Our first flip

Many of you know that Kurt and I have been searching for an investment house to buy and flip for quite some time now. About 6-8 months roughly. The whole idea started when my brother, Joe, sent Kurt a real estate investment book for Christmas. Thanks, Joe (I think!)! We have bought almost every book about property flipping, foreclosure investing, and property management that there is. As well as watched almost every single episode of Flip This House, Flip That House, and Property Ladder that have been aired. Not that any of this makes us experts by any means, but you really do learn a lot watching all the other idiots on TV make horrible mistakes and thinking to yourself how you would have handled it.

Several opportunites presented themselves that just didn't work out for numerous reasons. Either we didn't act fast enough, didn't quite know how to act (I'm sure this doesn't surprise some people, but for other reasons - ha!), or it just wasn't the right fit.

Well, in early August, the right one finally presented itself - a foreclosed property. We made a bid for the house one day after seeing it, and surprisingly enough, the bank accepted our bid! My initial reaction was one of shock and disbelief. All I could think to myself was "What have we just done??? Can we really do this??? Do we have a clue what we are doing???" Kurt, of course, was elated and also scared a bit, I'm sure. He's so cautious and analytical that it was a roller coaster ride all the way to the closing on September 10th. Lots of questions, concerns, fears, affirmations, reaffirmations, more questions, concerns, etc. You get the picture....

I'm going to try to use this site to allow people to keep up with our progress. The intial pictures I'm posting today are the beginning pictures. Did I say this was a foreclosure??? The house is 35 years old, so it's definitely not a McMansion built in the last few years that we have seen popping up all around us everywhere. But, it has "good bones" and lots of plusses that we felt made this the right house for us to try to do our first flip with. It ain't much to the eye right now, but we have great plans for it.

Now, just please join us in praying that we can do all the things that we have envisioned for this house and that we are successful on the back-end of this deal - selling the house when the time comes! Especially in this market and the financial mess that the country is in.

Also, I forgot to mention that Kurt's brother Kevin, and his wife, Donna, decided to go into this business venture with us. Kurt and Kevin are co-owners of a corporation that their father built many years ago. They inherited it after he passed away last year. Things are working out beautifully having them involved. They are lots of help - physically, financially, and visually (opinions or ideas on painting, remodeling, etc)! All Kurt and I can keep thinking to ourselves is how proud his Dad would be and excited for us all at the same time. Anyone that knew him knew that real estate was something he did many years for a living and enjoyed. He worked through many different facets of it over the years - renting, buying land, etc. His ultimate success was in purchasing two mountains in Blue Ridge, GA that he developed, subdivided, and sold lots on. He was really in his element when showing potential customers lots on the mountains when they would come up on the weekends looking for property. It's a shame he's not here to help guide us through the unknowns of the real estate world, but we know that he is our guardian angel watching over our shoulder helping to point us to the right people to help us out when we don't have the answers.

Here's the link to the pictures of the house. I'll post more as things start coming together.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mjfales/NorgaFirstFlip?authkey=yaScLicCweE#