It was the begining of February 2009. My job decided it would not issue raises and they cut our monthly bonuses by two thirds. Times were not looking good ahead from a personal finance point of view. I had to do something. The days of relying on corporate America to provide for your family are over. We live in tougher times and something I learned a long time ago is tough times make tough people. Knowing this I had the idea of buying a house with my fiance Ariana Myers and my mother Mary Ellen Ross.
We first looked at a property off of Green Road in south Euclid but we quickly relized that it was not for us. There was way too much work and the worst part of all was all the black mold in the basement. One thing I will tell you is that if your interested in buying an investment property make sure it doesn't have a mold problem. You don't have any idea how extensive it is.
The second house we looked at was up the street from us on Liberty Road in South Euclid. The ironic thing is that when I was looking for a house to buy in 2003 I looked at this very house. What turned me off was a giant dead rat in the basement. It needed more work than I wanted to get into and the lady selling it would not come down from her $135,000 asking price so I passed. Move the clock up to March 2009. I got a call from my realtor and she said this house was up for foreclosure and the bank wanted $49,000 cash for it. I was interested right away. We looked at it when the snow was two feet deep and this time there was no dead rat. The person did some upgrades and there was less work to do this time. After negotiating with the bank for two weeks we bought the house for $33,000 cash.
We were excited. This would be my mothers first investment property and I could show Ariana how to flip houses with me. So this was the begining. As you will see in future posts I'll track our progress and our budget. Stay tuned for future updates.
