Express Homebuyers Flip Job: 2317 Sherman Ave. NW
This week's column is about Express Homebuyers, a Springfield-based company that has flipped more than 500 homes since it started in 2003 and is still going strong in this down market. Last year, the company flipped 80 homes. In 2009, they expect to flip 130 homes—most of which are in P.G. County and the District. Here's an example of one recently flipped property.
2317 Sherman Ave. NW
Flipper Paid: $115,000
First Close Date: Nov. 18, 2008
Flipper Got: $300,000
Second Close Date: Feb. 20, 2009
Gross Profit: $185,000
Story below...
This Columbia Heights two-bedroom, two-bathroom 850-to-900-square-foot row house listed in July 2008 and sold “AS IS” with only one appliance included, a gas stove. Express Homebuyers bought it for $125,000 below the original price tag ($240,000). A buyer snapped it up a few months later before it even listed.
Image by Darrow Montgomery
10:13 am
How was this information verified? Since it sold "before it ever listed" is the actual number available or are we to take EH at their word? Would make a HUGE diff.
10:18 am
clearly they put no money into fixing the leaning porch roof. I wish there were design guidelines and training requirements for these kinds of hacks.
11:09 am
To MCN:The sale was eventually put into the regional listing service. But the list date and contract date were the same. Sales can be put into the listings after they are completed, much like this one:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2009/03/17/georgetown-condo-sells-for-7295-million-likely-record-breaker/
So anyway, to your point, the sale is recorded.There were no pictures that went along with the listing. When I asked why, I was told they had a buyer before they took pics.
9:26 am
Normally we don't respond to comments like Mr. Layman's - a person who follows architecture rather carefully in his own blog postings. But, since he referred to us as "hacks" we felt compelled this time. So, I asked our own staff architect--yes, we have a full-time architect on staff who oversees all our renovations--to comment on the slope of the porch roof:
Why do porches and stoops on older DC Row houses seem to tilt in one direction or another?
The answer is because they are purposely sloped. As building materials of yesteryear were less resistant to the elements, one of the only precautionary measures remaining to treat pending and ice damming on flat horizontal surfaces was to slope the surface in one direction to divert water away from the surface area (typically in a direction away from the house) or screed the surface to collect the water into a leader or drain. This mechanism can be seen in a variety of older building applications from wood sleeper-type porches, to turn-down concrete slabs, to concrete stoops, with slopes as great as ½” PLF (per linear foot) and sometimes greater. The sloping of flat surfaces for drainage is still common practice today, even with the advent of improved building technologies and materials, though the slopes used are now generally 1/8”-1/4” slope PLF (per linear foot), less dramatic. This explains why floors in these areas generally feel “uneven” or sloped in any given direction, especially on older DC Rowhouses and not so much in newer construction. On end units, this slope is often seen toward the front and the side to compensate for the open-ended porch (as opposed to the shared porch end in center row houses).
More succinctly, we didn't "fix" it because it was originally built that way.
Thanks for the opportunity to post.
Express Homebuyers
11:19 pm
Express only seems to do shoddy work. No surprise here. Stay far away, unless you like living in a poor representation of a flip. They only make cosmetic changes, but I can paint my own walls.
9:53 pm
Regardless of them being hacks or not. I have to say they know how to turn a profit.;-)