Advice On HOW MUCH I Should Offer On This House?

House Info: VA owned
3 beds, 2 bath, multi level, 1 car garage, 1100 sq 45 years old , last sold in late 80’s for 69000, current assessment value is 115000
Basically has no back yard and on the second main road

Condition of the house:

1.15 feet Cracks on the brick like a step, it was fixed one time by someone and opened again
2.Shingles are only bad around the chimney which a small area
3.All windows and trim around need to be replaced about 10 windows and they are abnormal sizes and weird shape.
4.2 doors, front entrance door and back door to the yard and wood trim around the door need to be replaced, they are normal size doors
5.hardwood floor thru the entire house are stained with dirt and cat/dog uterine(bad smell that I can still smell on my sweater), so it needs to be refinished and then covered with carpet

The reason I say refinish is first I have to sand the floor and get rid of the smell of animal. And I don’t think hardwood floor can be recovered since it is so badly damaged, I would put carpet for the entire house. So there is to cost here sand/finish hardwood and plus cost of carpet
6.Entire house need to be painted.
7.All the trim/baseboard need to be replaced
8.2 Bathrooms are dirty and yellow stains are all over the bathtub, I don’t know if they can be cleaned by special detergent or I have to end up changing the bath tub. I know I will change two toilets and two sinks for the bathroom
9.I will change the kitchen cabinets handles and no dishwasher and range in the kitchen. People took the range! And it never had a dishwasher before. I don’t know if it is easy to put it in since there is plumbing associated with it or many people don’t care if it has dishwasher or not
www.10.Garage door need to be changed
11.Furnace needs to be replaced
12.Water tank is from 1996, I guess it is still OK?
13 fuse box, it needs to be upgraded to circuit breake ot meet the code

Asking Price $99000, i was told by agent that this house can never be sold at this price because of the condition. but i much i should offer to bring it up to be good enought to the market and i can make a profit?

For my typing’s sake, somebody helps me on this one, I assume VA house shoud have a free and clear title?

Comments(9)

  • jam2007th May, 2004

    Offer price = FMV-Profit-repairs-Holding costs-acquisition costs
    Just plug the numbers in...

  • cpifer7th May, 2004

    Dood,

    you may want to do some more homework on this deal. The dawg jus' won't hunt.

    Really,

    C- :-o

  • yan99937th May, 2004

    that is what i am trying to ask advice for how much i offer in order to make this one.

  • jam2007th May, 2004

    There's no way anybody can tell you what offer to make on this house, because you don't know 1)how much the repairs are going to cost 2)how much the FMV is 3)how much profit you want. Offhand, just as a guess, I'd say you probably wouldn't be able to offer much more than MAYBE 40k for it. But then, that's a GUESS, and take it for what it's worth...

  • InActive_Account7th May, 2004

    Quote:
    On 2004-05-07 13:59, yan9993 wrote:
    last sold in late 80’s for 69000, current assessment value is 115000

    These numbers mean nothing to me. Repaired and market ready what is the retail vale.
    Quote:
    1.15 feet Cracks on the brick like a step, it was fixed one time by someone and opened again

    This could be a major foundation problem. Or it could just be a bad brick job.
    Quote:
    2.Shingles are only bad around the chimney which a small area

    This could be a source of water getting into the walls.
    Quote:
    Asking Price $99000, i was told by agent that this house can never be sold at this price because of the condition. but i much i should offer to bring it up to be good enought to the market and i can make a profit?

    I can tell from your post that you do not know how it insepect a house. Don't worry about that. Most investors do not. But what you need to do is to pay for an inspection.

    Then you need to get a bid to repair the house.

    When you know the future value of the house and what the repairs will cost then you can determin what to offer.
    Quote:
    For my typing’s sake, somebody helps me on this one, I assume VA house shoud have a free and clear title?

    I always buy title insurance, so I don't worry about it.

  • rehabber_pa11th May, 2004

    These are just guesses on my part, since I haven't seen the place, but here's some usual
    pricing:

    1) 15 feet of mortar repointing
    material - minimal
    labor - 4 hrs @ $20-25/hr = $80-100
    This is assuming no foundation problems causing the cracks. Add thousnads more if that
    is the case.
    2) Shingles around chimney - probably need to replace some rotted roof decking too - figure $300-500.
    3) 10 windows - if they are less than 110
    combined inches (width x height) then you can
    get cheap vinyl replacement at surplus places for $100-125 each. Add more if they are larger. Rough guess, windows, installed,
    with new wood casing on inside - 200-250 per
    window - more if they are larger or casing is fancy.
    4) 2 doors - get $100 metal plain door for
    back, get nicer $250-300 metal door with
    leaded glass window for front. $100 per each to install.
    5) hardwood floors- if you're not going to show the hardwood floors, no need to
    sand and "refinish" - just rough sand them,
    use clorox to kill urine smell, when dry paint on 2 coats of Kilz primer over entire floor, then
    carpet. Hard to estimate cost of sanding/
    painting- guess $1-2 per foot, then add carpet,
    about $15 per sq. yard for medium grade.
    For 1000 sq feet - $1000-2000 for sanding/
    painting, 1500 for carpet.
    6) Paint whole house - prices vary greatly.
    Say $1000.
    7) All new baseboard/casing - nice stuff is
    $1 a foot for material, add another 30-40 cents per foot to install and paint - scientific wild ass guess on your place - $600-1,000
    8) bathrooms - can't even guess without seeing them - anywhere from $500 - 2500
    each.
    9) kitchen handles - a hundred $, dishwashers (cheap ones) are $150,
    add $100 for regular install, add another $100
    for plumbing since there never was one.
    10) clopay garage door, installed, about $500-600. You'll probably want to add an automatic opener - few hundred more.
    11) furnace- varies greatly - depending on efficiency/btu's - guess - $1500-$3500 depending.
    12) water tanks last about 10 years - if it's
    not leaking, don't mess with it - if you want to replace it - figure $200 for tank - $100 install.
    13) Replace the service/entry circuit panel -
    depending where you are, how many amps, etc (150 amps should be plenty for that house). I can get them put in for $400, but
    I get a deal. Figure $1000-1500 if there are no surprises. If the place got aluminum wiring,
    much more to replace wires.

    add extra $ for unknowns. You're probably looking at $20,000-25,000 in rehab costs.
    Add a few thousand for holding costs = 30k.

    Assessed value doesn't tell me much - you need to find out fair mkt value, look at comps, others sold, etc. If asssesed value is the fmv,
    then I would pay 115k * .7 = 80k - 30k in
    repairs/holding = 50k

    Caveat - my numbers here are guesstimates -
    I'm trying to help you, but do not use my numbers as the basis for your investment decision. If you can't estimate repair costs yourself, get a licensed home inspector to give you an estimate. Best of luck.

  • yan999311th May, 2004

    thank you so much rehabber_pa!!!

  • jam20011th May, 2004

    Yeah, Rehab_Pa came up with a little higher amount for an asking than I did, but I'm still not sure if the bank'll go for that much, either. I didn't mean to sound flip in my answers, but did you see what I was trying to accomplish with the formula to calculate asking price? The TWO most difficult numbers to come up with, with them being the two most critical, are FMV, and Rehab amount.
    Good luck with whatever you decide to do...

  • GeneralSnafu12th May, 2004

    Quote:
    On 2004-05-07 13:59, yan9993 wrote:
    House Info: VA owned
    3 beds, 2 bath, multi level, 1 car garage, 1100 sq 45 years old , last sold in late 80’s for 69000, current assessment value is 115000


    Your answer is in the first line of your post. You need to check out VA's proceedures on their properties. The asking price is the minimum that they will accept at this time. If it does not sell, only then will they lower the price (generally by $5,000.)

    The really dumb thing about how they operate is that If you offer them $5,000 less than asking price you will be rejected even if they have no other offers. They will then pull the property, lower the price $5,000 and put it back on the market. In the interim they could have sold it to you and avoided an added month of carrying charges. But, that's how the VA operates. Now HUD, that's a whole different story.

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