The flowerbed Andy and I put together using stone. As small as it is, it was a lot of work.

Andy and I breathed a collective sigh of relief the moment we found out Doug′s (the former owner′s) wife had signed her share of the paperwork.

In spite of the pitfalls, things seemed to be moving along fairly smoothly.

Then just as we packed up the moving van and prepared to spend the night on the cold, empty floor of the master bedroom, we got a call from the Realtor®.  It seems there would be a problem with the closing date.

You see the buyers had insisted on closing the 3rd of May.  We had already signed off on our part the week before, but couldn′t close on our house in Cheyenne until the 19th of May.  It meant three weeks of being homeless.

We rushed to get everything done before heading to Pennsylvania to attend our granddaughter′s first communion.  We planned to spend part of the rest of the time with Andy’s family in CA so we didn′t have to sleep in motels for three weeks.

Our schedule went something like this:

April 25-27:  Pack up the van.

April 28: Drive from Kansas City, MO to Cheyenne, WY in one day.  (Approximately a 10-11 hour drive.)

April 29: Unpack everything into a storage unit.

April 30: Drive to Denver, get on a plane to Pennsylvania.

April 30 – May 6: Enjoy grandchildren.

May 6: Drive back to Cheyenne.

May 7-8: Drive to California with two cats and a dog in a Toyota Echo.

Uncertainty in the Time of Homelessness

At this point we still did not know whether or not the sale would go through.  But we had no place to live – or as my husband likes to quote Richard Gere′s character from An Officer and a Gentleman, “(We′ve) I′ve got nowhere else to go.”  We were stuck (in California, which isn′t a bad place to be stuck).

But I haven′t shared the best part yet.  The buyers, who demanded a May 3rd closing date, couldn′t close on May 3rd.  You see, under tighter restrictions, the underwriters had instituted a rule stating a buyer starting a new job must report to work before closing on a house.  Oops!

The buyer didn′t start until the 19th of May, the day we were supposed to close on our house in Cheyenne.  And coincidentally our anniversary.

They reset their closing date to the 19th and we moved ours to the 21st.   More paperwork to sign.

We maintained contact with the Realtors® and title company during our stay in CA.  It seemed another little problem arose every day.  But everyone remained hopeful.   There was nothing else we could do.

The Hallelujah Moment

We left California May 19th still unsure if the sale would go through, but it′s a 17-hour drive.  If we were going to make it back to Cheyenne in time to close on the house there, we had no choice but to get in the car and go.

We had stopped to get gas and our Starbucks fix.  At approximately 5pm Pacific time, just as we started to exit the toll road headed to I-15, we got the call.  They′d closed the sale.  The house had sold.  We’d received a spectacular anniversary gift.  We could move on with our lives.

Andy and I exhaled all the anxiety we’d felt over the last several weeks and thanked the Lord.  It truly had been “at the last minute.”  But the pain of the previous twenty-three months was over.  We were free of the burden of the Life-sucking Money Pit.

The End of an Era

One note here:  Even though we no longer had to deal with the house, even though this part of the journey had ended, it didn′t mean we wouldn′t suffer residual consequences.  Unfortunately if one makes a blunder of this magnitude, the repercussions can continue.  It was true in our case.

Though the house is gone, our financial health has never fully recovered.  We had one juncture to change our lives in a big way, and we blew it.

My prayer for you is that if you′re ever faced with a similar situation, think it through.  Don′t jump into something just because the opportunity presents itself.  Be wise in any transaction involving property and money.  Do your homework … really do your homework.  And if you are absolutely certain you′re making the best decision for you and your family – then go for it with gusto!

Onto the Next Phase

And so my story comes to an end.   Andy and I hope to flip another property some day.  The right way.  In the meantime, I plan to occasionally write when I come across valuable information on rehabbing.  Also our house in Cheyenne is a bit of a fixer-upper.  We′ve recently encountered several incidents I′d like to share with you over the next several weeks.

In the meantime, feel free to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.

Until next time.

Happy Transformation,

Shawn

My favorite "room" in the house - I do miss it

It happened so often during the process, you′d think I′d have gotten used to it.  But I tend to be a slow learner.

The first Wall Hitting experience transpired while in the rehabbing phase.  An altercation broke out between The Handyman and me.  As I wrote check after check, I grew angrier and angrier.  We knew he and The Painter were taking advantage of us to some degree, but felt powerless to stop it.

I confronted two of them (not very gracefully I might add) and The Handyman shot back with a reasonable defense.  I would try to recreate the conversation (if you want to call it such), but in all honesty, I don′t remember the words.

What I firmly recall is how I felt when it was all over.  Miserable.  I′d blown it.  I′d taken all my frustrations over the project out on someone else.  In short, I had been a jerk.  On the way home that night, I picked up my phone, punched in his name, and apologized.  He said I had nothing to apologize for, but he was wrong.  The apology cleansed me, although didn′t excuse my behavior.

Things went well for a couple of weeks, and then we began to run out of money.  It forced us to “fire” The Painter and The Handyman.  I hugged each of them and thanked them as we said our goodbyes.  We parted on good terms.  And we even brought The Handyman and his Assistant back when we found ourselves incapable of doing some work later on.

My Wall Hitting continued.  Twice more I cracked when overtired, overworked, and fearful about the money we watched disappear faster than we could replace it.

Tears have been a source of relief for most of my life, and they flowed freely as I Hit the Wall again and again.

For Sale by Morons

Anyone who′s ever bought or sold a house can probably regale you with horror stories.  Somebody somewhere dropped the ball.  Professionals who were supposed to walk you through the sale failed in some major way.

Our case involved deficiency on both our part and the professionals.  We didn′t do our homework.  At least not fully.  And worse yet, we thought we knew a lot more than we did.  To top it off, we trusted someone we had no business trusting.  And in the end it bit us in the butt.

In my post entitled The Cost of Inexperience, I explain what a land trust is and is supposed to do, and how it didn′t work out in our case.  I won′t repeat myself here.  Suffice it to say, I Hit the Wall the day we got the message we had no rights to the property whatsoever.  It shocked us, threw us into a tailspin, and made us feel irresponsible.  Not a good place to land.

We recovered from the blow just long enough to get hit with the next one – the underwriters were unclear as to whether or not the sale could go through because it was considered a flip.  Apparently there′s a law stating properties used for investment purposes could not be sold as FHA homes.  Here we go again….

Educating the Title Companies and Underwriters

During a phone call, Andy′s brother mentioned he thought he′d heard the FHA had suspended the anti-flipping clause.  Andy checked it out and sure enough, his brother was correct.  (Amendment to anti-flipping rule)  We found it necessary to inform the title company and the underwriters on subjects we felt they already should know.  Still they deliberated for another week or two before making a decision.

Once they concluded the house could be approved for an FHA loan, the next bump in the road slammed into us.  Doug – the reluctant homeowner.

Because we didn′t own the house and had only been renting, albeit making major repairs during our tenancy, Doug had to sign the house over to us, so we, in turn, could sign it over to the new owners.  Pretty complicated, huh?  Back to – if only we’d been smarter about everything.

An Unbelievable and Idiotic Request

Although it benefited him and his wife, Doug balked.  He wanted to be sure it didn′t affect his taxes and then he started making noises about gaining some profit for himself.

It took us weeks of cajoling and juggling to finally get Doug and his second wife to sign the paperwork.  On the day Doug came up to the title company office to sign his portion, he stopped by the house before heading home.

The office - at the time of this event, the receipts sat on my computer tower to the right of my desk (the one you can see in the photo)

He and Andy conversed while I continued to pack.  Doug leaned against the window (Andy later mentioned he wreaked of alcohol), and said, “Do you happen to have any receipts of the work you did on the house I could use on my taxes?”

My jaw dropped.  I tightly gripped the glass object I was wrapping in plastic bags so as not to drop it too.

Andy didn′t miss a beat.  “I think they′re in storage,” he said.  In reality, they sat in a shoe box on my computer in the office, which Andy didn′t know it at the time.

I couldn′t believe the guy′s gall, but I had to admire it.

After he left, Andy looked at me and said, “I couldn′t look at you.  I was just praying you wouldn′t say anything.”

Honestly, I was too shocked to utter a word.  The guy knocked me right between the eyes with his audacity.

Counting Down the Days

As things began to fall into place; as we jumped each hurdle, climbed over each obstacle, we started believing we might actually find a way out of the mess we’d plunged into.  But we were careful not to count our chickens before they hatched.

We packed and cleaned and continued on as if the sale would go through.  What else could we do?  We had to trust in forces greater than us – things we couldn′t see or touch.  Just believe it would work out one way or another.

But what we couldn′t have known then was – the worst was yet to come.

We had ideas about what needed to be fixed.  We’d done our best in repairs and remodel, but we were by no means experts.   At best we were bumbling novices.  Not surprisingly, the inspector found a lot more wrong with the place than we’d anticipated.

When he handed us the final report and we read through it, we saw things we thought he′d nail us on went unnoticed.  And stuff we never noticed got big check marks.

In order to get the house in tiptop shape before sticking a sign in the front lawn, we began making the necessary repairs.

Some seemed ridiculous, some excessive, but for the most part, we were able to accomplish a majority of the tasks before it went on the market.

Main Bathroom - vanity in master bath the same style only larger

Water Woes…

One which eluded us during our early repair days, and later became a major concern for the buyers, was the low water pressure in the sink of the master bathroom.

It didn′t make sense.  Granted, there wasn′t much water pressure in the entire house.  But the sink in the master bathroom had reduced to a trickle.

The buyers were adamant this be repaired before they took ownership.  And who could blame them.  We’d suffered with it for a-year-and-a-half, but that didn′t mean they had to.

Andy began researching plumbers online.  I began researching.

I typed “low pressure faucet” into Google and came up with a couple of ideas.  Inexpensive ideas.  Cool.

Andy helped me remove the aerator tip of the faucet and we immediately saw the source of our problem.  Sand, sediment, and debris had settled inside.

As per the instructions, we soaked the tiny part in warm, white vinegar.  Crud started coming out of it at an alarming rate.  Gross.  Good thing we didn′t use that sink for drinking water!

We then took a small straight pin to poke out any remaining debris.

After several hours of soaking and poking, we reassembled the faucet and … Voila!   The water ran freely.  After 18 months of nothing more than a dribble to wash my face with, we had free flowing water.  And the best part?  It didn′t cost a thing!  Who doesn′t have a bottle of white vinegar sitting in their cupboard?

The Big Stuff

Our buyers obtained an FHA loan, which meant an FHA inspection was on the horizon.

We sat on pins and needles the day the inspector came to the house as we drove around wasting time.  We couldn’t be present during the inspection.  However, the future owners and their parents did show up for the fine-toothed comb examination.

The radon test had gone well.  We passed.  But we had been warned about several things the FHA inspector would focus his attention on.

One was the outdated electrical panel.  And as we expected, it needed to be replaced before the buyers could move in.   All we saw ahead of us was dollar signs.

Andy called several electricians.  The guesstimates scared us.  Money was tight and we didn′t know how we’d manage the cost.

I phoned a friend and he knew someone.  The electrician came over, checked out the problem, and gave us a price far below what the other electricians had quoted.   We blew out a sigh of relief.

Our friend of a friend did the job when he said he would and he actually charged us less than he′d quoted.  We were thrilled.

Lesson learned:  Don’t be afraid to get recommendations from trusted sources.

Compromises

As with any negotiation, we decided what we were willing to repair and what we weren′t.   There was a window seal they wanted us to fix.   It was outside our budget and wasn′t a deal breaker, so we chose not to have it done.

That′s the reality in the end:  What has to be done to finalize the sale.

Now, I′m not suggesting you try to cheat someone or not do necessary repairs.   You want your reputation to still be intact once you walk away from the property.  But there is a fine art to negotiations.  Plan a budget.  Figure out what will satisfy the prospective buyers.  Take care of those things and compromise on the rest.

Both you and the buyer will come out ahead.

Happy Transformation,

Shawn

Front of house in the fall

They say ignorance is bliss.  What they fail to tell you is what happens when you stop being ignorant.

For 18 months, we lived blissfully under the illusion that The Investor had told us the truth:  The land trust we signed gave us all rights to the property to do with what we willed.  We could fix it up, sell it, give it away – whatever – it was okay.

I know … our trust didn′t make any sense.  After all, The Investor had given us his word he would hold our hands through the entire rehabbing process.  Didn′t happen.  He promised he′d be available whenever we needed him.  He wasn′t.  He insisted we have lots of cell phones minutes because he′d be calling us all the time  Uh … not so much.

So why we thought he was right about the land trust is beyond me.  Like I said – ignorant.

A Knock on the Door

One day as I was exercising downstairs shortly after we moved in, I heard voices on the floor above me.  When I climbed back upstairs, Andy told me the previous owner (let′s call him Doug) had stopped by to “check on things.”

Turns out Doug had been double dealt by The Investor.

Let me step back for a moment.

I′d had reservations about the land trust.  Something about it didn′t sit right with me.  But The Investor owed us money and this looked like the only way we would ever collect it.  I signed on the dotted line.

When I learned Doug had two other properties and didn′t have the funds to invest to fix up this one enough to get it sold, I felt better.  We hadn′t evicted anyone from their home to satisfy our greed.

But when Doug showed up at our door, he told a slightly different story with a very different ending.

The Facts Sir … Just the Facts

Doug had remarried and his wife also owned a house.  They purchased a third home and moved in together leaving them both with an extra mortgage to pay.

In swoops The (mighty) Investor to solve all their problems.  He took over both of their extra houses – pawned the first one off on us.  But when he couldn′t find a patsy to dump the second one, he rented it out.

Seems The Investor didn′t pick very good renters – they sort of stopped paying rent – and suddenly Doug and his wife were saddled with two mortgages again.

Which brings me back to why Doug stopped by the house – to make sure the same thing hadn′t happened in this case scenario.  After speaking with Andy, he calmed down, accepting us as responsible individuals who didn′t plan on skipping town and leaving him with extra payments he couldn′t afford.

A Trust Not to Trust

Here′s what you might not understand about land trusts – the mortgage stays in the name of the land owner.  Only the title is transferred.

It gets tricky from here on out.

As a vague explanation, I′ve chosen the following excerpt from http://www.escapeartist.com/OREQ7/Own_Land_Anonymously.html:

“As with any trust, in a land trust, the trustee — generally an attorney, law firm or bank — holds legal title to all trust property. However, in a land trust, the named beneficiaries retain use of the property and any income it generates. In addition, the trustee can act only when it receives written instructions from the beneficiaries, who maintain complete control at all times. “

In the land trust transaction, anyone can be named as beneficiary.  It could remain in the name of the mortgage holder, the advantage being no messy probate issues should he/she die.  In the case of acquiring flip properties, the mortgage holder names a bank, attorney or law firm as trustee and the investor as beneficiary.

In our situation, Doug named a lawyer as trustee and The Investor as beneficiary.  Since The Investor could do what he wanted with the property, he signed it over to us.

Starting to sound a little fishy?

Our Realtor® and title company thought so too.  Over the course of the next several weeks, we discussed it with the real estate and title agents, dug out all of the paperwork we had, and Andy phoned The Investor to get copies of the documents he′d signed with Doug.

The Investor promised us he would get them to us, but each time we called, he said he was unable to find them.  He′d recently changed offices and they were packed away in boxes in his storage unit.  He would be going over there in the next couple of days.

This went on for weeks.

We finally drove to his new “office” only to find it it was a UPS store.  We realized we weren′t going to get anywhere with him, even though he′d made noises about connecting us with the title company he′d used in the past.

Where do we go from here…

In the meantime, everyone grew more nervous as the day of the closing drew near.  If we didn′t resolve this problem the sale would not go through.  The young couple purchasing the home would lose their chance at the $8000 tax credit.  We’d have to rethink whether or not we could move to Wyoming.  And worse, we could be sued for misrepresenting ourselves.

See it turns out we never actually owned the house.  We had no rights to it at all.  The entire time we’d only been renting from Doug.

Land trusts aren′t legal in Missouri.  They don′t recognize them.  Even if they did, The Investor  had drawn up the paperwork incorrectly.

Our only option was to deal with Doug directly and have him sign over the property to us before closing.  (Keep in mind, he was a distressed home owner who couldn′t afford to maintain the house should we back out of the deal.)

In a few conversations Andy had with Doug, he′d hinted he still owned the house.  We blew it off, convinced we were right and he was wrong.

When we found out the truth, I realized my instincts to run hadn′t been far off.  Over the course of the flip, the stress got to me, and several times I mentioned to Andy I wanted to just pack up and leave in the middle of the night.  Turns out we could have without suffering any consequences.

Right … the money.

That we figured we’d flushed down the toilet anyway.  We didn′t stand to profit from the sale, only recoup a small portion (about 22%) of what we′d invested.

Armed with this new information, we set out on a different path; one which took us down a long, scary, and uncomfortable road.

Happy Transformation,

Shawn

Finished Living Room

Ever read a story, article, or book where you just wanted the writer to get on with it.  I′ve read a few in recent months.  It was a bit like fingernails scraping across the chalkboard.  Peddling through the drivel to get to the treasure.  One novel I couldn′t even finish.

That′s sort of how I feel about this blog.  Like I′m plodding along.  Trying to wade through the bog of events to get to the important stuff.  So I′ve decided to take a different approach.

Yes there were some interesting moments during the rehabbing process.  We had trouble with the crew.  Tempers flared.  Tools broke.  Supplies ran low.  I had a meltdown … or two.  But I realize now, my heart isn′t in the retelling of these incidents; the detailing of them would bore both you and me.

That′s not to say they won’t come up.  And when and if they do, I hope to expound on them appropriately.

For now, I′d like to concentrate on what happened in April of 2010.

Back to the beginning….

Kitchen - (Remember when there was a toilet in there)

Best to do a little background here.  If you′re just tuning in or don′t happen to remember, we acquired this house at the end of June 2008.

Yeah, I know.

We completed the project exactly two months later.  Not a bad turnaround, but it was a month over our time line.  We had intended to finish it by the end of July.  In doing so, we figured we be perfectly timed for those interested in buying a home before school started.

We consulted a Realtor®, but decided to try For Sale By Owner first.  Bad move.  Had we gone with the Realtor®, who had previously worked with The Investor and knew how he operated, we might have come out smelling like roses.  Actually making a profit.

Now this could have had good and bad consequences.  Yes, we would probably have made money, but we also would have thought we were smarter than we were.  In other words, we might have gone on to invest in another property using the same lame principles – and lost our shirts – or worse!

Please Buy Our Rest Home

I posted on Craig′s List and several other online sites I could advertise for free.

On the advice of The Investor, we also put an ad in the local paper.  We worded it according to The Investor′s specifications, but it somehow came out with “Rest Home” in the text.  The paper eventually corrected their mistake, but it was a costly one.  We missed an entire weekend because of the error.

We laughed it off, joking:  Please buy our Rest Home.  But our window of opportunity to sell slipped away.  Even after a second attempt with a newspaper advertisement (an expensive endeavor at $119 a pop), we’d only had about a dozen people look at it and no serious offers.

We let the online advertisements lapse.  Our “House For Sale” signs at the end of the block kept disappearing.  We’d travel up there once a week to check on things.  But we weren′t aggressive enough to sell it.

Phase II

For months we wrestled with what to do next.  It became increasingly difficult to pay the mortgage on the house and rent on our duplex.

In November, with few other options, we decided to move into the house.  We pulled down the signs and settled in.

Shortly after moving, we had to have the septic system pumped.  Another un-fun expense.

The timing to sell seemed right. Our little money pit was the perfect candidate for buyers looking to cash in on the $8000 tax credit.

In January, we put it back on the market.  I checked out as many free sites as I could.  And we started getting calls.

From the moment we stuck the For Sale by Owner sign in the snow-sodden ground, my job became the house. I spent hours on the Internet researching, learning everything I could about how to sell a house; what I needed to do know if we got a real estate agent.

We rented a storage unit and hauled carloads and carloads of junk to the unit. We even rented a U-haul to take the big stuff. But mostly I cleaned.

I scrubbed, scoured, and disinfected every inch of that house; it almost became a full-time job.

But after several weeks, we had only one candidate actually come to look at it.

She didn′t make an offer, so in the middle of February, with the tax credit expiration looming on the horizon, we decided a Realtor® was the way to go.

Finally Something Worked…

We chose a real estate agent we knew was familiar with the neighborhood as he′d sold several houses on our street.  Plus he liked what we’d done with the place and actually seemed excited about selling it.  A trait lacking in the previous agent.

He put out signs, acquired an MLS, advertised everywhere, and the calls started pouring in.

The Realtor® requested we leave whenever anyone came to see the house.  Now let me say here, trudging out into a wet Missouri winter is anything but fun.

We’d have to bundle ourselves and the dog and take off.   Often just drive around for an hour or two until we were sure everyone had left.

Viggo - enough said

One day I took Viggo to a nearby park and let him run in two feet of snow.  Comical at best.

Our Realtor® was hopeful as we’d had inquiries way above the norm: generally, about one a week.  We averaged three.

On March 19th, after long months of wondering if we’d ever sell the place, we got an offer.  And we jumped onto the next phase of our journey.

Until next time.

Happy Transformation,

Shawn

First, I like to paint.  I pretty much enjoy the whole process, even the dreaded taping, patching, and sanding.  Sure it’s work, but doing it right will produce the desired results.  That’s my motto.

Secondly, I’ve done a lot of painting.  Even painted professionally, if you consider getting paid for providing a service professional.

And thirdly, I had tips and tricks from a pro.  Yeah I paid a high price for the information, but I learned a few things from the Painter and I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

I was prepared.

It’s okay … you can laugh now if you want.  I don’t mind.  Really I don’t.

Turns out I was just as ill equipped for doing something I’d been doing for much of my life as I was in every other aspect of this project.  This fact culminated in what I now term as “The Wall of Shame.”

On one of our first visits to Home Depot I noticed some $9.00 paint rollers made of lambskin.

“Who would pay that much for a paint roller?” I commented to my husband.

He merely shook his head as we walked away.

As the story goes, I lived to eat those words.

The painting up until this point had gone fairly smoothly.  With some coaching from The Painter, I did all the trim, both bathrooms, the living room, and the master bedroom.  Then I came face-to-face with my nemesis – the hallway.

(You’re rolling on the floor laughing aren’t you?)

In my defense, I will say the walls were anything but smooth.  In fact they had a sort of wave to them.  Bumpy even.  Especially in the northwest corner.

The already dark hallway grew increasingly dim in the setting sun on the day I started this task.  I painted furiously, hoping for once we could go home early and get a good night’s sleep.

At first I didn’t notice any problems.  Then I took a closer look.  Much of the paint wasn’t adhering to the wall, leaving large splotches of unpainted surface.

I carefully repainted the areas.

In the first couple of places I applied it, this method worked fairly well.

Then I came to the northwest corner.

I need to take a step back and remind you that I had purchased eggshell paint on the recommendation of the Home Depot Paint Expert.  I’d already been given plenty of grief from The Investor and The Painter.  I knew my folly.  Now I had to live with it.

The problem with eggshell, they told me over and over, is it’s impossible to blend.  If you make a mistake, you have to repaint the entire wall.  I’d managed to defy the paint experts so far, with no visible edges in those areas I’d repainted.  But the northwest wall defied me.

In the fading light, I noticed some irregularities.  I also noticed I was almost out of paint.  When I made my original purchase, I got only a gallon, which the Paint Expert assured me would cover the living room and hallway.

So I trotted off to Home Depot and picked up a quart of Behr Toasted Wheat in eggshell.

When I got back to the house, I set up the halogen light Andy had purchased on another trip to Home Depot, and went to work, spreading the paint onto the splotchy surface.

At first it seemed as if it might cover, but after a short while, I realized, it wouldn’t work at all.  In some places, the paint began peeling off the wall as I painted.  Instead of spots, it now had craters.  The wall looked a like a teenager with a bad case of acne.

I walked away, hoping to figure out a cure.  Nothing came to mind.

I went back to the wall and stared at it.  The more I stared, the worse the problem became.  I picked up a plastic scraper and angrily ran it across the offending paint.

Now I had a bare rectangle, measuring about two feet by one foot, in the center of the mostly painted wall.

Determined, I headed back to Home Depot.  I’d used most of the paint I’d just purchased, so I picked up another quart of Behr Toasted Wheat in eggshell, and a $9.00 lambskin paint roller.

It did the trick.  In another hour, the wall had a smooth paint job.

If I’d have been smart, I would have taken pictures of this nightmare.  But I’m not smart.  Smart would have bought the flat finish and spent the money on a lambskin roller in the first place.

The Wall of Shame - slightly less shameful

I had completed the task.  And if I do say so myself, the wall looked good.  If I hadn’t felt compelled to write about it, no one would know there had ever been an issue.

Lesson learned in this installment:  Start with the right tools.   Don’t skimp because you don’t want to spend the money.  Like me, you may end up paying for it anyway.  And double check to be sure you have exactly what you need before you ever leave the store.  It will save you immense amounts of grief later on.

Happy Transformation,

Shawn

This Saturday morning’s offerings were no exception.  One in particular got me all riled up.

What most disturbed me was the “investor’s” insistence on her rightness.  She spurned everyone’s advice and thumbed her nose at the law.   I watched in awe as she made one uninformed decision after another.

“You’re so ignorant,” I screamed at the TV, my husband wincing at my barrage of insults.

The more I watched, the more frustrated I became.  Why wouldn’t she wake up?  Why did she refuse to see the light?

Not that I’m in a position to judge or advise, but even to the most novice rehabber, her errors were glaringly obvious.  You don’t eschew sound counsel.  You don’t hire an ex-boyfriend to be your general contractor.  You don’t live in the house while you’re rehabbing it.  And you don’t pick a number out of a hat to serve as your budget.  Oh, and you don’t plan to spend only $200 on a kitchen with bright yellow accent tiles and baby blue cupboards, of which the host exclaimed, “You kind of have an Easter parade motif going on in here.”  (I had to throw that in.   It made my jaw drop.)

As happens most often on these kinds of shows, she came out smelling like a rose.  Made a tidy $123,000 profit.  Not bad for six months work, even in California.  One side note:  This was 2007.   Right before the bottom dropped out.

Most Of All – Have A Plan

Now I can’t fault this first-timer for not having a plan.  Her plan was just faulty:

1) She wanted to spend $20,000 for repairs and holding charges that ultimately cost her $80,000.

2) She didn’t plan on doing any of the work herself.

3) She put an ad on Craigslist to find a general contractor.

4) Her needs, wants, and desires came ahead of any remodeling (e.g.: she was sick one day and the ex-boyfriend carpenter made too much noise for her to sleep).

5) She didn’t price anything in advance to understand the cost.

6) Her partner (another ex-boyfriend) paid the bills, so she was unaware of the money flying out the window.

7) Her timeline of four weeks was unrealistic (it took just shy of six months).

Here’s our haphazard proposal:

1) Do a portion of the work ourselves (we ended up doing about 2/3s and still doled out a substantial portion of our budget to The Painter and The Handyman).

2) Use The Investor’s knowledge and contacts to find hired help (yes, that worked out well).

3) Get the punch list from The Investor to estimate costs (never happened).

4) Do it all for The Investor’s guesstimate of $7000 (hmmm).

5) Do it in four weeks (took us eight).

That’s it.  That was our plan.  To take a small percentage of Andy’s Jeopardy! winnings and parlay them into a nice payday.  Not exactly what happened.  Let’s just say, we didn’t come out smelling like roses.

How To Recoup If Things Go Wrong

Sure our first mistake was in trusting The Investor, but we had no contingency plan if things went south.  We discovered we weren’t as knowledgeable as we thought we were.  We ended up relying heavily on the insights of The Painter and The Handyman.  Many of those proved to be costly.

When we realized The Investor would not live up to his end of the bargain, we didn’t change course.  We just kept plugging away.  Fired the hired help.  We couldn’t afford to keep them on anymore.  So day after day, we drove the 35 miles to the house, worked to exhaustion, and prayed it would turn out okay.

At this point in the flip, about midway through, we should have sat down and taken a long hard look at our finances and what still needed to be done.   We may have been able to salvage our pocketbook and our dignity.

Instead, we took a bath in humility.   And learned, too often as we humans do, the hard way.

So what can you do if you find yourself in a similar situation?

1) Take a good hard look at the numbers.  Start at the beginning if necessary.  If you’re spending way beyond your budget and nowhere near finished, look at places you can cut costs.  Go back to the warehouse stores and consider lower priced options for items you have left to purchase.  Don’t skimp or sacrifice quality.  But you don’t have to have designer faucets or slate floors to make a house saleable.

2) Be aware of your surroundings. Some neighborhoods require granite countertops and ceramic tile.  In others, the investment would be foolish.  Be sure you’re putting your money in areas that will give you the most bang for your buck.

3) Don’t be afraid to change course or redirect your efforts. Assessment can be your best friend.  If you had a complete kitchen renovation on the table, maybe you can scale it back to re-facing the cabinets and replacing the countertops, provided you haven’t already done the demo.  Paint works wonders and can cover a multitude of imperfections.  If you find you need to cut back a bit, figure out ways to reuse rather than replace.

4) Get help if you need it. Here’s where we really went wrong.  We stubbornly held onto a false belief that The Investor would come through for us.  If we had been smart, we would have paid someone else to help us finish the project.  A realtor.  A different investor.  Someone who knew more about it than we did.  Yup, we would have had to fork over some serious cash, but in the end we would have come out ahead.

Even in these down times you can still make money flipping houses.  There are a lot of ignorant people out there trying to do it.  Arm yourself with knowledge and good counsel and you don’t have to be one of them … and neither do we.

Happy Transformation,

Shawn

Those first few days of work were brutal, long grueling hours of physical exertion.  One evening after I’d showered, I dragged myself to the Home Depot closest to our duplex and did my best to make decisions.

I knew I wanted neutral shades in the same color palette.  And I didn’t want to paint every room the same color.  For about thirty minutes I studied my options, running to the back of the store to match my choices with the countertop I had picked out, a brown and cream laminate made to look like granite.

Finally I came to a conclusion and took the swatches to the desk.

The Experts Aren’t Always Expert

Mind you, I was grumpy, but the guy who helped me was grumpier.  I felt out of my element and needed help.  He didn’t seem to happy to give it.

The Paint Expert said, “Are you planning to prime?”

“Yes. I have some KILZ.”

“With KILZ you have to paint the next day.”

I looked at him quizzically.  By this time exhaustion was kicking in and I wasn’t sure how much longer I would last.  I wasn’t exactly sure what he was trying to tell me.  Did I need to purchase a different primer?  I more or less ignored his comment, handed him my choices, and asked him to help me figure out how much paint I needed.

He suggested, “Five gallons for the kitchen, dining room, and two bedrooms.  A gallon should work for the master bedroom and another gallon for the two bathrooms.  A gallon should also be enough for the living room and hallway.”

I trusted his expertise.

Now here’s where it gets tricky.  I remember the conversation as follows, but I was tired and cranky and it was two years ago:

“You want those in eggshell?”

“Flat.”

“Eggshell is our flat.”

Again, I trusted his expertise.

He mixed up the paint and I walked out of the store satisfied I’d done okay.

The next day The Investor actually showed up.  Both he and The Painter told me I should have purchased flat finish.  “You can’t cover your mistakes with eggshell.  You have to repaint the whole wall,” they both told me.  I repeated the above conversation.  They each gave me a hard time about it, repeating the mantra “use only flat paint” ad nauseum, for several days to come.

I wanted to deck them both, but just smiled and held my tongue.  In my mind I had ordered flat paint.

Reality Sometimes Paints An Ugly Picture

As we began to spread the paint onto the walls, I realized two things: 1) They were right.  Eggshell not only showed the flaws, it caused hours of extra work as well; and 2) The Paint Expert didn’t know the first thing about paint.  His measurements were all off.  I still have some, at least a gallon, left of the five gallon bucket.  Not only did we use it to paint the kitchen, dining room, and two smaller bedrooms, we also painted half of the fifteen square foot room in the basement and a room in our current house (with two coats)! And as you will see, I also had to return to the store several times for more paint.

So what’s the lesson here?  Eggshell is bad?  Not at all.  In fact I have used it successfully on other types of walls.

Should you ignore the recommendations of Home Depot employees?  No.  I believe this guy was the exception.  Everyone at Home Depot up until this point and for the rest of our project went above and beyond to help us in whatever way they could.  And most gave us solid home improvement advice.

What I didn’t do and what I suggest you do is your homework.  There is an abundance of information on the web.  Both Behr and Sherwin Williams have interactive sites where you can download pictures of your room and envision it in different colors.  You can purchase samples either online or at the Home Depot store and check out colors before you buy them.   And DIY has a whole section dedicated to teaching you everything there is to know about paint and painting.

And if all else fails, get help.  Yes, it can add to your expense, but it can also save you time and grief later.  As it turned out for us, we would have actually saved money if we had hired The Painter to paint both the inside and outside of our rehab.  Hindsight.

Happy Transformation,

Shawn

I really hate excuses, but I seem to need one for why I suddenly stopped writing on my blog.  All will be revealed in due time.  For now I want to tell my faithful readers how sorry I am.  I will do everything in my power not to let it happen again.

I′ve spent some time trying to figure out how to approach this re-entry into blogdom.  Do I start from the present and work backwards?  Do I work from where I left off and go from there?  I tend to want to write in chronological order, but that′s not always the best solution.  Suggestions are always welcome.

At this point all I can say is:  Expect anything.

I′m glad you′ve decided to join me on this journey.  Hang on.  It should be a fun, but bumpy ride.  I′ll do my best to keep it interesting.

Keep reading and I′ll keep writing.

Happy Transformation,

Shawn