Hard Way Frugality

Well it's done! The home is finally fixed and the HWF family is all moved in!  So for today's post, I am going to share my experiences buying and fixing up a repossessed property. But first, if you are new to this blog, you can start here  from the beginning of this Real Estate investing journey.  There were definitely a few hurdles I encountered and you can learn from my mistakes. The home I will be talking about in this post today will be the 6th  repossessed  home that I have purchased and rehabbed in my lifetime. However, this new home is unique in a few ways, This is the first property I have paid for with cash no mortgage.  This is the first property I have purchased being married. Unlike the homes in the past, I don't plan on flipping this home. I plan on keeping this property. That means, I need to prepare this home for the long-run.  These new variables listed do change the way I invest in Real Estate in a good way....

Hello everyone,  Just a quick update here. I don't think we talk about the importance of a dry crawlspace enough these days. Specifically, how often should one go down there and give an inspection? The whole crawlspace as a thing is a new concept for me to worry about and if this thing gets wet and then ignored, you are going to have mold! This mold will then grow and end up on your wooden sub floor in your house and get everyone sick.  Not to mention that a good portion of the air you breathe is from the crawlspace. So you don't want bad air quality down there. In the picture below, my brother and I were doing a random inspection of the sub pump and we noticed the water to the left in the pic. The culprit was right in front of us, but we didn't spot that punk until it started spewing water everywhere. A few weeks ago, I had a remediation team down there removing mold so I am assuming that this pipe got bumped but I honestly don't know how this happened. So every t...

Hello everyone, I am just giving you a quick update on the house. I decided to rip up ALL the flooring and inspect the lament hard wood that was so nicely placed on the first screenshot.  

As referenced in my last post , I am now a DIY debt-free Real Estate investor. More Specifically, I am fixing up a Repossessed home to keep and convert into a rental property. My goal here is to generate another stream of income. As I venture on this path, I am befuddled by the consumerist marketing mentality which is thrust upon me by the retail mecca industry and their home improvement stores. For example, the term, "This is my forever home", or "this is your forever home", is commonly used when trying to force me into paying extra for something. This is a trap! Another gotcha is the manufactured emotion that gets distributed around the term "Sale" price. Whenever someone tries to get you to buy something simply because it's on sale, you need to stop. Stop what you are doing and do some math, crunch the numbers. Ask yourself, "is this really a good deal for me at this particular time?" Compare the sale price to what the market is offer...

Hello everyone, This is the first post in a series of posts I am going to write about my adventures in buying debt free   repossessed homes as an investment.  Recently, I found a steal in my local market and picked it up. What is a steal? In my opinion, this was a home that recently had an FHA loan and was repossessed. I was able to buy the home for 30% less than what was selling in the neighborhood.  Moreover, I have one of the lowest priced homes in this neighborhood.  The benefit of having the lowest priced home in the neighborhood is that my property's value is likely to increase based on the higher priced homes around me. Why is buying a FHA  repossessed home a benefit? That is because FHA has really strict guidelines on who they give loans to and the condition of the properties they give loans on. My newly purchased repossessed property has only been vacant for nine months, since this was recently an FHA mortgaged property what's the worse that cou...