Читать книгу Flipping Houses For Dummies онлайн

24 страница из 103

 Follow instructions: You don’t need to know everything about flipping houses to get started, but you do need to know how to follow instructions, including those I provide in this book.HOW BAD CAN A HOUSE-FLIP BE?We (Ralph Roberts and company) discovered a fantastic foreclosure property — a $2 million beauty we could get for a cool $900,000! Although the owners, whom we refer to as Mr. and Mrs. Rose, were divorcing, they seemed willing to work with us at first. They even persuaded us to let them stay in the house while we were rehabbing it. Letting people stay in the house is always a bad idea. We agreed to this request to seal the deal, but when you’re flipping a house, you want to close on it only when it’s vacant and broom-clean (free of debris, dirt, and rubbish) — and, in the case of foreclosures, the redemption period has expired. (See ssss1 for more about redemption.) Mr. Rose lived in one half of the house; the missus, in the other half.As soon as the contractors showed up, the couple’s version of The War of the Roses commenced. Mrs. Rose declared certain areas of the house to be no-work zones, and these zones changed daily. She tried to seduce the contractors, and when real estate agents arrived to show the house, she called the police. During the rehab, the Roses’ son was caught doing drugs in the house.Mrs. Rose moved out, only to be replaced by Mr. Rose’s girlfriend. When the contractors returned to work, they found the girlfriend at the top of the stairs, dressed only in her nightie, drunk and in a jealous rage. She proceeded to fall down the stairs, shedding her wig along the way. By the time the Roses cleared out, the place was trashed.We finally managed to take possession of the house, complete the rehab, and place the property back on the market. We were willing to sell for $1.8 million, and when we received our first offer for $2.2 million, we were ecstatic — though we weren’t out of the rose bushes yet.During negotiations, we found out that the instrument the buyer was using to pay for the property qualified as an illegal use of Treasury bonds. We informed the FBI, which set up a sting operation to nab the bad guys. The fraudsters showed up three hours early, discovered the sting, and split town.We eventually sold the house for $2 million and netted a $250,000 profit — not bad for a year’s effort, but not the quick and easy money we had expected.