Busy Weekend

On Saturday, Amanda and I did nothing house related. We, instead, went snowboarding. You don't care.

The following is very long.

On Sunday, after some pizza and gift buying, we met John McCann, Realtor at the house I wrote about last week. We arrived a little bit early and I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures of the exterior:

Anyone need the number of a tow company?

As you can see, the houses surrounding the property have been redone, which is good. The house's paint definitely needs to be redone, which might cost me. On the bright side, someone started to paint it already!

After a few minutes of waiting and picture taking, the buyer's agent showed up and we got down to it. First up was the studio in the back:

The exterior, like that of the main house, is in need of some windows and some paint, no big deal. Oh, and it needs a censor. Effword the help indeed. Also, I stink at math, can someone check to see if this equation is correct?

The interior is in great shape. The kitchen is new and looks fantastic. Also, note the interesting ceilings:

The tough part about seeing this place? Someone still lives in it. I guess the owner is still trying to evict some folks, but apparently isn't succeeding. The fellow who is squatting there seems like a nice enough guy, but the buyer's agent let us know that "he has a big knife right next to his bed". I didn't see it, but I was out of there before I could really look around for it...

Seeing the studio was fairly easy. The tenant (squatter?) was reasonable and polite. He let us in and said almost nothing while we quickly shuffled in and out. The main house, however, proved a little more difficult to see...

After trying about 20 keys in each exterior door, the buyer's agent was resigned to trying to open a window and climb in. I guess he didn't have the right key, but was determined to show the place to us.

While he was checking around the building for sufficient window entry, I decided to take a picture of the awesome couches that were stacked up in front of the property, thinking they might provide a blog joke later on. I snapped a shot of them and started to make my way to the side of the building, where everyone had congregated. I stopped abruptly, as I heard someone yelling.

An insane woman burst out of the front door, yelling 'who's out here?!??!'. Thinking quickly, I took another photo of the couches, this time ensuring that the woman was in the frame. Here's the picture I took:

And here's a zoomed in shot of the insane woman:

She is a prize. She oozed both grace and class, and probably some opiates/stimulants. She had on, as you can see, two towels (body, hair) as well as multiple rings. And multiple bruises. A coworker of mine posited that she is a day worker at a gentleman's club (what a euphemism: gentleman's club) by the nearby Home Depot. Based upon the image above, it is sound reasoning.

She very loudly spoke with the buyers agent, who she knew by name, and it was decided that we wouldn't be seeing the first floor. This was bad news for me, but good news for those who avoid contact with crazy people (Amanda). I really want to see that first floor, not to check on it's condition, as I can hazard a guess, but to see what this crazy woman lives like (I can probably hazard a guess at that too. In fact, I will: She lives like a mixture of the two A&E hit shows Hoarders and Intervention, but with less people that give a crap about her).

Resigned to never seeing the living conditions of a reality show waiting to happen, we traipsed up to the second floor and took a look around. The agent assured us that the first and second floors share the same floor plans (floor plan quirk: the bathroom in both of the units is attached to a bedroom. Weird.).

The units were in generally rough shape, but overall, not the worst place I've seen (see previous posts). As you can see from the pictures, there are some fairly minor, and a few major things that needs to be done: floor refinishing, hole patching, painting, cabinet repair, ceiling patching, etc.

Another thing to consider, that may be a big cost, is that all of the copper piping that ran through the baseboard heaters, throughout the building, has been stripped. That's a whole lot of plumbing:

Oh. Another consideration? Feces removal (be warned. The picture below shows feces of unknown origin):

Blech.

The third floor brought more of the same, but with a different layout:

On our way down to the basement, Amanda pointed out the free sculpture that comes with the property (that is, if I can sneak it into the contract...). It's probably named Sexy Puma:



The basement was in decent shape. Most of the piping is, somehow, in tact and the furnace and water heater both appear to be in good shape:

Not in good shape? The wiring rat's next pictured below. I can't get away from these do-it-yourself wiring jobs:

On our way out, the woman had dressed herself and decided to ask the buyer's agent why he never called her. I got a picture:

After seeing this place, we went and saw another property, which also shows promise (and less feces). I'll write about that one tomorrow. I promise.

Overall, the property is in OK shape, with some crazy folks living in it currently. I have run some initial numbers and it looks feasible, provided (obviously) I can secure the property at the right price. The big cost wild-card here is both the exterior painting that needs to be done (I can give a rough estimate to that) and the plumbing work that needs to go into the place to restore the heat to each floor (I have no idea how much that will cost). That in mind, I plan on going back to the place with Al Medina, General Contractor to get a better idea of what it will cost to fix it up.

Once I have that number, I will determine the final asking price, based on the CAP rate (thanks Greg) and I'll make a decision. This place is not bank owned, so it means I will hopefully be able to have a regular closing on it (well, more regular, as it would be a short sale). That's a big plus.

Adieu.