Rehabbing Rundown Properties
The rehabbing of rundown properties has long been a potentially profitable venture. Many real estate investors turn to rundown properties to obtain their maximum rate of return. You can take a hands-on or a hands-off approach. Either way, the desired end result will take time out of your routine life. You are not buying stock and watching the ticker. Even as a hands-off investor, you will need to be actively involved in your project if you want to ensure success.
I have been doing real estate deals for more than 30 years. Rehabbing single-family residences became a regular event in my life about 18 years ago. My role in rehabbing has been both as a sole investor and as a real estate broker for clients.
Many of the deals I worked with as a broker were multi-family dwellings. My personal interest was in single-family homes. Financially, there is more money to be made in commercial properties. This can include multi-family buildings with six, or more, dwelling units or any number of other types of properties.
A favorite source of big money is to find a large home that is situated in an area zoned for professional space. If you can buy a house and convert it to professional space for use by doctors, dentists, lawyers, and the like, the rewards can be tremendous.
If you are a tenant in a rental property and want to own a home of your own, rehabbing could be right for you. This is especially true if you are good at working with your hands and have a construction background. In many cases you can live in the rundown home while you are renovating it. This can be a very sound plan for gaining home ownership with minimum cash out of pocket and maximum equity.
Should you roll up your sleeves or open up your checkbook? Not everyone wants to get down and dirty with rehab projects, and believe me, it can be nasty work. If you have money to invest and believe in real estate, taking a white-collar approach to rehabbing could be just the ticket.
Whether you are a blue-collar rehabber or a white-collar rehabber, you are likely to need the assistance of subcontractors for some of the work to be done. Finding and managing subcontractors is rarely as simple as it should be. While you might think that calling licensed and insured subcontractors and getting competitive bids is all that is required of you when doing hands-off rehabbing, you are wrong. Subcontractors are notoriously unpredictable. You will have to be very active in the overall management of your project from start to finish if you want to see the greatest financial returns.
There are many potential downfalls to rehabbing real estate. You could buy a property and then discover that the foundation framing has been destroyed by termites. Maybe you will find that the house contains lead paint or asbestos. These types of situations can ruin your financial projections. Good pre-purchase property inspections should be considered an absolute necessity of doing business as a rehabber.
There is no sure bet when it comes to investing, but buying and rehabbing the right properties can provide awesome returns on your money. Of course, you will need much more information before you enter into a purchase-and-sales agreement, but you are now ready to begin your journey in search of the hidden treasure that sits alongside roads everyday.
About the author:
R. Dodge Woodson and his team at Lone Wolf Enterprises, Ltd.(www.lonewolfent.net)are offering their services to the open market for the first time. Woodson has written over 100 books for major publishers, such as Simon & Shuster, McGraw-Hill, John Wiley & Sons, and others. He is acknowledged as a best-selling, internationally-known author. R. Dodge Woodson got his start writing dozens of magazine articles for such magazines as Outdoor Life. In addition to his personal writing, Woodson’s team has produced dozens upon dozens of books for major publishers. R. Dodge Woodson’s writing style is conversational. He is skilled at taking complex subjects and making them reader friendly. Woodson has worked as a ghostwriter for celebrities, provided work-for-hire books to major publishers, and written his own titles. If you are seeking professional writing and editorial services, Lone Wolf can deliver all elements of publishing from writing to editing to layout to proofreading to indexing, and more.
