Flip Finding Frustrations

We closed on selling Clark last week, so we can now officially call ourselves house flippers!  (commence happy dances!)  Now we need to find the next, no pressure.  I won't lie, although getting a nice check from the sale was kind of awesome, the buying and selling and the house hunting and negotiating is my least fave part about flipping.  Luckily it's Hubby's favorite part, though, so I guess that's why we make a good team.

The owner of the house I mentioned last week that we want to rescue is stupid stubborn and is holding on to the house, convinced she can get an illogical price for it.  poo.  It's not going to sell at that price, just rot into the ground, which makes us very very sadface, but what else can we do.  Maybe she'll come to her senses in a few months, but until then, we have to move on.

We also have been waiting to hear on a short sale for quite a while and neither of us are holding our breath. It just needs some love and reviving (and new paint!).

Even our agent isn't optimistic of the bank ever coming to a conclusion on this short sale, though, which means it's back to house-hunting for me!

The pickings are slim right now for flips in our price range.  Most of the houses I've seen are just ridiculous.  And I'm not talking about ridiculous with ugly tile or stinky carpet- I'm talking ridiculous like I can put my hand flat on the ceiling (and I'm only 5'6") or an in-law suite addition that's only accessible through the bathroom/laundry room with no way to change it.  Silly people with their silly houses, bad renovations, and illogical additions.  If I can't make sense of a house, a buyer won't be able to either- and if I can't sell it, it's not worth flipping.

This house has potential, even with the glitter all over the ceilings(!), but some structural wonkiness worries me (yes, wonkiness is a totally technical term)- this one would be a can of worms, ya know, after you peel back the dozens of wallpapers throughout the house (5 in the living room alone!!!) and I'm not sold on the location.  It's not off my list entirely, but it's not a front-runner.

I'll be off checking out some more (hopefully) diamonds in the rough tomorrow and I'm crossing my figures we'll  find our next flip SOON!

I'm getting antsy to play with more power tools here!

Rescue Mission

You know when you walk into the pet store and realize that it's puppy adoption day, and you lock eyes with an adorable little guy, and you want to rescue him and love him even though he'll cost a ton and probably tear up all your furniture?  This is exactly my problem, but in my case the puppy is a house. We've been looking for our next flip for a while, and ones that only need cosmetic updates (like Clark did) are just not out there right now.  So we've found a different kind of house that we really want to flip.  I want to give this house a big hug and rescue it from its neglectful past and show it that old houses deserve love too.  What, you've never felt the desire to give a house a hug?

This house is a beautiful 113+ year old colonial that had first been neglected, then was put through a VERY bad reno.  And I mean V E R Y.  They actually were kind to part of the exterior and painted and put on a new roof, but they totally butchered the rest.  They took out the chimneys, heat, plumbing, ran rough electrical, put up a not-even-close-to-code deck, started closing up walls and installing (really really ugly salvaged) cabinets all without any permits.  Let me repeat: they took out all the plumbing and THEN closed up walls and started to paint.  If you can find some shred of logic in there, please tell me, because I can't.  There is absolutely NO plumbing in the house.  or electricity.  or heat (or even a boiler). and a failed septic to boot.  Yet I'm the crazy person who still wants to save this house.

(the picture above is from the listing... since they haven't mowed the lawn since, in reality it looks like this:)

I've been diligently getting quotes from contractors, calling the building department for info on past permits (spoiler alert: there were none), and generally trying to figure out how feasible it is to rescue this house.  If I don't save this house, I have a feeling it will either be neglected for another several years then bulldozed, or be purchased by a contractor who will put in the bare minimum work to make it liveable, but make it cheap and builder-basic and not honor any of it's history.  No me gusta.

Oh, and there's also a barn that I want to save out back...

...ya know, cuz I'm a crazy person.

At least they've left a ton of stuff that we could sell on Craigslist.  The barn is filled with dated appliances, cheap sink vanities, old hardwoods, etc.  The house is filled with cheap light fixtures (that also look cheap), tools, building supplies and more.  I could probably pay for the new kitchen with just selling the stuff left over on Craigslist.  If we can come to an agreement on the purchase price with the seller, I just may take on that challenge.

So, what do you think?  Can I rescue the puppy house or am I just bat-sh*t nuts?

ReColor

It's rather hard to paint a porch in about 1000% humidity and scattered thunderstorms.  I have succeeded in painting the ceiling, but mother nature is getting in my way from finishing the project. I keep forgetting to tell you, though, about an awesome product that I used out at Clark the flip house!  This isn't a sponsored post- in fact the company doesn't even know I exist, but I was so excited to use the product (and pleased with the result!) that I had to share!

Did you know that places exist that recycle paint?  I'm not talking about using every last drop of a dated color, I'm talking about breaking down your old latex paint and giving it a new life as a new paint in a fresh, modern color.  The Paint Exchange in North Scituate is the only place of the kind in Massachusetts.  I discovered them through my local Habitat for Humanity ReStore and I'm hooked!

I used their ReColor 100% recycled latex paint in as many areas as I could in Clark- the living room and bedrooms.  (When it was time to get the paint for the kitchen and bath, the ReStore was all out of the ReColor paint, sadly)

The paint comes in some awesome fresh colors including- canvas (the deliciously creamy color that I used in the living room), cloud (soft gray of 2 of the bedrooms), summer (sunny, but not too bright color that I used in the master bedroom), glass (inspired the color for the kitchen even though it was unavailable when I needed it), and pebble (a delightful mushroom gray which I would LOVE to use in the future but was too dark for Clark); there's also an off-white and a red that the names escape me.  There's probably a few more colors that I'm forgetting too.  Point being: they have quite a selection of versatile colors.

I really wanted to try this paint out, but I was skeptical at first, so I just started with 1 gallon.  I was very pleasantly surprised!  The paint is very thick and offers better coverage than most of the paints I've used from the big box stores (and I've tried a lot).

In the living room, I was able to stretch one can into 1.5 coats and the walls look flawless- even though I should have primed the burnt yuk color first.

In the bedrooms, I did 2 coats in each.

I've never found a paint that truly covers in just 1 coat (despite any ads that boast paint and primer in one), so I was happy with the total and complete coverage given by 2 coats of the reColor paint.

The sales guy at the reStore told me that he's heard this paint compared to Benjamin Moore and honestly, I wouldn't argue. At a fraction of the price at $18 a gallon this paint was worth every penny!

I know not all of you live in MA, but if you don't I would highly encourage you to check out if any places/products like this exist by you!