A Success Story in Selling Property to the State

In 2009, my wife and I purchased a single family residence, 1550 sf home in foreclosure from the bank for $45,000. The realtor provided full disclosure that a new road was coming through and would impact the property in some way. After purchase, we sent 2 months re-habbing the property spending $15,000 for new paint, flooring, cabinet upgrade, appliances, etc. We then got a renter in the home with a rent of $825 a month.
A few months ago, we were contacted by the state telling us that our property was needed for right of way for a new road. They were going to take about 1/3 of our property and all of the house. We just got the appraisal back a couple of weeks ago, and the house appraised for $113,000 (tax value of the home is $95,000). We will be closing the sale of the property to the state in a few weeks. The state is also paying us up to $10,000 in monies upon receipt for repairs to our new rental property.
When the property is sold and the repairs are done on our new purchase, we will make a profit of $63,000. In addition, we had a positive cash flow (after taxes and insurance) of $715 a month for 30 months (a grand total of rental profit of $21,450).
The lesson we learned is to not shy away from purchasing a property because of future road construction. What might seem to be a nightmare could be sweet dreams. Thanks for listening.- Lora Lee Properties