After about 145 days on the market, our Century Home flip is officially sold! We couldn’t be happier that the home went to a younger gentleman that is moving to Cleveland from the East Coast.

One of the question we kept getting via email was “Did you make any money?”

We did – a little bit.  The trouble with the Century Home was that it’s big and, while it is in a good suburb, it’s on the periphery of the more desirable areas.

As a rule, my partners and I target flips with a net return of 30%.  If it’s less than that, we don’t want to take the risk.  This one came in well below that, but thankfully we still managed to turn a little profit.

The chart below shows a general split of how it all worked out.  Rehab costs ate up 57% of total proceeds, with the purchase price taking up another 28%.  Those are our “Hard Costs.”  Rehabbers generally have a good sense of how to estimate those.  What many newbie flippers forget, however, is that there are soft costs, as well – interest, commissions on the sale, insurance, taxes, lawn maintenance, snow removal, utilities, etc.

Are we happy with 5%? No, not at all – but, you win some and you lose some.  It’s a numbers game.

The goods news is, we’re back at it – we’ve got two properties under contract and we can’t wait to tell you about them!

Well, i’m only about 5 months behind schedule updating this blog.  We finished the Century flip about 4 months ago and have moved on to other fabulous rehab projects.  But I never shared the final product with you! It was a tremendous process, but we’re glad its over.  Here’s the final product:

I am not a designer.  Managing construction timelines, staying on budget, yelling at contractors, buying them coffee and doughnuts when they work weekends, keeping our investors informed of progress we’re making – I can do all of that.  But a designer I am not.  In picking finishes, I rely on Houzz and my wife.  Both are a good way to go over budget!

After a walk-through with my wife last weekend, she was rather impressed with the progress we were making – until she walked in the master bedroom.  It lacked the “wow” factor she thought was needed to sell the house.  “Spa-like” and “glitz” were two words she used to describe what the feel of the room needed to be; “boring” was how she described the current plan.  Luckily, we were able to find savings on another part of the project, so we had a little money to work with.

So what’s better than a fireplace? This is the look we’re going for:

For the stone veneer, we decided to go with the Sierra Vista architectural stone from TileShop. The fireplace we’re using is the Dimplex Lacey.  All told, this change order will cost us about $1800 in material, $400 for the fireplace and $1300 for the stone. …about $400.

I had our contractors put up cement board this weekend, as seen below.  The stone and fireplace will be installed later this week!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 49,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 18 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

With Christmas fast approaching, construction at the Century Home has come to a pause for now.  Our crews plan to get back at it next week.  With rough plumbing and electrical finally complete, our drywallers will be kicking off the New Year with spot repairs throughout.  Soon as they’re done, our tile guy will begin rebuilding the master bathroom.

While my wife and I certainly love to pick colors and tile, we are not interior designers.  Far from it.  Fortunately for us, with online resources like Houzz and a brand new Tile Shop nearby, we don’t need to be!

The great thing about The Tile Shop is that each store has TONS of kitchen and bath vingettes located throughout the store, so you can easily envision what the tile might look like in your home.

We opted to recreate the Eleanor Bath, with a few alternations of our own. Can’t wait to show what they are, but for now…here is a sneak peak of the tile we’ll be using in our master bath.

Why do we yawn a creation and thrill a destruction? 

I have no idea, but destruction is my favorite part of a renovation! The process of wiping the slate clean and starting fresh is extrelely rewarding.  That, and hitting walls with a sledgehammer is a great way to relieve stress!

Demo is largely complete at the Century House and we’ve begun to put it back together, but I’m a little behind on the blog so let me catch you guys up!

Until next time!