On our last foreclosed homes investing tour, we learned a ton about how to buy and rehab REO houses. We had 2 contractors on the tour. Their insights and cost analysis were invaluable to everyone on the REO tour. I want to share with you some video footage of garages converted to bedrooms or recreation rooms. Sometimes this is obvious and in other cases it is hard to see unless you have looked at many other homes.
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This older home was an REO and sits on a corner in an older area of town near apartment buildings. As we take our students through it on an REO/Foreclosure tour everyone is holding their noses. The smell of cat urine is bad! It was on the REDC auction. The bank rejected the bidders final price ~$90,000 from the auction and either re-auctioned it or put it back on the market. So if the auction is not absolute, you may not get the house even if you are the highest bidder.
If you are looking for a house to rehab you will get a bigger discount by making offers on houses that are too bad, ugly, or smelly for the average person. That eliminates most other competitors from making offers.
Earth Day is coming up April 22 with an Earth day event at Balboa Park, San Diego on Sun April 19 10-5. What a great time to learn how we can make our lives and businesses greener. We all know about recycling our paper and bottles. Take a new step each week. How about carrying around your own cup and water bottle? Hand it over at the coffee shop to have them fill it up. Or bring in your own reusable grocery bags. Others will see you and be inspired.
I love to rehab houses. Now I call it RECYCLING a house. Not building a new one but recycling a house that someone else could not use anymore. You can even “recycle the loan” by taking the house subject to the existing mortgage. Will you install appliances that use the least amount of energy possible? How about renewable bamboo for the flooring? How about energy efficient light fixtures?
If you want more Ideas go to the eHOME exhibit on Sunday, part of Earth Day. Here is a link for Earth Week events in San Diego Earth Day Fair, Balboa Park The world’s largest annual environmental fair and Earth Day Celebration – all produced by volunteers. Check out a new sponsor for the event Zero Waste San Diego
If you can not make it to San Diego, here is an easy one for you: check out Earth Day on Amazon Scroll down their page and send me a comment on how many of those products you use. I’ll go first: green cleaners, personal stainless steel water bottle, compact fluorescent bulbs, bamboo flooring, reusable grocery bags, compost pile, gardening book, waste baskets (real baskets woven from grasses, not plastic), low flush toilets.
Check out the chance to win a laptop and printer from Amazon. Amazon and ENERGY STAR are hosting an Earth Day Sweepstakes. Find the info right at the top of that same Amazon page. Five first-place winners will receive two ENERGY STAR-qualified devices: a Toshiba laptop and a Brother multifunction printer. Fifteen second-place winners will receive the Brother printer. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Enter by April 22, 2009. Earth Day Video
Saturday, January 24 we spent a full day looking at houses listed on the REDC auction and other REO’s in Escondido. Rich Hake and I showed 10 students the ins and outs of looking for foreclosed houses in San Diego. We toured the smallest of 600 sq ft and the largest of almost 4000 sq ft, all offered on the auction on Wed Jan 28. Students learned which houses would make good rentals and which houses not to buy. When would you wholesale the house to a rehab or handyman investor. We also taught how to get a good price from the bank, how to make the offer and when to walk away. Students learned how to use hard money and private money to make the purchase. We toured the full spectrum of houses from those that needed little work (those sell fast and go for marked up prices) to a full “back to the studs” rehab of a Craftsman era house to a Luxury new construction to a Luxury unfinished short sale. Along the way we discussed how to hire contractors, taxes, trusts, assignments, options. They learned why to avoid “cobbled together layouts”, how to spot drainage problems, roof problems, foundation problems. Furnaces, cabinets, flooring, painting, they asked, we answered.
We tracked the house prices, the MLS comps, what we would offer and compared those prices to REO’s not on the REDC Auction. We then went to the REDC auction to compare final prices with comps. Come back to the next posting for the final prices and news from the Auction.
Here is what Deb S. said about the REO tour:
We really enjoyed the tour. Very informative and everyone was engaged. Thank you for all your effort. I debated whether to go or not, if it was going to be informative, or just a long drive with a lot of stops. We were
really surprised with the amount of casual exchange of information, ie, how to get around evictions, smaller counties for tax liens, installing sweep clean flooring, etc. My son Chris was very impressed too.
REO TOUR**********REO TOUR***********REO TOUR
Be on the next tour and learn 10X more practical information than you did on your last bootcamp
email us at:
info@energywiseproperties.com
You will receive a sign up form and dates for upcoming tours!!
On our last foreclosed homes investing tour, we learned a ton about how to buy and rehab REO houses. We had 2 contractors on the tour. Their insights and cost analysis were invaluable to everyone on the REO tour. I want to share with you some video footage of garages converted to bedrooms or recreation rooms. Sometimes this is obvious and in other cases it is hard to see unless you have looked at many other homes.
Features ongoing discussion of current techniques used to invest in the San Diego Real Estate Market.
