Hello fellow Real Estate Investors,

The blog title says it all. We have 2 apartment buildings in the middle of rehabs and moving forward towards getting them done enough to start showing and renting them out.

Building Number One

Building number one is a three family, or as we say in Massachusetts, a triple deckah. This one is moving along although I wish the electrician would get through his portion so we can start to button things up over there. Both the Plumbing inspector as well as the wiring inspector have gone through all of the newly installed services and have given their thumbs up to move forward.

This was no small task either. This building had the pipes ripped out of it back when folks could get more than a pretty penny from a hunk of copper. So, needless to say, in this building everything from the town water meter to the sewerage drain pipe where it leaves the building is all brand new pipe. All vinyl and pex, so this plumbing job should last longer on the planet than I will.

The electrician has finished putting in all of the new meters, breaker boxes, main shut offs, and has had all of that part of the service approved, so we are golden to button up the minor details. Those detail are all code related issues. Stuff like electrical plugs for every 12" of kitchen counter space, extra plugs in the bedrooms, making sure there are junction boxes at all of the lights in the ceiling, and other sorted stuff like that. Maybe another 2 to 3 days of fishing wire through the walls and that will be buttoned up.

Building Number Two

We finished putting up the fence today. It looks beautiful. Especially because you cannot see the debris, two dogs, and other trash the landlord next door lets his tenants get away with. Now I am happy to say, all you see when you look next door, is a new stockade fence. Thank you Home Depot. The fence is going to be a huge selling feature on this property because it has a huge private back and side yard with plenty of parking. We have had people stopping by all week long asking about renting from us because we are making the place shine up with lots of curb appeal. Feels great to have the yard under control. We did go through a lawn mower blade in the process mowing down the chest high lawn (mostly weeds). But now it is looking pretty spiffy with the lawn under control again.

Building Number Three, Four, and Five

Yup, that's right. September is going to be a busy closing month for sure. two of these deals are no-brainers, with lead certs and no rehabs for about $41k to $45k per unit. Did I mention no rehabs at all? We are also very excited to see a three-family in our market just sold  in the $230K's. That is great news while we are buying three-family apartments buildings at $70k to $77K. We have also found a new lender who wants to take over the loans as a refi from our 5-year commercial loans to a 20-year fixed rate plan. The only catch is stabilization for 6-months before we can pull the trigger. So in about 8 months from now, we should be refinancing to get all of our seed money out of all of these deals at 100% ROI. With the latest sale in our market for a "like" building going for $230K, and our purchases running less than what they are paying for one unit; we are very excited to see what happens when we are ready to refi our upcoming loans to the table.

Seven, Lucky Number Seven

Over the past 2 years we have bought 7 properties with our preferred lender. Apparently, we have reached "their" comfort level and are only taking on one more of our deals. So, first thing Monday morning, we are sitting with our Realtor to work out the details and deadlines moving forward. We have two leads and refferals to loan officers at other banks, and our 100+ page business plan all saddled up and ready to go to the bank.

Two of these deals are pretty straight forward purchases with little to no details to be rehabbed. These will be a straight shot to acquire and start to show to prospective tenants. The third building on deck is a four family unit that needs a lot of work. Our best strategy on the table for this is to make sure we can find a lender with a construction loan wrapped into the original loans to aquire the property. That should make it work, and open up the door for more business.

So, once again, it appears we have our work cutout for us.

Brian Lucier
brian@bhbgroup.com
http://www.bhbgroup.com/

BHB Group, LLC.
P.O. Box 613
Dunstable, MA 01827

P. 978.448.3873
F. 978.448.0699