th 2013.
Four different Contractors
- First - Got arrested for unpaid child support
- Second -Lost his license due to drunk driving
- Third - Simply disappeared
- fourth - Import a referred contractor from CT
Some fun pictures
City Of Paterson
The City of Paterson
decided to get involved because I wanted to improve a small section of the
roof of the rear house. They put my entire project on hold for over 8 weeks,
& requested I pull architectural plans to complete this "magnificent" addition to the home. I kid you not it was a 4 inch lift in an 8X10 extension.
If people ask why the City of Paterson is the way it is, well now you
know.
Four Tenants
- Lost a long battle with HIV
- Forced Eviction
- Existing
- Existing
Inspections
This wonderful
property required a total of 24 Inspections
- Seven Section 8 inspections
- Six Smoke & Fire Inspection
- five Lead inspections
- four Insurance inspections
- two Bank inspections
Incidents
Tree smashed through the roof of the property in the 2010 storm, I had to re-locate my tenants
and handle the insurance claims & repairs
Thugs destroyed the walls to get the copper piping
Health Department
I had a tenant (consequently the one I had to evict for nonpayment)
report me to the health department because their child & I quote “had a
single mosquito bite”
The health department immediately initiated a full on investigation, but since I have records that I use QTRLY Pest control treatments I was legally protected, but If
I had not, who knows what would have happened.
(I kid you not)
Anyways.. Before you decide to get into real estate investing you should really ask yourself.
Is this really worth it?
Good news? 1 more down, and four more to go!
Any buyers?
You can check out the real live fun in my YouTube video below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axKEpQJ6zKs
