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 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.
