Update on New Projects

It's been a few weeks since the last post, and we're happy to announce that we've got two new projects. We're set to close on two large adjacent shells on January 9, 2007. Each house has a footprint of 14 x 102 feet, and four full floors. To give you some perspective, our rehab on Port St. was 1200 sq. feet AFTER we dug out the basement and added an addition. Each of these houses is 1400 sq. feet- per floor! One house was previously used as two units and the other was three units. The previous owner was an Army pilot and hadn't been to each house since before he left for Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Needless to say, the houses need some serious work.

Here's the outside:


And from the rear:



We haven't decided our exact exit strategy yet on these two houses. We were attracted to this neighborhood for several reasons. First, it's adjacent to the Station North Arts District (a hot area with new lofts, stores and artist space), and only a few blocks from Penn Station. Secondly, it's got a really active redevelopment agency. The People's Homesteading Group is rehabbing the entire 400 Block of E 22nd St. and has several properties under contract from $195,000-$220,000. They've done a lot of great work with going after vacant house owners, decreasing blight and building community gardens. And finally, the numbers were just too attractive not to purchase the houses, regardless of our final plan.


In other news, we closed last Friday on a detached colonial-style house in Hamilton (a great area on the Baltimore County line). Our original intention was to rehab the house and sell it in the spring, but we got a great offer and decided to sell the house "as-is" before we started work. The deal turned out to be favorable for each party involved because the previous owner was able to move his family to North Carolina to start a new career, we made a profit and our buyer got a solid house for a great price.

Here's the house from the outside. Our first task would have been to paint that terrible avocado siding.



The kitchen needed the most TLC. Here it is:



We're still trying to decide the best approach for our Port St. rehab. The house had a ton of interest but didn't sell after about six weeks on the market. We took it off in order to refinance out of our construction loan. We're now trying to decide whether to keep the house as a rental property or put it back on the market in the spring.

Thanks so much for checking the blog.

Dave