WNY Handyman

We will be starting a new project in about two weeks.  It is a home located in a great neighborhood within the Village of Lancaster. The location is fantastic, the house…. not so much.   When buying a home to fix, that is what you want… The worst house on the best street.

This home is located in the Village of Lancaster (off Broadway) and is on a street that includes a mix of home styles.  There are even a number of older 2 family homes.  Our property was built in 1889 and that will have some challenges.  There will be some interesting issues to address with a home that was built in 1889. The oldest property that I have worked on was about 1920.

This was a 2 family home until the prior owner got tired of tenants above him and closed off the upper unit. He pulled the kitchen and had it reassessed as a single family home.  We are going to do a full conversion to a single family.  This will provide some challenges, but I think we will be able to pull off a modern floor plan with some big changes.  We are going to combine the current kitchen with a lower bedroom to provide a modern “open” design.  After the redesign, we will end up with a 4BR (3up, 1 down), 2 Bathroom home with a modern eat in kitchen.  There are 8 1/2′ ceilings on the first floor and this will compliment the open design.

Home renovation plan

There are a NUMBER of large issues with this renovation, not the least of which is the foundation work that is needed.  This will be a big project, but I feel that we will be working with a great contractor who can get things done quickly and properly.  They worked on our office renovation and we couldn’t have been more pleased with the work that was done there.  They have a motto “We Show up, Finish Up, Clean Up and Don’t Screw Up”

There are a couple of major repairs needed before we can even get started making this property look nice.  There is foundation work required and roof work required. There is water leaking now and that needs to be addressed right away.  The foundation is a rubble style foundation and needs to be shored up prior to any major work.

Check back for more as we get into this project.  We’ll include some pictures and video as we go along.

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Just received another Overstock.com coupon code in the mail today. As always, I am happy to share:

7% off at Overstock.com

Promo code 142382

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10% off on appliances at Home Depot through 6/17/09. Check their site. I love these promotions.

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I know this is a small gripe, but I receive a weekly email from Home Depot when their local ad comes out. I am forced to enter my zip code each and every time. I know this sounds like a small, silly gripe, but I am a programmer and I understand how easy it is to ‘remember’ a user. Home Depot, won’t you please employ some programming to handle this.

Silly, I know, but they are stealing an extra 5 seconds from me each week (the time to mouse over to the flash form and enter my zip code). Let’s assume this goes to 100,000 people who all need to enter their zip code. Average entry of 6 seconds (I am giving myself credit for typing fast and counting mine as 5). If you count the productivity loss of the 100,000 users who had to enter their zip code, you are losing 166 man hours per week or 8,666 man hours per year.

Crazy, I know, but as a programmer, these are the little things that add up to make a difference. Come on HomeDepot.com fix this.

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Put yourself in the situation of a bank / lender. You have a piece of property in the City of Buffalo. It was purchased in 1991 for $39,900. You have a mortgage note of $57,378 on it and have foreclosed. The property has a present value of $12,000. If this wasn’t backed by HUD, making the lender whole, would you want to take this in?

The ratio of the property value to the mortgage obtained on the property is not unique to this home. I picked this at random and it was the first property that I selected to run the numbers. The numbers are very typical of inner city properties. This one is a bit unique since the home was purchased more than 15 years ago. You will find many more instances where the property was purchased within the past 5-7 years.

In this case, the note is $57,378. “How did it get that high?”, you might ask. Lenders were all too willing to lend when money was easy. The banks and mortgage companies were marketing heavily and appraisal companies would generally comply with the “value” a property needed to reach in order to justify the loan. How much business do you think a lender would send your way if you appraisals didn’t justify their valuations? If valuations weren’t justified, money wasn’t lent. If money wasn’t lent, fees weren’t earned. Get it?

The New York Times just did a story regarding situations where the banks are giving up on properties. It is a tough market and economy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/us/30walkaway.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=business

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