The Frankenstein House? Check Out This Monstrosity We Bought in Umatilla, FL (VIDEO)

Hey, it’s Matt with My Florida Home Buyers. And today I’m standing outside a monstrosity of a house that we just purchased right here in Umatilla. It’s going to be a pretty good video. This is a very, very strange house. I’ll show you what I mean.

So the reason this house is so strange, and I use the term house loosely here. There was a house here originally on this lot, and then there was a duplex down here. Evidently somewhere along the line, somebody bought both lots and connected the duplex to the house by way of this middle piece here, which is currently being used as a bedroom-slash-living room.

So what we have here is a duplex connected to a house with another portion in the middle that’s like a big living room. So I’m not sure exactly what the game plan on this one will be. I think what we’re going to try to do is turn the house into one unit, turn the center part into one unit, and then turn the duplex back into a duplex. So we’ll have 1, 2, 3, and 4 units.

So we’ll see how that goes. That’s the plan right now, but it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to actually get plumbing and stuff like that into this center portion, which doesn’t have a kitchen or a bathroom or anything like that.

So I guess I’ll walk you around the outside first. It’s like a football field long down to that side. So I’ll walk you around back, and I’ll show you the backyard. And then we’ll go through and walk the full length into the house, the middle part, and then both of the units of the duplex. So let’s take a look.

I’m kind of sheltered behind this tree here because there’s a lot of wind and I don’t want the audio to be too distorted. But I walked down the other end here. And you can see I was down there. So there’s the house, here’s the middle section that’s connected to the house. And then this is the duplex down this, and here.

So the duplex is block with a flat roof. The middle section is wood frame. The house is block, and the house and this middle section and share the same trust roof. So yeah, super interesting. And a lot, a lot of doors and windows to replace. And I don’t know if you’ve seen the price of doors and windows lately, but it’s not going to be cheap.

The Backyard

So let me take you around here to the backyard. There is quite a bit of trash that the seller left behind. So you get to see all kinds of interesting junk. Here’s the back, here. Now, this is the back of the duplex. And then the center portion has this screen porch, and then there’s the house down there. And then we’ve also got a storage shed here.

Oh, and then another storage shed over here. And this one actually looks like a tree. I think that’s what the seller told me, was that a tree actually fell and hit it. Tore it up pretty well. So you can see all that right there. So I don’t know if that can be fixed or not, probably can. I don’t know if we want to put the effort into it.

And then there’s this pretty cool little carport here that I actually might try to figure out how to take apart and take to my property, to my house so that I can store some equipment under it. So we’ll see. I don’t know how hard they are to take apart and transport. I’m assuming I can just kind of unscrew it and throw the pieces on a flatbed trailer.

Also, something I thought was funny. They have all these old, I guess they’re like fair signs. So we’ve got pumpkin chunking, dark pop, dunk tank. So they must have done something with … Oh, do you guys hear that? Somebody’s shooting a gun, a machine gun is what it sounds like. We’re out in Umatilla. It’s just pretty normal.

So this, this is the screen porch here. That’s on the back of the midsection of the house. And then as we come down to here, here’s the back of the actual house-house. And you can see this one, this is kind of weird too. That door is like a Hobbit door. I have to duck to go through it, and it’s like four feet wide. So I don’t know why they did that. And then there’s also this flat section on the back with this little overhang piece. And then we’ve got the water heater outside here.

This house is, this needs a lot of work. This one’s, this house has got issues. So one of the issues we have, I had to board this shed up because we had had some sort of vagrant, homeless person, somebody, squatter, who decided they were going to just try to live in there. And the house had only been, the seller moved out about a week ago and we’ve already got a guy trying to move into the shed. It never ends.

So another thing to point out back here, I think the last thing of interest to anybody, would be this big raised septic tank here. That’s what that is, that hill there. And so the biggest thing with that, is the question is, is it going to be big enough to be used for four units if we turn this thing into a quad-plex? So we’ll see. I don’t know. I haven’t really inspected it. Supposedly it was redone several years ago and it’s adequately sized for a property of this size. So we’ll see. But that could be a potential issue down the road.

And this property’s also on a well. So I briefly called the health department and asked, what do we have to do with a well with a multifamily property? And basically, there are a lot of requirements. It has to be tested regularly and all that. So we’ll see how that works out with these units here.

The well pump is actually in this little fake well thing here. So that’s kind of funny. But yeah, let’s go ahead and take a look inside and I’ll walk you through the full length of this monstrosity of a house.

Inside the Frankenstein House

All right. So I’m walking inside the house here. Now, this is the house, house section. So we’re starting at one end and we’ll work our way to the other end. And I’m hoping, the other day when I came in here, the fleas were just unbelievable. So I’m hoping they’re a little better today, but I’m not hopeful because I’m already getting bit.

I’ve never seen so many fleas in a house before. I chucked 12 bug bombs in here, all the way along from one end to the other. And seems like it hits helped, but I’m still getting bit. So if I start dancing around and reaching down and scratching, you know why.

So this is the, I guess, living room of the house portion of this property. So it’s not in really great shape. The floor is just concrete. Actually, the interior walls here are block. But they’re not the big eight-inch block. There’s some other smaller type of block that they would’ve used back in the 1960s, whenever this thing was built. But it’ll make it hard for tenants to punch a hole in the wall, the least.

And you can see there’s the kitchen. The kitchen is, it’s seen better days. I feel like I say that a lot, but it has. So that’ll get all redone. Walking back here, this is some sort of porch or add-on piece. Because the ceiling starts to get really low. Over here, my head is almost touching. And then we’ve got … Don’t mind me, I’m kicking around all the bug bombs I left in here.

Some sort of foam, I guess maybe they were trying to insulate this? I have no idea. And then there’s another porch over here. This is kind of behind the kitchen. And so here’s the kitchen window here. So I’m thinking this may have once been the outside of the house. So this is that little back porch area, where I said about the Hobbit door. This thing is literally, I don’t even know what … I’m taller than the door, so the door is probably, I mean, it can’t be any more than 5′10″ tall. And it’s probably 40 inches wide.

So I have no idea. Another bug bomb. I have no idea why. Maybe they couldn’t fit a bigger one because of the low roof, I don’t know.

This is another window here that I think was part of the original house. And I guess they blocked this in to put in this bathroom, which is on this other side. Shut that door.

Oh, the fleas are terrible. So there’s a bathroom over here. So this is on the other side. And that is the other side of that window.

I don’t know if you can see this or not. This is like deck board, composite PVC like you would use to put on a deck. So we’re off to a good start. And then it looks like, from the looks of it, the water, the well water here is pretty terrible. Because I mean, look at the floor.

So that could be an issue. Yeah. Other than that, just a little bathroom here. Now when you come out here, you really appreciate the craftsmanship that went into putting this bathroom in. You can tell from the drywall to the drywall meeting right up with the casing here, you can tell this was a professional job. And the way we’ve got the thermostat mounted here, and that’s another block wall. And then we’ve got the panel box here, just kind of sitting there.

It was an effort. Not a very good one, but it was an effort. So this, this I guess is a bedroom. There’s a closet with a bare block wall. And then we’ve got just kind of a narrow little bedroom here. With a built-in bookcase. And I’m betting this was probably a window that they blocked in when they added that middle section that connected this house with the duplex down at the other end. So that’s probably what that is.

All right, let’s see. This is this weird hallway thing. We’ve got another, I don’t know. Somebody tried to rip the paneling off and then changed their mind over here. This house is just full of surprises. So over here, we’ve got a bedroom, lots of sweet seventies paneling on the walls, and another closet with just bare blocks. So at least they’re consistent.

And then just some other junk in here. I don’t really see anything interesting. Some bags of trash and some old mattresses and stuff we’re going to have to get rid of. Let me take you back here. Now, this is the room that kind of connects … Let me switch hands here, my arm is getting really tired. Okay, so this is a room that kind of connects, it was a bedroom I guess originally. But over here, that’s the entrance to the middle section of the house. So this is how you get from one to the other.

Now there’s no power on right now, but I wanted to show you this place. There’s an air handler in here on that side. There’s another air handler over here on that side. And we’ve got all this nature-type, reminds me of a Field & Stream catalog. All this stuff on the paneling, we’ve got deer and fish and ducks. So pretty interesting.

No windows in this room, though. So can’t be used as a bedroom, I don’t believe, because there’s no way to get out If it catches on fire. I don’t know the exact rules on that, but I feel like we’re going to have a problem there.

The Middle Section of the House

This is now the middle part of the house. So this is the part that was added on to connect the duplex of the house. So right now they’ve got this thing framed up so that this was the master bedroom, I believe. So it was, it looked like it was just a big open, kind of like a rec room. And then they, here, I’ll show you. They kind of framed in. So this is like a big open area, and then they put in this wall and put in this enclosed spot here for a bedroom, I guess.

So we’ll walk down here and show you the other part of this. So that’s the bedroom there. So they kind of just framed up a box in the middle of the room and put the bedroom in there. So you’ve got a hallway over here and a door to get to the outside over there. And then otherwise, this whole area is just kind of like a big open living room

And the duplex is here. So that’s how you get to the duplex. And the fleas are just tearing me up. Whew. I’m going to walk out here on the porch, maybe I can get rid of them for a second, get some relief. So this is the inside of that screened porch you saw when we were out in the backyard. So nice little screened porch here. If this was made into its own unit, this unit would have this entire screened porch to itself, I guess.

But nothing really interesting out there. And the fleas are biting me out there too because they’re also out there. I may have to actually pause the video and come back because they are killer. Oh. Okay, let’s see if we can power through and get to this duplex.

The Duplex

So it gets nasty over here. So you come in from the piece that attaches the two, the house and the duplex. This is a bedroom of the duplex here. Real disgusting, dirty carpet on the floors. Real nasty, and not in great shape. And then this would be, as I’m walking into here, this is, I guess, the living room part of the duplex. So you would come in the front door there. They’ve got this set up as the kitchen.

You’ve got that room which I just came through, and then another bedroom here. And then there is this, oh, another bug bomb. I’m just going to be kicking them over the entire time I guess. That’s the door that goes to the backyard. And there’s a water heater. I feel like this could be used a little better. Because right now it’s just kind of like a big closet with a water heater in it. So we’ll see.

And then the roof is this wood up here. So it’s a flat roof on top. So there’s probably not much insulation in between there. And then this must have been blocked off on the duplex. And on the other side is that big rec room. So it looks like they tried to do some flooring in here. I see a chisel, and some knee pads. So they started on that, but I guess gave. Up because it’s hard when you use a chisel like that.

This whole side, I don’t think has central A/C. Because I’m seeing a lot of window units over here. So I don’t think that ductwork actually comes over here.

Now this, that’s the other side of the duplex with this door in between. And this is the bathroom. We’ve got more quality install work here. I’ll show you what I mean. So we’ve got this here. I guess this is that MDF, it’s coated with tile-type stuff, that cheap junk that never lasts. So they’ve kind of got that framed up there. And they almost had it, or maybe they had put it together and then it leaked and they pulled it apart. I have no idea.

And from what I can gather from looking at this, this other side of the duplex doesn’t have a bathroom. So what I’m thinking is, and there are two doors here. So let me show you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking there was a wall in between here to separate both sides of the duplex. And I’m thinking this was actually two bathrooms at one point. Because it’s kind of big. I mean, this bathroom is as big as one of the bedrooms in this duplex. So it doesn’t make any sense that they would’ve built it this big. So I’m thinking it was probably opened up into one big bedroom in an effort to make this duplex into one large living unit.

So this is the other side of the duplex. And you can see, it looks like renovations were underway over here and they stopped for whatever reason. Probably didn’t realize how hard it is. And we do have some newer electrical work, it looks like. And there’s another bedroom over here. So this one probably had two bedrooms as well. I’m thinking that was probably a bedroom, and they probably opened it up. And here’s the other bedroom.

And then we’ve got a door to go to the outside that looks like it was recently replaced, but you can see all the light kind of coming through there, no spray foam or anything. And I don’t know, maybe this was the … Actually this door, this may be the old Hobbit door. Because, look, it’s just as short as the other one. So that was the original Hobbit door.

So, cool. All right. Well, let me, let me get out of this house because, oh, I think I’ve lost about a pint of blood since I’ve been walking through here. So I’m going to get outside, pick these fleas off of me, and get this video wrapped up. So see you in just a minute.

The Seller Needed a Cash Offer and a Fast Sale

All right. I think I outrun the fleas and I’ve got them all off of me. It’ll still feel like they’re biting me for the rest of the day. So that’s nice. But I basically just wanted to talk a little bit about how we ended up buying this house, where we ended up finding the seller, how he found us, and how it all kind of played out.

So basically he just, he called us off the website or submitted this information on the website. Piqued my interest right away because he said, “Oh yeah, it’s a house with a duplex that’s connected.” And I was like, oh, I got to see this.

So I came out here. And not to mention I grew up in Umatilla, so anything in Umatilla, I instantly am more interested in it. So I came out and took a look at it. At the time he was, I believe he was trying to convert the duplex, the house, and the piece in the middle all into one large house. This is funny because we’re probably going to reverse everything that he did and change it back into four units.

But I think that’s what he was trying to do. He had, it was him and his family. A mother-in-law, some extended family, and stuff like that living here. And basically, they wanted to move out of here, but they needed to buy a house first in order to move. And they also had some debt that they needed to pay off.

So what we ended up doing was, we obviously bought it as-is. Even if he listed with a real estate agent, he’d need a cash buyer for this monstrosity of a property here. Nobody’s getting financing on this. So he needed a cash buyer and he knew that. He knew the house needed work. So he decided to cut out the middle man, just go right to the cash home buyer. And that’s why he contacted us. So he needed to find a house to move into, though.

And right now in Florida, that’s, or nationwide, that’s really hard to do. Properties go just like that. So what we ended up doing was, we released some of the proceeds at closing, just enough for him to pay off all of his debt. So he had some car loans, stuff like that. So he paid off everything so he didn’t have the creditors breathing down his back anymore. He’s done with that.

And then he used, we held the remainder of the money. He went out and found a house that he was interested in buying. He got a loan. And basically, when he was ready to close, we released the rest of the money so that he could use that for the down payment and stuff like that. So he got to move seamlessly into his new house, he didn’t have to make any repairs to this house. And yeah, he made out pretty well.

And now we’ve got a huge, huge project on our hands here. Huge for us. We normally do smaller stuff. But it’s nothing we can’t handle, and it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out. So that’s kind of how it worked out. I think he stayed here for six months or so after closing while he was looking for a house. And that’s the cool thing about selling to us, right? You have that flexibility that you don’t get if you’re selling with a real estate agent.

Because they want you out, and they want the new person in usually. And it’s hard to time that stuff in a way that makes it easy for you. So if you have a house to sell, or a building like this, a loosely-defined house, anything really real estate related in-central Florida, especially in Lake County. As I said, I grew up in Umatilla, so we’re always looking for stuff in Lake County. But really, anywhere in central Florida.

We Buy Houses in Umatilla and the Rest of Central Florida

We go all the way down to Orlando. We just bought one in St. Cloud a month or so ago. So we really go all over central Florida. And we’re happy to come out, take a look at it. Make you a cash offer on it, and at least give you another option if you’re thinking about selling. So if that’s something that interests you, just a cash, as-is, fast sale, maybe you want to stay in the property after the sale while you look for the next house, anything like that. Give us a call, go on the website, myfloridahomebuyers.com.

Just submit your property information. Just tell us the situation, and what you’ve got, and we’ll see if it’s something that we can help you out with. And chances are we can. So yeah, myfloridahomebuyers.com. Just get in touch with us there and we’ll get the ball rolling for you. So again, my name is Matt, I’m with My Florida Home Buyers. Have a great rest of your week, and I’ll see you in the next video.

So I’ve been calling this thing The Frankenstein House, just because it’s all these different pieces put together. If you have a better idea of what I can call this thing, let me know. Leave a comment and we’ll see if we can get something more creative than The Frankenstein House. But if nobody comments, it’s going to be The Frankenstein House forever.