a friend's rehabing a crack house!
Hey guys, I need your honest opinion. My friend bought a former crack house through sherif's sale to rehab and re sell. I think it's an awful idea. Looney tunes in fact. Call me crazy but I think it's money wasted. Anyways, she wants to rehab as cheaply as she can for profit. The lighting fixtures look like they've been around since the turn of the century. The copper pipes were ripped out and she's getting some scrubby group of guys to put in dry wall already without fixing the electrical wiring in the walls. That's the good part. I won't even go into the bad stuff. She's setting herself up and exposing herself to potential liability,don't you think? Am I wrong to think this?---luba
FWIW, I don't know anything about the legal issues, but my sister just bought a house (For Sale By Owner) and the first thing he had them do (because he hadn't gotten around to it yet) was to call the police and ask them if it had been a crack house because all he knew was that the people he'd evicted had been arrested on some kind of drug charge. Apparantly there are health issues related to damage from the fumes? In any case, he refused to take any steps towards selling it to my sister until that was cleared up because he was worried about the liability issues. (Luckily the house was fine, just pot smokers!) -- Debbie Frost
I live outside Trenton, NJ, and there are people who make a living doing this. They buy dilapidated housing for about 30-45k or less, fix them up and sell them for 75-90k. Of course these are people who actually do all (or the vast majority of) the work themselves, so their labor costs are small. The city loves them because they're really trying to clean up the place and this only helps, so I'm sure they get some help there if needed; your friend might want to look into that avenue if she needs financial assitance. If it were me and I wasn't too versed in this type of thing (and I'm not) I'd have an inspector come in and give an assessment of the situation before purchase; work up a rough estimate of what it would cost to fix, look at what houses are selling for in the area, and go from there. This isn't something to go into half-cocked, and if she did she probably deserves what she gets. Rich
Yeah, it's not like a used car where you can slap some paint on, throw some Bars Leaks in the motor, steam clean the engine compartment and walk away with extra cash. Slapping new wallboard and chewing-gum fixes aren't going to cut it. She should either do the nesscessary repairs and Depends where you are. In our capital city it can be (and is) very profitable, provided it's done right and largely by the owner themselves. It all depends on property values and the condition of the house in question. Rich
Well, when she tries to sell it she'll have to deal with the inspector hired by the proseptive buyer, and will have to have things fixed right anyway, so she might as well do it right in the first place. That involves having it inspected *now*, so she knows what needs to be done. I'm not sure what 'falling down in the back' is on the second house, but it's not a pretty picture. Obviously this is something that should've been looked into before they bought these houses, but since we're beyond that now.... It does seem like they just got into this on a whim; a potentially very expensive one. Rich