The next house

Like I said, I would tell you about the next house.

This is first of four that I looked at on Thursday. The second was occupied and needed some roof work. The third we couldn't actually get into. Someone stole the key box. The property itself is one block off a from a street of ALL renovated houses. So, it has some potential later.

The fourth was one that was under contract then released. The layout was very odd. I believe at one time it was subdivided into two 1 bedroom apartments. Needs a lot of work as well.

Back to the first one. This is a 1405 sq ft 4 bedroom cape on what looks like a quiet street. There are several churches nearby and is a block of a major road and the bus line. The house has been on the market for over 200 days (214 if you count today). There is also a very nice level back yard.

The asking price on the house is $42k, which is $30 a sq ft. Doing the comps, I am getting from $73 to $80 per sq ft. I did see in the comps that there was a house that was purchased for $39k and flipped 4 months later for $179k. Additionally, looking on ZipRealty, I am seeing houses sold in the last 6 months comping at $101 sq ft. This places this house after repair potential value from $102k to $141k.

Now for the rehab estimate. I am looking at $34k in repairs. Probably less. I plugged a lot of stuff in that probably won't need to be done. These all depend on whomever purchases the contract.

My initial offer was $33k on Thursday evening. Today I had a counter offer of $40k. This is within my window of purchase. Since I wanted to see if I could get a little more, I asked my Realtor to see if they would take another $2k off the top. If yes, then we are going forward.

I'll let you all know what happens.

Bill Rippe
Looking of opportunities in Richmond, VA? Let me know.