What is Viray?
VIRAY is a business my wife and I started in honor of my late parents Raymond and Viola Coleman. They lived in south Midland (Texas) all of their lives.
The population in south Midland is mostly made up of minorities, and this part of town has not enjoyed the boom in Midland to the extent the rest of the city has. There are many abandoned and neglected properties on this side of town, and city code enforcement here seems a little lax.
My parents left us some rental property, and we were getting lots of calls from folks looking for properties to rent.
So we got the idea to fix up these rental properties, as well as other neglected properties, and sell them to folks at reasonable and affordable prices.
We have been buying properties that no-one else wants, cleaning and remodelling them, and selling to people who would otherwise never have been able to buy a house. This, we feel, is something my parents would have been proud of.
The new roof was completed late Friday afternoon and it already makes the house look better. There were two layers of old roofing shingles that had to be removed, so the job took a little longer than anticipated.
Most of the soffits and facia had to be replaced, and that was done by the general contractor while the roof was being replaced.
This week the exterior will be prepared for painting. We have decided on white. The exterior bricks are brown and the white will compliment the brown bricks. Also the new window trim will be white.
We got our first electrical bid and the bid was almost as much as we paid for the house. So we are still getting bids on the electrical work. The Midland housing market is still booming and most electrical contractors have more work than they can handle. Which makes it difficult for a relatively small project like ours to get done.
My partner (wife) and I are updating our plans for the interior of the house now that most of the clutter has been removed. We are planning on saving the wood floors. She has convinced me that we can do the work ourselves. The restored wood floors might give the interior the "wow factor" that we want. (I must give credit to A&E, TLC and HGTV for the "wow factor" phrase - we have been watching too many "Flip This (That) House" shows.)
The rear living area of the house also has a concrete floor. We are thinking about just painting the concrete. I have seen quite a few painted concrete floors that were very attractive.
We have never done any of the work ourselves, and this will be an interesting (to say the least!)way to test our skills and save some money.
The work has resumed on our current project. As you might recall, work stopped when the entire crew developed the flu. Then we had spent just over a week correcting things in our South Central Midland house that finally closed on Friday the 29th.
The roof on the house is currently being replaced, and it is expected to take three to four days. While this is being done we are also replacing the trim on the house. The next project will be to replace all the windows in the house - this should take one to two weeks to complete.
We are getting concerned about the electrical work that needs to be done. We still do not have an electrician. Two electricians have looked at the project but we have not received bids from either one, and now they will not return our calls. We have leads on three more electricians who are scheduled to look at the house this week. We know that this is going to be a major job in terms of labor and cost, so we are anxious to find out just how much!
We have accepted our first FHA loan on a home, and I am not sure we knew what we were getting into. The inspection process for an FHA loan is much more comprehensive than for any other loan.
A few minor items showed up on the first inspection of the home, we promptly took care of these. Then a FHA inspector checked out the house. We received four pages of major items that had to be corrected in order for the loan to be approved.
They were all taken care of and ranged from replacing wood planks with small holes in the house to repainting parts of the house.
The house sits on pier and beam and the FHA inspector had concerns about the bracing of the house and insisted that a structural engineer also inspect it. Fortunately for us, this inspection disclosed no problems.
Finally, after a week of additional work we passed out final inspection and we closed on the house on Friday.
FHA loans allow more people to qualify for home loans, but it does mean more work for the seller and additional costs for the buyer.
We do not have a set procedure for picking houses we rehab or even for finding houses to purchase. However, we are becoming smarter in our selection of houses. The first house we purchased had no plumbing. It sat on pier and beam and someone had gotten underneath and stolen the copper pipes. We did not find this out until after we had bought the house. That of course added quite a bit to the cost of remodelling the house. I found this house just driving around looking at houses. We bought it from another rehabber who started the project and ran out of money. We now know why.
Two of the houses we have purchased we learned about by word of mouth, just asking the right person who knew someone that had a house for sale.
I answered an ad in the newspaper about a house for sale and it was owned by someone I went to high school with. We then bought a second house from him, and it is the house we have under contract now.
We have turned down houses when the asking price was too high, and or the repairs were going to be too extensive.
Our current process involves having the realtor, contractor and my wife and I look at the house. The contractor gives us his opinion on the cost of repairs needed, and our realtor tells us what she thinks the house will sell for. All four of us have to agree that it's a good deal. We recently decided that we will also pay an inspector to give us his opinion, so we can avoid surprises like the ones we got on the first house we did.
Work on our current project has been at a standstill for almost two weeks now. Our entire crew has had the flu, as it has affected hundreds of Midlanders recently.
However, we have had the electricty turned on, so when work does resume on Tuesday (Monday is a Holiday), it should move quickly.
We have our South Central Midland home under contract. We received and accepted an offer two weeks ago on this house.
It is being sold to a young couple with kids who have been looking for an affordable house for some time. Our realtor says they insisted on a property with a fenced back yard, which this house offers.
It's a great feeling ing know that we are helping turn apartment renters into home owners.
The house we are currently working on, has an interesting history, according to the original owner. He says the house was built in the early 1960's by Carver Senior High School students as a class project. Apparently it was common practice in those days for schools to give their shop students hands-on experience with projects like building homes. It is not known how many of the other brick homes in that neighborhood were built by the students.
The four bedroom two bath brick house remained as it was built for many years. The second owner added a second living room and bathroom on the back of the house.
Our goal is to keep as many of the original features of the house as possible, while bringing it up to city code.
We hope to have electricity to the house by Friday now that we have our city reconnect permit. The electrician will then be able to see how much damage the vandals had done by stripping the copper wires.
In response to the question about city funding: VIRAY receives no funding or assistance from the City of Midland. We met with one city official about receiving rebates similar to what the city gives new home builders, but the idea never went any further than that initial discussion. There remains a critical shortage of affordable housing in the city.
Today the clean up of the house continued. The crew was able to clean out all four of the bedrooms. It took one trip to the landfill and the dumpster was full again. Monday the clean up on the kitchen and the bathroom starts. The kitchen cabinets are still full of of food items.
We are going to need electricty next week to see how bad the wiring is. So we had an electrician out today . He says he thinks he can get us at least one outlet going temporarily. He will then meet with the city inspector to see what will be required to bring the electrical system up to code.
This house is a four bedroom 3 bath brick structure, with a one car garage. The previous owners left all of their possessions there. The house looks as if they just walked away. The bedrooms are full of clothes that have been infested with rat and dog feces.
The refrigerators are still full of food, but there has not been any electricity to the house in at least six months .
Despite the fact that the house has been boarded up, someone broke in and punched holes in the walls to get to the copper wires. They also managed to walk away with a 4 and and half ton air conditioning unit.
We expect clean up will take up to two weeks. We have already filled two open top dumpsters and have at least three more loads of trash.
