The Rehab Diaries Part III For those of you following along, let me bring you up to speed. It seems I got a little ‘carried away’ fixing up my rehab, and I’m afraid it’s going to eat up too much of my profit if I use an real estate agent to sell the place, so I’m just gonna do it myself. Now I know why you ask for a discount when you buy a property, it’s that pesky real estate agent commission thing, duh! Anyway, looks like this after repair value thing won’t apply to my property since the fix-up costs almost equaled the purchase price. Not to worry, as a creative newbie I have lots of options. For instance, I might put it on the market as a Duplex instead of a single family house and sell it to 2 different buyers. I’ll let them work out the details like who owns the kitchen and stuff. I hate getting in the middle of those contests. I could also add a lot of wall mirrors and fudge about the square footage. Bigger is better as they say. Either way, I’ll probably just break even, but the education will pay for itself. Anyway, a while back I was digging in the back yard, mostly just burying things like the old sinks and toilets and the like, and I came across this pipe that appears to be for natural gas or something. Two words here, Mineral Rights. Now, I’m thinking I can sell the mineral rights for bookoo bucks! I told that to the guy at the local ‘Grease n Fleece’ and he helped me out by burying some 55-gallon drums full of used motor oil back there. He said at the rate oil is going up it’s like having my own gold mine. It’s good to make friends with the local business leaders. Anyway, the RR tracks next to my property will add a lot of value now that I removed that graffiti covered fence, especially if the new buyer (or buyers) have kids. You can put a stack of pennies on the track and the train flattens ’em right out. I can spend hours doing that. Not only that, the trains come by at the top of every hour like clockwork so you always know when the next TV show is starting. Alarm clock? Fugedaboutit! Don’t need it. That 6am Flyer makes sleeping-in a thing of the past. Anyway, here’s my rehab tip of the day. If you have a door at the top of the stairs, remove the door if you remove the stairs. Here’s what I mean. Your sitting there watching your favorite ‘Debbie’ flick on the VCR and you think “Hey, now would be a good time to go downstairs and get that bag of Cheetos”. You completely forgot you sent the stair treads out for a good sanding. You open the door and look back at the TV just as the money shot happens and WHAM, you do a world class ‘ground pounder’! It’s just no fun. I had to learn that lesson twice! Anyway, I need to make a ‘for sale’ sign so people will see it and give me counter offers and stuff. I put in new counters, and I really want them to stay, so I might just take multiple offers instead. I didn’t put any new multiples in, so those offers won’t pose any threat to my sanity, if you get my drift. Anyway, I see all those signs like House for Sale, Home for Sale, Beware of Dog, but they all look so bland. You drive by and you think to yourself “That’s just a sign. I already have a house, home, dog or whatever, I’m not getting tricked into buying his”. You need to have something really catchy like those email headers like ‘Busty Blonde’, or 'Free Cable TV', or my fav ‘Add Three Inches’. That always seems to get peoples attention. Once they fall for the sign that’s when you trick them into buying your house. Anyway, I met a guy at this local AA meeting. (I thought I was going to meet other rehabbers, but I guess that 411 operator must have turned to the wrong page. First time I ever had a six pack get warm.) He suggested I could remove some roofing shingles to spell out my 'For Sale' message. That way people will know my house is for sale from far away. I’m open to ideas like that. Only trouble was when I got down off the ladder and stood back I saw I wrote ‘HOSE FOR SALE’. Now rumor has it I’m running a cathouse. Half the people from that AA meeting have stopped by already! Anyway, I sure hope this selling part goes smoother than the rehab part, I haven’t had this rough a time since those 3 years I spent in the fourth grade. Thanks for playing along. Cletus
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