806 Dodic (fix and sell)

806 Dodic (fix and sell)

This property had three bedrooms, two baths, on a corner lot with a fenced yard and a carport. (1983) Purchase price of $15,000 with $1,000 down, owner carry note, 10% interest for 15 years, with payments of $150.44 per month.

After I purchased this house I took my wife over to see it. Her comments were "No way" "We do not own this" "You didn't" Yes, my dear, we do, and I did, "Oh my God" And then silence as I gave her a tour of our diamond in the very, very, rough.

The front yard looked dead and the wasps had several nest under the eaves. The paint was peeling, the downspout was missing, and the window screens were torn or gone. When you opened the front door there was a pathway through the living room with trash piled two feet deep from wall to wall. The walls were two or three shades of tan from stains with brown streaks caused by roaches. All three bedrooms were the same, with the exception of two broken windows and two missing closet doors. In one bathroom the white commode was an off-yellow with a dark brown stained interior and, to make it worse, this bathroom had a tree branch sticking through the ceiling (with the resulting water damage). The other bathroom had a brown interior commode with no tank lid. The combination tub/shower surround had missing ceramic tiles and there were no handles on the bathtub faucet. The kitchen Formica counter tops needed replacing and the kitchen cabinets had roach stains so bad we could not clean them short of chemically stripping every surface. The carport had a hole in the plywood ceiling and a oil stained floor. The backyard chain link fences were leaning about 20 degrees, the gates were off the hinges, weeds were chest high, and the dirt had pulled away from the foundation leaving large cracks or gaps. The smell, oh! The smell.

Every night and weekend for the next six months my wife, my mother in law, and I cleaned and fixed up the place. First we ordered a construction size dumpster, we filled it up three times with trash to make room so that we could work. A roofer was hired to patch the roof. We then started with the bathrooms so that we could get the water turned on. We could not get the commodes clean, even with acid, so we replaced them. We put new vinyl tiles on the floors. The missing bath tiles were replaced and the rest cleaned. New faucets were added to the tub shower. New faucets were put on the sinks. We installed new medicine cabinets, new ceiling light fixtures, and we painted the walls.

The bedrooms needed new paint, new light fixtures, new floor trim, and new self stick floor tiles over the old tiles. The closets had by-pass doors, we replaced them with mirrored doors which made the rooms feel larger. The kitchen cabinets would not clean up and we could not get rid of the odor. I replaced them.

I was driving by a 76 lumber store and saw a banner that said store-closing sale. They had a cabinet display that was larger then I needed so I made a deal to take the display for $1100, and my cabinet problem was solved. Some new paint, floor tiles, a new light fixture, and casing trim around the ceiling for an added touch and the kitchen was transformed. Outside we painted, replaced the down spouts, new screens on all windows, straightened the fence, spread a truck load of dirt in the back yard, and seeded new grass. Total improvement cost was $7,000 plus our time.

When we finished our first major overhaul, the placed looked so good that my wife refused to rent it. We put the house on the market and it sold in two weeks time for $37,000 with a new VA loan. We walked away from closing with a check for $19,500 after paying the sales commission and closing cost.

This deal came from passing out cards that say "I buy houses" I had given the seller one of my business cards six months earlier.Â