<p>Great job, cb!! Fascinating.</p>
<p>Onward, this is what I have bookmarked: <a href=“Flickr: The CC Flip Project 3 Pool”>https://www.■■■■■■■■■■/groups/2710004@N21/</a></p>
<p>Hope it works!</p>
<p>“Total take $960 but $700 after paying for all the help all week.”</p>
<p>I say - awesome. Did you include the amount that you would have had to pay to haul the junk away? :)</p>
<p>ESTATE SALE UPDATE</p>
<p>Back to work today! I get to spend hours trying to research how I am going to sell the remainder of the items found in Hoarder House. And catch up on mounds of receipts and accounting before the week begins again. While all this Estate Sale business has been going on there has been huge progress on the project, I had guys working up the in house yesterday while Estate Sale going on down below!!</p>
<p>I spent $160 paying a young man to carry things to garage, try to price them and then carry them out and work all day at garage sale and I hired one of the Mexican worker’s daughters to try to clean the gross cobwebs off everything all day Friday and then work the sale on Saturday $100. But the end of the day was the worst because there was lots of big items and little items left over. And, I had let the helpers go at noon. So, myself and one guy had to box everything up, haul it back to garage, etc. Hardest part </p>
<p>After we had everything in the house down into the garage, the garage was closed up for a couple of days. When I opened that garage door on Friday morning it just reeked of cat urine!! I couldn’t figure out if a feral cat had gotten into the concrete garage and was trapped or if it was a result of everything being crammed into the concrete bunker with no ventilation. It was horrid!! </p>
<p>We advertised on Craigslist and put up big signs throughout the neighborhood on the main streets. I immediately got a lot of emails through the Craigslist ad asking if we had X, Y or Z. Lots of interest in old Indian arrowheads??
The advertisement clearly stated - Please Do Not Arrive before 8am!! Well, we had tons of people there at 6:40am.</p>
<p>Our biggest ticket item was the curio cabinet which we sold for $80. I didn’t realize it but we had tons and tons of unopened stuff that had been purchased over the years at Costco. And, the guy had a curious habit of dating everything purchased. Every bar of soap had a handwritten date. We had bars of soap dating back to 2003!! So, a lot of boxes of zip loc bags, lotion, Noxema cream, shampoo, etc. I’m not sure if shampoo is OK after 10 years unopened, but I guess it is! We had 100s of DVDs which sold really well at $1 each. Even got rid of the mattress - which was brand new encased in plastic - for $10.</p>
<p>Cut glass stuff was really popular too, first thing that went at 6am. I had followed your instructions to check for signature, etc. I determined they were pressed pieces so I let them go for $10 each.</p>
<p>But, we had tons of things left over and we have two strategies in place before it has to go into the dumpster. Most interestingly, the two upholstered chairs were left over, large bookcases, 1970s stereo system with turntable and dining table (with broken leg). </p>
<p>All of the large heavy bookcases, dining table and chairs were put out for ‘free’ at end of day. I isolated that the main stink was coming from the chairs so I wouldn’t let them go back into the garage. They were picked up within 5 minutes of Free sign going up. I sure hope the young woman does NOT take those things into her house. I begged her to reupholster them immediately. Also, I think the other main source of stink was the clothes that we tried to sell. Those went into a hefty bag for the dumpster immediately - not going back into garage!!</p>
<p>One of the Craigslist emails that I got was from a guy that comes around after garage sales and buys up the loose ends for like $25. So, he is scheduled to come Sunday. On Monday we have a Vietnam Veterans truck coming for everything else. My goal is to get that garage cleared out by Tuesday morning because the new garage door is getting installed. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, I found a set of WWII medals at the bottom of some box. I posted pictures of the medals because they are interesting. Prior owner that passed in 2007 was in the Navy (from my excellent detective work… some of the medals were stamped ‘Navy’) and he has campaign medals for American Campaign, Europe Africa Campaign, Pacific Asiatic Campaign… all dated 1941-1944. Not sure how one Navy guy made it to all those fighting fronts in that one war??? I’ve got his bars, but I don’t know what they mean. Lots of curiosity research and I think these can be sold for a little bit of money. If the gentleman had any heirs I would definitely return them, but I know for a fact that he had no heirs.</p>
<p>Pictures posted</p>
<p>Oh, and I just realized that I pulled out $30 to send someone to get sandwiches, so I’m going to round off and claim we made $1,000 on the sale (before costs) !!!</p>
<p>I found a way to see somewhat similar views. There was a house at </p>
<p>4502 Saratoga, 92107</p>
<p>That has similar views. You can see the views with the old listing photos on Zillow.com. These views are inferior since this home sits lower on the hill. Also, the Hoarder House has northerly views over Mission Bay that this home does not.</p>
<p>I feel like I’ve gotten a good sense of the views, which are gorgeous. It is really too bad you can’t capitalize on the views with an outdoor deck! I’m guessing you won’t be able to do that, right? </p>
<p>Yes, we are definitely building a deck on the north side of the house and opening up windows and French doors on that side of the house (side over the strange unpaved City alley property)</p>
<p>Great! </p>
<p>HOARDER HOUSE BUDGET</p>
<p>Here are my estimates for this house, as requested:</p>
<p>Purchase Price $552,000 (I know… craziness!!! Beat out 30 other offers)
Purchase Costs $ 1,246 (and no stupid commission fee in final escrow return)</p>
<p>TOTAL PURCHASE COST = $553,246</p>
<p>REMODEL ESTIMATE = $86,500</p>
<p>CARRYING COSTS = $16,500</p>
<p>SELLING COSTS are relative, but let’s just say $37,500</p>
<p>The carrying costs and selling costs are items that the television shows conveniently forget to mention. My carrying costs are very high on this purchase because I had to borrow a lot of funds for the purchase and renovation. Most of the flippers on the shows are also borrowing hard money from investors, at a higher percentage than I do. This is the most expensive house I have ever purchased so we will see if that translates to a higher profit!! I doubt it.</p>
<p>So you can see that it will be close to $695,000 for break even. Very very very scary. I need to find a way to get the $50,000 in carrying and selling costs brought down to a reasonable number.</p>
<p>There is not a true comparable sale for this house. It is very difficult to determine what it will sell for in the near future. I’ve got values quoted from several realtors between $720,000 to $800,000. The crazy thing is that a little dinky house across the street, remodeled by flipper really nice, sold for $850,000 in January 2014. Same half lot size, similar interior sq ft, but on level lot with 1 car detached garage, inferior view, less actual useable yard. But, for a bank appraiser this comparable sale is beyond 6 months back so it cannot be used as a comparable for valuation purposes. Heck, my opinion is just add the % increase in neighborhood (about 2%) since that date and we’ve got a really big number!!!</p>
<p>Check it out at 2012 Guizot, 92107. I’m sure the photos are still on Zillow.</p>
<p>cb, you should be able to do as nice a job as the 2012 Guizot house. I think you’re going to be OK, given that that house sold for so much. Your house will go for at least that. </p>
<p>cb, when we were buying our house here in the PNW, there were 0 comps for us that sold within the 6-month window. The appraiser got creative and came up with a way to support the $$. If the buyer is willing to commit, and if the valuation is not completely crazy…</p>
<p>Just took a look at the dinky house. Nice job they’ve done there. One suggestion: please do not put vessel sinks in the bathrooms! They might look cool and such, but they are a pain to keep clean and they are inconvenient to use.</p>
<p>What do you do for earthquake retrofitting, cb?</p>
<p>CB, the views at the house on Saratoga are amazing. Love watching this project! Keep us posted!</p>
<p>Earthquake retrofitting. </p>
<p>There are no home inspection requirements in our County for earthquake retrofitting. The house is technically not in an earthquake zone - although you never know in California. Since it was built so long ago it is grandfathered in and it is not a requirement to sell the house. But, when there is a crawlspace it is easier to do some retrofits. There’s nothing we can do about the interior studs inside the walls - strapping the corners. But under the house we can put in some straps that brace some of the piers and posts. But these old houses have 4x4 posts just sitting on little concrete piers, it is very difficult to try to strap the wood to the old concrete piers.</p>
<p>A home inspector might call out that it does not have earthquake straps, but I’m not required to do anything about it. If the Buyer is really worried about that, they can do the retrofit themselves. No houses in our neighborhood are sold with earthquake retrofits. Not required to get insurance or anything.</p>
<p>Vessel Sinks - I’m never going to do a vessel sink (well, maybe a powder room). Luckily my agent represents a lot of buyers and tours a lot of homes with them and she is on the pulse of what buyers are looking for. She told me to stay away from vessel sinks.</p>
<p>P.S. Remember the house on Shadow Hill in zip 91941 where the listing agent gave it to another investor and then came back out and listed the remodel for the investor? It’s still on the market!!! Listing expired last month and it came out again with just a slightly lowered price, but now there is some fancy staging furniture in the entry way of the home. My guess is that the listing agent made some lame value analysis for the investor and told him it would sell for $850,000!!! and now he has to eat his words. My estimate was about $690,000 </p>
<p>My agent pointed out that the microwave is mounted right above the stove, dangerously low. It looks like they used all of the original old cabinets, just slapped paint on them. Because of the old soffit running over the cabinets there used to be just a small old vent system over the stove. They shoved a microwave in there and it looks ridiculous.</p>
<p>But, the thing that is driving me crazy is that I just noticed that they used the EXACT SAME LIGHTING that I used in two flips last year. Remember that the agent forced me to send the listings of all my flips to prove that I had experience??? Well, it is beyond me how this remodel miraculously has the exact same lighting choices as those listings - out of thousands of lights available in the marketplace. I buy my lighting from Overstock.com so I cannot even imagine how they found these chandeliers.</p>
<p>Compare 3201 Vancouver, 92104 on Zillow (a 2012/2013 flip I did with new construction for master suite). Dining room light and master bedroom light. Interesting, note that I sold for $549k and now Zillow says it is worth $690k??</p>
<p>7915 Shadow Hill, 91941 on Zillow. Notice same lighting in living area and dining? </p>
<p>This just isn’t fair!!!</p>
<p>Yea, vessel sinks are “cute” in boutique hotels but I prefer the old-fashioned sinks that have withstood the test of time and fairly low maintenance. The two folks in my family that had their bathrooms done over the past 20 years (including one just a few years ago) have installed vessel sinks but it isn’t something we would do. They are attractive.</p>
<p>They look cool until you have to clean them - them it hits you smack on the head that you have to clean both the inside and on the outside of the sink bowl… and if the thing is transparent, it really sucks.</p>
<p>Also, I am probably peaching to the choir here, CB, but… I have to warn about installing black sinks, especially in the kitchen. My friend curses the day she got snookered into getting one. Every little drop of food scrap looks like a major pile of garbage on the bottom of her black sink!</p>
<p>We love our stainless steel counter and sinks in our kitchen. They are easy to maintain and are fine with hot things placed on them. ;)</p>
<p>cb, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Sounds like you’re becoming the flipper to imitate. That’s not a bad thing.</p>