We bought a house!  And it’s not the Stupid House!  (That house is STILL in the works and we aren’t going to walk away from it unless we HAVE to.  We were preapproved to buy BOTH houses, which is fantastic news!  Hopefully Stupid House continues to be delayed until the spring!)

Anyway- the long story short is that my bestie of the past 7 years had to relocate to Cali due to her husband’s job.  And it was super short notice.  Two weeks.

They met with a couple realtors who each pointed out some details that they’d need to have done before they could list the house: finish trimming out the untrimmed areas (around closets, doors, etc.), the rest of the trim in the house needs to have the nail holes filled, be painted, doors need painting (still just primered from the factory), walls need paint touch-up, there’s a couple other minor home repairs that need to be done, lawn needs edging, fertilzing, barkdusting, etc.)

They made a deal with a private buyer so they wouldn’t have to involve realtors (more $$ in their pocket!) or fix those things in order to list the house.  Unfortunately, that buyer backed out at the last second.   They were moving in 10 days!

She knew that we’ve been trying to buy an investment property- and she knew that Jim and I had the knowledge and know-how to fix those things….so we made a deal that we both feel is fair and we bought the house!

Her suggestion was that we go in and fix it up and list it to sell….but we decided to fix it up to list it to rent!

Let the fun begin!

For simplicity sake, this house will now be referred to as the 5745 house.

There’s a house up the street from 5745 that rents for $1,600/mo.  I can’t find any pictures to see whether or not it’s been upgraded (carpet, kitchen, bathrooms, etc.), but after reviewing other rental listings in the area, we realized in order for us to get a premium rental rate we are going to have to go in and make those upgrades.   Average rent around here is $1,450.

We’re aiming to get $1,550 since there are so many great features to this place that you just don’t find in your ‘average’ home.

For the next month we will be spending every spare moment of every day over there fine-tuning every detail to net a premium rental rate.   The catch is that we don’t close on the house for another few weeks….but our lender assures us that there’s no way this deal will fall through- and Kelli has no plans to back out- so it should be a guaranteed done deal!  Every second counts.  We are hoping to get renters in there by mid-October!

Here’s our list:

  • New carpet throughout (we were going to keep the bedroom carpets, but each bedroom only adds $200 to recarpet, so why not replace with fresh and new?
  • Tile over the main bathroom counter/backsplash
  • If we pull the toilet to install a Category 6 (clogless super flusher), we’ll probably replace the linoleum, too
  • Repaint master bathroom cabinets
  • Install hardware in both bathrooms (handles, knobs)
  • Paint the kitchen cabinets cream colored, add shaker-style trim to each door
  • Camouflage the soffets either with wainscoting and trim, or just retexture and paint
  • Upgrade the kitchen counters (material tbd)
  • Upgrade the kitchen backsplash
  • Repaint the kid-colored rooms to neutral beige colors
  • Trim- fill every nail hole, caulk and paint- in every room
  • Dry-wall repair in the master bedroom (we’ll need Baltazar for that!)
  • Paint all the doors
  • Replace the kitchen window and build up a sill/backsplash so it’s not sitting on the counter (makes counter changes much simpler!)
  • Paint the storage shed in the backyard
  • Edge the lawn, fertilize
  • Gravel the driveway edge
  • Determine roof needs (repairs)

If time and budget allows:

  • We might add can lights to the living room (the only lighting in there is by lamp)
  • We might install new closet organizers in each closet (solid wood style)

Next year we will repaint the exterior and consider re-roofing plans.

Yep- that’s the list!  We turned all the utilities over to our name as of today- and all this work starts the second I’m off work tonight!

We’ve decided to stock the kitchen with paper plates, paper towels, plastic ware while we are over there, make dinners at home during daycare hours to just take over there to eat.  We’ll store some snacks in the cupboard, and stock the fridge with beer, water, soda and champagne (my drink of choice), cheese sticks and ready-to-drink shakes for protein boosts.

BRING IT ON!

Here’s a link to our rental listing:  http://www.jepropertiesaloha.com