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REAL ESTATE
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We're excited to see an article about our real estate exploits that will be in tomorrow's Arizona Republic in the "Your Home" section (Saturday, May 8th). I guess that would be today's paper since this is winging its way to you about midnight. The reporter, Kara Morrison, interviewed my partners Maurice and Rick and Jay Butler from ASU's Real Estate department and I'm on the edge of my seat to see what they said. |
OUR NEW PARTNER
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 Maurice (on the right) and I have a new real estate partner. The first time I met him (Rick Vullo on the left) he stopped by the Forest four-plex when I was in the thick of fixing them up. I asked him what he did. He said, "I'm a real estate investor." I said, "What?" He said, "I buy properties and fix 'em up." I said, "I bought this place." He said, "I know. I bid against you." Rick is an expert on foreclosures and trustee sales and Maurice just got his real estate license.
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 So far, as a troika, we've bought six properties, three buy and holds and three buy and flips.
Today I asked Rick how we got to be partners and he said, "I saw you on an off ramp with a sign that said 'Will be your real estate partner for food'."
We found the hats in a storage room at the Roberts property.
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2205 S. GRANADA, TEMPE
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The ovens were salvaged from the units and like the doors have the name of an important artist whose names start with a B (Boesh, Bernini, Bierstadt, Bueys, Basquiat).
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 They are two mirror image four-plexes. After getting the left side, we were desperate to get the right but at a trustee sale who knows... As it turned out no one else bid and we saved a ton.
BEFORE
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We re-did the interiors. Raw concrete floors, new doors and windows and white (as in paint with no tint) base on all drywall. We've found that anything bigger than counter depth fridges look horsey when you are trying to avoid a claustrophobic kitchen.
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I had these steel beams left over from a screwed up order for another job. The big idea was to grow watermelons on the welded wire fabric up the cube so they would hang like monster fruit in fish nets all the way up and over. So far, not so good. The vegetable garden is 16 inches of a killer soil blend over a permeable fabric that we tucked up under the sidewalks to control any bermuda trying to return.
 I told the City we would transplant the big palm tree. We did but in concrete and upside down.
Can you tell it's a palm tree? The hair is the roots.
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2121 AND 2127 S. GRANADA, TEMPE
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These two 3-plexes are right next door to the 2205 S. Granada property. We made an offer months ago and like most short sales it took forever to get an answer. They just "accepted" our offer but I'm still not convinced that it will all come together. Short sales are such a headache. I almost think it's not worth it. It's amazing the difference between a trustee sale where you pay for it and own it within 24 hours without a title company and zero bureaucracy.
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| 735 W. 12th PLACE, TEMPE |
With our new partner, Rick, we've set out to try our hand at fixing up single-families and putting them back on the market immediately i.e. Fix and Flip.
So far we've done it with three and all (knock on wood) are in escrow. So far, they're just in Tempe but we're thinking of doing something in Scottsdale or Phoenix. |
 At first the galvanized roof looked too reflective but we had some left over so we made low fences and it helped pull it all together. We've used the aggressive rock on about a dozen jobs and I'm happy with it. Good value. We get it from Kelly Sheperd at Granite Express.
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BEFORE
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818 W. 17th PLACE, TEMPE
|  This one just closed escrow today. Maurice gave me grief planting deciduous pistachio trees but they've leafed out nicely since this photo was taken.
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BEFORE
We bought the furniture at IKEA and move it from place to place. Since becoming addicted to HGTV I'm sold on staging. |
| Sam is our volunteer model. (She's typing this and just said, "I was forced".)
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| 1703 S. ROBERTS ROAD, TEMPE | |
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 This is the first time I've skipped a separate entry sidewalk. The flowers are kind of a cheap trick. Here, like so many vanilla tract houses, pedestrians share the driveway with cars to get to the front door.
It's in escrow but we're worried about the buyer's appraisal. We've heard so much about mortgage packages going sour from low appraisals.
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BEFORE
 The odd furniture was made by our friend Bob Wilkinson. |
172 E. BONITA WAY, TEMPE
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| I suspected we'd find something good under the paint and bingo! Redwood. We're going to extend the gable roof out to pick up new shaded patio space with doors where the windows are.
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BEFORE
 Got these radiators for $30.
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| 2709 N. 7th STREET, PHOENIX |
This commercial zoned duplex is our first partnership buy outside of Tempe. It's up the street from the Coronado Café and has a lady running a wig making business out of it.
It will be exciting to work on.
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1006 AND 1008 S. DORSEY LANE, TEMPE
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Just got these two duplexes at a trustee sale on Monday. Maurice thinks they're the thing to buy now. They're throwing off positive money after servicing acquisition money at 10% so you could keep 'em forever especially if you put a fixed rate, 30 year mortgage (now at say 6%) on it. They're a block north of the Pita Jungle on Apache. The masonry is exposed adobe.
If you check out the Republic Article, I hope you'll let me know what you think.
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