The Corn House: Staging Pics (Rehab #2)
As a reminder, here is a link to the BEFORE pictures of The Corn House…
Here are some STAGING pictures of the The Corn House after Rehab #2:
Front of House
Back Deck
View of Kitchen from Dining Room
More Kitchen from Dining Room
View of Dining Room from Living Room
Living Room from Dining Room
Living and Dining Rooms
Hall Bathroom
Master Bath Vanity
Tiled Shower in the Master Bathroom
Master Bedroom
Second Bedroom
Exterior Landscaping
Hi,
your houses always look so perfect. Is the painter (I read a story on Bigger Pockets about you paying his insurance) part of your secret.
More specifically, here in TN, this age of house is usually vinyl siding. Do/Can you paint vinyl siding and get these kind of clean looks? Do you paint the gutters and trim if they are sound but discolored?
Again, beautiful work you guys do.
Jan
Hi Jan –
We actually used different painters on this house than most of our others, but we certainly credit our painters for a lot of our success. They are tremendously detail oriented, and do an amazing prep job, including fixing bad siding, bad sheetrock, replacing bad trim and other wood around the exterior, caulking all seams, etc. While the painting part is pretty standard, their amazing prep work is what makes all the houses look great.
As for painting vinyl, if you take a look at the BEFORE pics of this house, you’ll notice that the entire exterior is vinyl siding and trim. We painted it (the first time we’ve tried painting vinyl) and it came out great, as you can see in the pictures.
And yes, we almost always paint the entire interior and exterior, including all trim, gutters, etc. While a house may look like it doesn’t need paint, it ALWAYS looks much, much better after prepping and painting.
Thanks J, I’m moving from focusing on historical rehabs towards 80s/90s subdivision. This is partly based on watching your progress these last few years and of course mainly because of the foreclosure situation.
People often comment on it but your buying prices are amazing. Of course you have good relationships and put in lots of offers but are you also getting these deals because you’re going into new areas without investor activity?
Hey Jan –
I think we are finding some great deals for a couple reasons:
1. We’re in a slightly higher-priced part of the suburbs. Many of the new investors are focusing on the run-down parts of the city where you can get houses for less than half of what I’m paying, but the neighborhoods are horrible, resale is near impossible, and the houses are just plain bad. Even better, I think a lot of investors think the prices where I am are higher than they are, as it took a while for the market to drop in my area. If they knew I was picking things up for these prices, I’d probably have more competition, but they gave up on this area back in 2007 when prices were twice as high as they are now;
2. We are able to move quickly. If a great deal comes along, we’ll get an offer in the first day, and hopefully have a contract by the second day, before a lot of part-time investors have even seen the property (the best deals are under contract by Friday, before the bulk of the investors have the weekend to find them);
3. We don’t mind buying the stuff that nobody else wants. Major rehabs, mold, and even some structural stuff doesn’t really bother us, so when a property has been on the market for 100 days without an offer, the bank is often willing to consider our low-ball bid;
4. We have some relationships with the big REO listing agents, and they will try to help us out when they can. Nothing illegal, but they’ll push the seller to consider our offers because they know we can reliably close on-time and without any drama;
Fascinating stuff, you have a kind of overlooked mid-price niche. I’m finding the biggest discounts here are HUD and Fannie. Problem there of course is there isn’t a human contact to be told “this bid is serious and already funded” and they don’t really care much about fast closings etc.
Thanks very much for the replies and keep up the good work. You’re re-inventing real estate education with this blog. I’m very interested to watch where you’re going to take it.
Do you know of any blogs or worth while resources about buying + renting out properties?
Thanks for the lengthy reply to Jan. I found some good tidbits in there.
Jason
I am in the middle of a shower restoration on the FNMA I picked up last week. I am very impressed with the before and after on this home. Did you get the pan and doors from Home Depot?
Don
Hey Don –
We hired a tile guy to do all the shower work, and he was the one who brought the pan and ordered the door…so unfortunately, I don’t know where they came from…
Interesting stuff J Scott. The market must be getting better in NW Florida. Other than the junkers, the foreclosures auctions are just not happening any more. I sense the smart money is much more comfortable moving from the record highs on stocks into real estate.
We’re finding we have to jump on something very quickly and use the listing agent.
We have alerts set up for price drops and new listings that meet our criteria and that helps.
If we had access to the full MLS as you recommend, there would be additional opportunites for more detailed queries and alerts.
Mark, now that I have MLS access I will tell you that you can get by without it but it’s like being a carpenter without a hammer. If you are serious about making money in this busines MLS acess is a must. It took me a year to get it but I realized I had to have it.
@Jan – my very first rehab was all vinyl siding and I painted it and it still looks great. If painted with the right paint it can be done just fine. However if the siding is in good enough condition, pressure washing it with a detergent solution can make a huge difference. That is what I did with this house: http://www.wealth-steps.com/flip-houses.html (J, I hope it’s Ok to put the link) and it made a huge difference. Of course it also saves money too since pressure washing was about $300 vs painting would have been about $2,000. I have to emphasize that you make sure you use someone who knows how to clean siding. Just renting a pressure washer at HD won’t do it.
I am working on a rehab right now with aluminum siding and i did the same thing with great results again.
Thanks Luis. My wife is finishing up her real estate license course so we’ll soon have MLS access.
Your last project turned out nice.
Mark
Mark, thanks for the kind words.
Great to hear about your wife that is also the way I did it.
Scott, good job and so much info on your web.
One thing is important for beginners like me. How do you determine what needs to be replaced, or repaired and what is most important ones if you have limited budget?
What do you do with the staging items when not in use? Do you store them or do you rent them? How do you transport them to and from house?
Thanks for all the info! This blog is awesome!
Hi Terri,
We have about 9 houses worth of staging furniture right now, and for the most part, when we’re not using them, we stage for other investors who we work closely with. Just recently, we’ve actually had to get a storage space for the extra furniture, but hopefully we’ll be able to put that to use soon. We have a moving company that charges us a flat fee to move from house to house.
Hi J Scott,, I sell shipping containers. They make Great movable storage for your rehabs, just saying. I’ve enjoyed your articles, have found a money man, and intend to start flipping very soon.
Hi J (and other posters),
I found out about you through BiggerPockets. You’re excel spreadsheets are excellent. And I’ve purchased both your books – they are awesome.
I just got into real estate investing last year – purchased a SFR buy and hold with some JV partners in Jacksonville, Florida, and now, for 2015, we’re setting our sights on flipping to earn money for other long term buy and holds. The market is good where we’re farming as housing inventory has dropped to 90 days.
Anyways, your content is truly excellent! I’ve recommended to all the group members at the MeetUp I help organize (in South Korea ^^ – we get about +30 at each meetup).
I’m still trying to educate myself on all the ‘repair’ side of the flip – Luckily my partners have done a few so they have a better sense.
Anyways, I created a list of repairs that I saw based on the pictures. I’m not sure if it’ll help others (and I don’t know if it’s accurate!! ^^ This is just for my own education and study.) I hope to work my way through all your flips, one by one.
Here’s what I ‘see.’ If anyone cares to give me feedback, I’d love to learn more from those who are more experienced!
Repairs as far as I can tell:
1. Painted house (from blue to brown)
2. Painted stairways and finishes around the windows
3. New countertops in the kitchen
4. Kitchen cabinets painted – new?
5. Oven and broiler added
6. New Fixtures in the sink
7. Linoleum in the kitchen replaced
8. Living room – flooring added
9. Fireplace? Can’t see in the originals
10. Interior walls repainted
11. Hallway bathroom – new sink, new toilet, new sink counter top, new drawers
12. Master bathroom – new sink, new lighting
13. Master bathroom – new shower tile, new shower floor, new doors, new faucet & fixtures
14. Master bedroom – carpeting, drapes, blinds
15. Bedrooms – New blinds, carpet
16. Exterior – Trees trimmed, removed
Exterior was vinyl siding.
By the way, on later houses, do you give more details on the type of repairs that were done?
Thanks for the great education, J!
Thanks for sharing J,
I notice that you left the fireplace as is.
Ha! everything I thought, except I forgot to mention having the fireplace professionally cleaned and painted white. I can’t believe it’s not been cleaned..