Shively Family Flip: Foreclosure....

So....yes our house....was a foreclosure. and Yes, we are one of "those" people who cashed in on the one of the hundreds of homes in our area that are now owned by the bank. This house, in particular was ideal for us...for a few key reasons.
1. The amount of buildings in the back of the house....FOUR in all...are built well, were nicely maintained...and best of all...we didn't have to pay to put them there!

2. The amount of property that comes with the house...totaling 11ish acres...which includes a large wooded area...for the hubster and his love of hunting...anything. 3. The "bones" of the house are GREAT. The rooms are large in size...and the layout for a ranch style house is ideal for us. Not to mention the very large three car attached garage that I can't wait to park in this winter when its friggin cold....( and for anyone who knows me....they know how much I HATE cold weather!)

All of that to say....Foreclosures can be a GREAT investment opportunity if you can find the right one...AND...you might want to be prepared to use your plan B, plan C, and maybe plan D...because plan A..in a foreclosure...never really works. There is always something you "didn't know about" before you bought the house...and you'll find along the way. Adam and I have been fortunate enough so far not to have found anything too major that we couldn't handle..except well, for one. The ROOF.

We had the house inspected...before we signed off on the purchase agreement...and found that the roof was needing replaced. NOW. At this point we had already agreed on a price with the bank and we were waiting on final papers to go through. SO..we quickly sent in a counter offer request to ask the bank to help us pay for the roof...since that wasn't something we had budgeted to fix. Our realtor wasn't too optimistic that they would help us in any way...since it was a foreclosure and because we had already come to an agreed price.

Well...we were pleasantly surprised when we found out that the bank offered to pay half of the roof expenses.....WOOHAAA! AND the new roof was installed the first weekend we owned the house! :) We picked out some stellar shingles...all black..to offset the insane amount of red brick on this house...and it looks awesome!

We had our Amish friend do the work...and he started and finished the job on one Saturday morning. It was awesome to watch them work. If you have never been around the Amish when they are in work mode...its so cool. They barely say a word.....and they range in ages from 6 to 50+....and of them working hard...like a well oiled machine! They are just so good!

Here are some photos we took of that morning...and as a side note: I had special permission from the Amish gentlemen that day to take some pics. The Amish in general do not like there pictures taken. You can see in some of the photos that when they saw me coming with my camera...they lowered their heads! :) Regardless...the pics are neat to look at...and our new roof is a beauty and leak free!