A Horrible Flip

homealone · #1 08-22-2010, 06:04 PM

A friend of mine lives in Kentucky likes to flip houses and has been doing so for several years now.

She knows what she is doing, and actually does most of the work to the houses herself. She knew doing this would save her a lot of money on house flips.

Any way I guess she just purchased a old abandoned house for a fairly inexpensive price. I think that she said she paid like $20,000 for the house which is 3 bedroom,2 bath and full basement with garage.

She knew the owners of this house and knew that it was not taken care of properly. Though what she didn't know was that just about 3 days after she bought the house a bad storm would cave in the entire roof of the house.

Now she is going to end up putting a whole lot more money into the house than she was planning to. One good thing about this whole mess is that she was not planning on selling this house for a while. She intended on renting this one out. Though of course that won't be happening for a while now because she will have to hire a crew to come in and replace the roof.

loumatt · #2 01-14-2011, 01:08 AM

Won't insurance cover this sort of thing?

homealone · #3 01-14-2011, 05:32 PM

Yes normally insurance would have covered this damage. Though because she had just purchased the house, she didn't have insurance on it yet. I guess she should have been faster on that subject.

So the cost of these repairs came out of her pocket. Though she is now renting the house out which is helping her to regain a bit of the money that it cost her to replace the roof.

This just goes to show what can happen at any time that house flippers have to be prepared for.

realestatehound · #4 01-17-2011, 12:26 AM

I have flipped a lot of houses and the day the contract is signed I go get insurance on it. It is not worth taking a chance on loosing several thousand dollars for $300.00. I wish her the best. I am also in Ky.

flippinout · #5 01-17-2011, 07:14 AM

Purchasing insurance on a home you just bought is something that should be done immediately, especially when you live in areas that has weather that can change drastically in a short amount of time.

Here in Ohio, we get hail storms, high winds, and other bad weather that could wreak havoc on a home. So its better by far to be safe than sorry later.

homealone · #6 01-17-2011, 09:31 PM

I agree with you insurance should have been gotten A.S.A.P. I think that she has learned her lesson. I don't know what it cost her to have this problem fixed but I am sure it was enough to set her back a good bit.

Insurance is something everyone needs on everything to make sure that they are protected from these kinds of problems that life deals out to all.

Any way I do know that she did have the roof fixed and has managed to get the house rented out to a couple who she says are like the perfect tenants.

So all in all it worked out for her, but it would have been less expensive if she would have gotten the insurance earlier!!!

Kentucky is a beautiful place, and I do at times miss living there!! Maybe one of these days I will return either to just visit or even return to live.

flip_it_fast · #7 01-18-2011, 12:56 AM

That really stinks that it happened like that. But at least she was ablt to get it taken care of and now she is making her money back on it. To get a house at that price there is no doubt that it probably needed quite a few things beyond the roof!

It just goes to show what a little elbow grease and of course patience can do.

What is she getting as far as rent goes? Is it enough to cover house payments, insurance and some on the repairs each month?

homealone · #8 01-20-2011, 04:46 PM

She bought the house already. She has been saving money for quite a while because she didn't want to deal with payments or anything. Costs for repairs and the roof all came out of her pocket which she did expect there to be soem which needed taken care of.

I had to call her and ask her what she was charging for rent becuase I had forgotten. She is making $500.00 per month on this rental house, and that is enough to cover repairs and what not that she may need to do and of course insurance which she now has on the house.

She was lucky that she had saved so much money and was able to take care of everything she needed to, to get this house up to par and rented out quickly for the price she wanted.