Hermit Haus Redevelopment

Mattress 8

There’s a tree that’s got to go in front of the house. You can see it was once cute.

Lessons Learned

Finally, in January 2019, a serious investor with a mindset similar to ours called. We talked to her, met with her, and worked out a deal. She is going to turn it into two separate properties and either build on or sell the empty lot that is part of the property. She will have a lot easier time getting the house renovated, since she has a team of contractors lined up and ready to go. The closing was on March 1. Farewell!

We are happy to have broken even on this one.

The lesson we drew from this property is that we need to be very careful when buying houses in the Temple/Belton area, and to be sure we have people lined up to work on the property ahead of time. That said, we are actively collecting names of reputable contractors to work with, and really appreciate all the people who have sent us messages on Facebook, called, or emailed us to tell us about their services.

Delays

We had a series of delays with getting a contractor set up to work on the house. Our original contractor has had a family emergency, but we hoped he could come back and work on the house, but he has not been able to. In the meantime, we identified, met with, and requested bids from other contractors, so that we could at least get a start, but they either disappeared or keep asking for more time to get in a bid.

Then we decided to look for local investors to see if anyone around Temple wanted to take over the project, since we couldn’t line anyone up. Lee spent many weeks going to Temple, only to have people not show up or not make serious offers.

Story

This house is located on 8th St., near downtown Temple, Texas. We purchased it in June 2018 to be a rental property. Lee found the house through a wholesaler, and we got it for about $5K under appraised value. The goal is to renovate it to rental quality. It’s near the famed Czech Heritage Museum (which is in a really cool building) and also near our favorite antiques store, so it’s a location we’re familiar with.

The Mattress 8 house is 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, and was built in 1940, according to the records. It has a fence in the middle of the back yard and a line of trees in front that hints of the presence of a fence in the past.

One of the nice houses on the street.

While the house was a big mess when we bought it (and full of mattresses, hence the name Lee gave it), there are houses in great condition in the neighborhood, which we think will make it woth renovating. Lee went through the repair estimator with the home, and we have a good plan for a cost-effective renovation.

The first thing we have to do is get rid of a lot of trash. There may also be some treasure in there, so we’ll be posting about that soon.

Check the blog for updates (search for Mattress), though we’ll try to post them here. But first, some “before” photos!