Now it’s your turn.
Yes, we learned a lesson in life because we didn’t follow our own advice.
We apologize for that, but we leave it now to you to make the same mistake we did. And, that one cost us about $25,000.
How much are you going to realize?
The following story happened in 2024, and it ended in early 2025.
You see, we go around investing in run down houses, buy them at one price and then remodel them and sell them for more. It’s been a good business for years.
I recently wrote an eBook about selling your home or a house in days, not months.
I am selling that book for $19.00 online, if you want to read it, here is the link to purchase it. Note: Don’t purchase it from the link, keep reading for a better deal.
The advice in that book is tried and true, it works. (Apparently, we didn’t read it all the way through.)
We got a call one day from a woman that had inherited her friend’s house, she had seen one of our Bandit Signs, which are illegal, but we put them out anyway.
It was a small block home, with 2 bedrooms and one bathroom, with a 1 car garage on a large lot. She had rented it out for some time since inheriting it but was tired of managing tenants.
We went to look at it after looking at the comparable sales, chatting with her about things, and the history of the house.
When she asked what we would pay for it, we said $90,000. She said she would like $95,000 but we could make a deal at 90.
After purchasing it, cleaning out everything we didn’t want to keep, and tearing out what needed to be replaced, we set out remodeling it.
We found out the hard way that it needed a new roof, but along with everything else we had planned on doing, it went along with the remodel.
So, a few months go along working on this house, we went overboard somewhat, but it turned out nice.
In the end this house had a new roof, new A/C, new windows, flooring, a kitchen and bathrooms, LED lighting, landscaping and a lawn, lot cleared up to look like a home and painted inside and out.
(here is when we should have started reading) book link again!
Now it’s time to price this house for sale! It looks great, shows well in pictures and is one of the nicest houses in the area, even if it is small.
Other comparable homes in the area showed a bunch of past sales in the $200,000 range to $220,000.
How cool would that be, but we have a newly remodeled house, and the comparable ones all showed house that needed work.
This is where we outsmarted ourselves.
We did a rehab of a house where we put a lot of money into, why shouldn’t it sell for more than what has sold needing work.
Well, we go right on into the MLS and price this one at $249,000.
We were sure we would have people in the area jumping all over it, and investors looking for rental property would surely be at the door.
What we heard were crickets. Many of them.
Not days, not weeks, months!
So while we are waiting for the buyer, let me bore you with some numbers.
(Not all prices that I use in this example for this one property are exact to the penny, I have rounded some off to make sense of the whole picture)
As you saw, we bought this for $90,000. We borrowed $100,000 from a private investor for a 12 month balloon note.
We spent about $40,000 on repairs, which makes us at about $140,000.
Taxes, utilities, and general maintenance come each month, so those all add up too.
10 months, still no buyer. Private lenders are curious about when we are going to be making balloon payment.
Crickets are getting louder!
Right about now is when we should have been reading the book, here it is again so we started figuring out that we need to adjust the price.
We dropped it like $5,000 and then another, no buyer yet, then $10,000, a little interest in it, no buyer yet.
All this time we are monitoring Zillow saves, we had a bunch every time price changed.
Now we are close to 12th month, time to pay the balloon note back. Yet there is no sale.
The lenders had a setback in their life, so they needed us to pay this back on time, which would be $110,000.
Now it’s crunch time, we needed to find another lender to replace this one, which we did.
All this money shifting is costing us closing costs, plus new interest payments.
The new lender was again at 10%, but now we had a monthly payment of $833.00.
The price had to get more aggressive, so we started lowering it more.
Finally, month 13 we get an offer. It’s for $200,000. But the buyer is Veteran’s loan, and they need some concessions on closing.
We had worked with the buyer’s agent before, so we worked on the purchase price up to $205,000.
Keep in mind, I am a licensed real estate agent also, and I didn’t follow my own advice here.
We did, however, see how many Zillow saves, but we were not paying attention to the market, the sold prices, and what the market was doing
Everything went through, and we sold this property.
Lesson learned the hard way.
This is why I wrote this book. I want people to be able to read it before they call a realtor, before they look on Zillow or Realtor.com, so they have a plan in place BEFORE they sign a listing agreement or put the house online for sale.
Previously I gave you a link, it doesn’t work. But here is the link you need to use to purchase this book for $5 off the cover price.
I don’t know when I might put the price back up, or leave it where it is, so purchase yours today.
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