I was at a Mastermind with my members this Saturday but instead of a hotel room we were all hanging out with Kelly Thompson who is also an Ijlal Inner Circle member from West Side of Detroit. She works for Chrysler-UAW, has done her first flip already (first check to her was $27,239.91 NET) and now she is on to flip #2.

Kelly's flip #2 is at West Side of Detroit, 4 Bedroom, brick colonial, 1400 square feet, bought for $27,000; rehab $20,000; after repair value $110,000 conservatively (comps are around $125,000 but we are taking the lower end and you should too).

The entire deal was financed 100% OPM, no money out of her personal account. She has a plan and enough money in the deal ($63,000 in equity) to “Mack this foreclosure out”.

If you like what you do – money is easy. Her enthusiasm for this business just leaps from the screen. I had a great time hanging out with my members this Saturday. Just an entire day of evaluating her deals, we went to four bank foreclosures – one she bought; one she skipped (you should learn what “not” to buy also), one she has an offer on right now and we have our fingers crossed – hand lunch together and spent an entire Saturday, surrounded by funny, smart, driven Michigan real estate investors which form my Inner Circle.
(Click PLAY to start the video. Turn the volume up to get all the information.)

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 03:14 PM | Permalink

What I love about old Detroit foreclosures especially on the West Side is the character (hard wood floors, cool fireplaces and big windows) that you would find in a slightly bigger – 1400 Sq Feet and up – homes. Kelly outlining her very speedy plans for turning the ground floor of this colonial foreclosure into a nifty little home in four weeks.

I promise my members who were hanging out with me on Saturday that I will go back there after 4 weeks and shoot another 10 minute video of the finished house so they can see what was done and how Kelly is "staging" the house for a quick sale plus whatever else she is doing by then. I will try to put that video here also at Michigan Foreclosure Report so you can check it out also.
(Click PLAY to start the video. Turn the volume up to get all the information.)

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 02:58 PM | Permalink

What is a good property inspector worth to a Michigan real estate investor? Especially somebody new to real estate investing in Michigan? John McAuliffe is somebody like that. Pretty much all of my Inner Circle members in tri-county area use him over and over again. His reports are worth 10, 20 times worth more than what we write him a check for. Why? I wish I could tell ya but my members will never forgive me. LOL!

Kelly made a good point about the “smell” of the old houses. I saw some new members grimacing at a later house. Hey, mom and pop buyers are also going to frown and not buy this house. Bad smell, mostly coming from air trapped in older houses with closed windows and no circulation of fresh air is should smell of new money to you.
(Click PLAY to start the video. Turn the volume up to get all the information.)

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 02:54 PM | Permalink

Why put a drop ceiling in a home? We would never know the answer. If you pay attention closely to Kelly – you can hear her outlining her over the top rehab plans for the kitchen.
(Click PLAY to start the video. Turn the volume up to get all the information.)

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 02:52 PM | Permalink

Kelly Thompson outlining her plan for fixing the kitchen and downstairs bathroom in this 4 bedroom colonial at West Side of Detroit. She bought it for $27,000. ARV is $110,000 after $20,000 in rehab (that is her over the top; " I will mack this house out" number; mine is mucho lower) This was before her fellow Ijlal Inner Circle members got involved (see the next couple videos) in the whole remodeling thing with her.

She just closed on this Detroit foreclosure on Friday. Notice the still present winterization stickers and duct tape in the bathroom.
(Click PLAY to start the video. Turn the volume up to get all the information.)

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 02:48 PM | Permalink

Rehab is a choice!

If you want to fix houses in 2007 and 2008 and 2009 well that is your decision but for every $40,000 rehab project out there – there are 5 bank foreclosures in the next 3 blocks that could have been bought and fixed for under $10,000. Don’t kid yourself – fixing houses in no longer a necessity but a choice.

I am upstairs at Kelly’s $27,000 bank foreclosure and OMG there is not too much to fix but paint, carpet and spend some dough in the upstairs bathroom – reglaze the tub, switch tiles and toss in a new toilet / vanity. Sorry if you are disappointed that I did not spent 3 hours talking about what we should do here. She would be done, in and out in four weeks in this foreclosure and it will be sold probably during the rehab.
(Click PLAY to start the video. Turn the volume up to get all the information.)

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 02:44 PM | Permalink

Some people mastermind in a quite room. Dennis and I did one this Saturday inside a West Side Detroit bank foreclosure, standing up.

We are both in the kitchen of a REO that Kelly Thompson (another one of my members) just bought at West Side of Detroit for $27,000. Dennis Fassett, corporate executive by day, and real estate investor by night / weekends came up with three really good suggestions on how to remodel Kelly’s kitchen to make it look bigger and much nicer on a small budget. One way of turning a small kitchen (older houses typically have them) into a relatively bigger one without spending a whole lotta money.
(Click PLAY to start the video. Turn the volume up to get all the information.)

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 02:40 PM | Permalink

This foreclosure was just bought by my Inner Circle member Kelly Thompson for $27,000. What you are watching is my other members planning the remodeling of the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom which was one of the biggest ones I have ever seen.

When I take my members to these foreclosures in the tri-county area - the idea is not to go to one house to another but to actually learn how to evaluate a good deals from a bad one; a killer check from a ho-hum check; and off course to pick everybody's brain in the form of a noisy mastermind with my Inner Circle members to see what would they remodel in the house.

Kelly got two very good ideas - one from Ann and another from Dennis on how to remodel the kitchen and the bathrooms to maximize the look of the downstairs that should feed into selling this house quickly.
(Click PLAY to start the video. Turn the volume up to get all the information.)

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 02:35 PM | Permalink

I spent the last Saturday checking out four foreclosures that three of my Inner Circle members have recently bought in Detroit (in rehab), Oak Park (sold already) and Harper Woods (on market) with 20 of Ijlal Inner Circle members – foreclosure bus tour style.

This is the first house we saw in the West Side of Detroit – if you wonder what a real life foreclosure look like before rehab or what typically gets fixed in a Detroit foreclosure – well here is your chance to tag along and watch the video that I shoot with my RCA Small Wonder camera. (turn up the volume and hit PLAY)

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:52 PM | Permalink

Check the huge lot on this Southfield foreclosure. More wisdom from John on the finer points of rehabbing houses.

Turn up the volume on your computer and hit PLAY!

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 12:07 AM | Permalink

I took 24 of my Ijlal Inner Circle members on a Michigan foreclosure bus tour today. Got on a bus early in the morning and saw 6 Michigan foreclosures – 2 in Southfield, 3 in Redford and 1 in Garden City. It was awesome fun. I shoot some videos on my RCA Small Wonder with John McAuliffe, my property inspector guy explaining the nuts and bolts of looking at Michigan foreclosures from the eyes of an investor.

Turn up the volume on your computer and hit PLAY!

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 09:42 PM | Permalink