Had some naysayers on this one.  Oh, I caught a lot hell along the way.  From investors, to wanna-be investors, and from mentors to just plain haters -- everyone seemed to have comments about 2901 Violet Ave. To be clear, the house is in a rough Baltimore City neighborhood called Park Circle.  With random murders, drug issues, the blinking-blue Baltimore Police lights and an occasional prostitute looking for her next John, this ain’t Leave It To Beaver.

But what most don’t know (and I’m glad they don’t) are the success stories in the neighborhood.  I won’t bore you with all the details, but there are good things happening.  I know I don’t look too smart, but even I’m not dumb enough to waltz into a neighborhood, do a full-gut rehab approaching 100K, and simply HOPE that the house will sell.  Fact is, it will sell. C’mon, you know we had more intel than just HOPE.

So feast your little eyes on this truly magnificent finished product.  My student Prencella Hall has worked her tail-end off to stage the property -- and quite honestly, I think she’s got a future in staging.  The place drips with opulence from the moment you walk in the door.

Take 7 minutes out of your busy life to watch this video.  If you’re thinking about being a rehabber, if you’ve got the itch to invest in real estate, but ya just don’t know how to scratch it -- I’m here to tell ya -- you can do it!  You just need a solid plan.  My student Prencella in her wildest dreams never thought this house could be so magnificent -- and she is overwhelmed with the results!

C’mon -- leave some comments below.  We want to hear from you.

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The Ugly Duckling is Turning Into A Swan

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Here’s the second installment of PJ’s mondo-Baltimore City rehab.  At just under a few weeks into the rehab you can see we have the place gutted, and framed.  You’ll also notice that we waterproofed the basement which as I understand, Baltimore City is requiring for all new rehabs whose scope includes a full-finished basement.

REAL ESTATE INVESTING TIP: Beware, if you plan to gut a house and finish the basement in Baltimore City, you may be required to waterproof.  Listen, waterproofing is a plumbing job.  A lot of plumbers don’t like to do it however, because its dirty grunt work.  You have to bust up the concrete slab, and excavate a trench of about 7 inches wide and 12 or so inches deep.  That my friends makes a BIG PILE of mess.  Once that’s complete, the job is pretty simple.  The plumber will drop in a plastic corrugated pipe and you route that to a sump pump.  Cover it all over with some gravel, then fresh cement and viola’ your done.  Seriously, the costs of the material for a job like this is less than $300-bucks.  But the labor is ROUGH!  That’s why we have a $10/hour guy break up the floor and haul the debris.  Then once the plumber is done, we bring the $10 guy back to cover up the plumber’s work.

Check out the video.

At this point we are post-demo, and we’re well into framing.  We’ve pretty much busted out most of the interior walls, added new support beams, and we’ve busted up two bedrooms and made them into one grand master bedroom complete with its own master bath.  We also took away from the over-sized landing at the top of the steps to add space to the otherwise tiny main bath.  We framed in a pantry, a 1/2 bath, and a laundry room on the main level just beyond the kitchen, and we added some nice arched entrances into the living room and dining area.  The kitchen is immense and will have a sit-at breakfast bar for three to four – in addition to an adjacent dining room.  The house is really starting to take on a much more modern and open layout.

Click on the picture below for more pics of our progress.  Enjoy

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A house with a face so ugly only a mother could love it!

This post to the blog has been a long time coming, but (said in my Bones voice) damn it – I’m a real estate investor not a blogger.  My student, Prencella “PJ” Hall; a wife and full-time employee at Johns Hopkins, pulled the trigger on this monstrous beauty a few months ago.  I actually found the house through a local wholesaler – and was able to immediately help PJ make a decision because I had already done several successful rehabs in the immediate area.  In fact, my partner and I sold 2817 Violet; just one house to the left of PJ’s house at 2901.

REAL ESTATE INVESTING TIP: Folks – you ‘gotta know your target area.  This is some pretty elementary stuff, but seriously, it works!  You’ve got to pick an area.  You’ve got to farm it, work it, cultivate it – and make it your baby.  Being intimately familiar with your target area will allow to to react with lightening speed when you find a deal.  I just hosted a Club meeting with my good buddy Mike Hurley.  Up until about a year ago, Mike would take deals ANYWHERE in Maryland. One day he had an epiphany as he was riding to Chrisfield for a deal – he said to himself, “Why am I riding 1.5 hours just to get to this deal?”  Long story short, Mike decided that he could find more deals in his own back yard then by chasing his tail all over the state.  The result?  The guy is killing it by focusing on two very small zip codes.  He knows every house on every street – and he’s making deals.  So pick an area, and focus!

Here are the numbers of PJ’s deal:

Purchase:  $17,000
Rehab:      $85,000
ARV:         $165,000

This house will be completely gutted and will be transformed from a functionally obsolete “hot-mess” into a 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath magnificent, and luxurious mini-mansion.  These row-houses are some of the biggest in Baltimore City.  With great porch fronts, soaring 10+ foot ceilings, massive basements with equally incredible ceiling heights, and with the exception of the occasional shooting in your front yard – this neighborhood has it all!  Oh, how I love me some Charm City.  Seriously, my student Prencella will turn this motha’ out.  And, we will once again transform an extra-crappy vacant, non-tax-producing house in an otherwise marginal and forgotten neighborhood into a super-sweet party palace.

So check out the pics – and yes, VIDEOS (Look at me getting all fancy-pants on ya.  There will be many more videos to come).  You will not believe how crappy this house looks!  There was so much junk left in this house, we actually discovered an extra bathroom several days after we started the demo!  Top that.

Click the picture below to see all the “before” pics!

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