Predicting the future when buying.

When buying an investment property, it's important to have a crystal ball and be able to predict the future. What?!  Ok, I know this is not realistic, but, if you know your market and the other people that are active in it, it is not impossible to see into the future.

The before picture here shows my property (brick building) after a fire destroyed a building that stood where the courtyard is.  This courtyard sat in this state for 8 years, making it an eyesore and political hot-button in our town.
A local businessman bought the building to the left of the courtyard from the town and planned to fix it up.  The courtyard was included with his purchase.  I know him and the quality of the work he does, so I bought the adjacent building that had been sitting on the market for 10 years.  People told me I was a fool, which is sometimes true, but not in this case.  My crystal ball was my connection to him.  He told me what his plans were and even helped with some work on my building so his courtyard was better looking overall.

   The after picture shows the fixed-up version of the courtyard as well as the re-pointed wall of my building. It 's beautiful and dramatically adds to the overall value of both properties.

First fixer-upper and first blog entry... and why?

I've created this blog to share some of my projects and to hopefully inspire someone to get off of the fence and pull the trigger on their first fixer-upper.  I have been renovating and renting old properties for 15 years.  I started with experience in painting only.

I've decided to share some pictures and stories of work I've done and why I did it that way. I'm not an expert contractor, but I don't cut corners and I ask questions to know the best way to do things.  My rental properties are very nice for the area where I live and this is one reason I have few problems renting them or finding great tenants.

Over the years, many friends and family have shown interest in what I do.  They say, "I need to get into this," but they don't, worrying about every detail where something might go wrong.

Is this you?  Maybe I can help because I was like this - very nervous about being an investment property owner. However, I got a push, because I really needed to buy a building for my small business.  The building I found had 2 commercial spaces downstairs and 2 small apartments upstairs.  At closing I was a landlord and tenants were paying the mortgage right out of the gate.  I couldn't believe it - and I've been buying investment properties ever since.

Remember, I am not a big time investor.  I don't have TV show, but I do seem to have a bit more luck than some of those TV flippers.

Thanks,

The Rehab-2-Rental Guy