In this video Christian Osgood walks viewers through the complete process of buying a failing motel in downtown Moses Lake, Washington, and converting it into a hyper‑affordable multifamily housing complex that rents for under $1,000 per unit. He explains the initial condition of the property (drug dealers, roof leaks, squatters), the vision of providing community housing, and the “highest and best use” rationale. Osgood details the renovation work: new roof, repaint, window replacements, gutting 15 of 30 units, installing kitchenettes (burners, sink, mini‑fridge, extra fridge), handling brick walls with conduit, basic hotel‑style bathrooms, and repurposing the pool into a community garden. He shares the financials – purchase price $1.6 M, financing $1.85 M, renovation overruns to about $300 k for a total outlay of $1.9 M, an appraisal at $2.65 M on the near‑finished project, and an expected final value north of $3 M, yielding roughly $1 M equity and a 7‑figure profit. The timeline spanned about 14 months and included setbacks such as a two‑year squatter, a hot‑water‑line burst that flooded a unit, damaged appliances, and decisions around insurance claims. Osgood emphasizes that despite these challenges the project turned a “dumpster fire” into a profitable, community‑benefiting asset and that the model can be replicated by others.
Chapters
Welcome to my hotel, or is it? This is our multifamily building. We actually bought this as a failing motel. There were drug dealers, a failed roof, leaks, bugs, the whole nine yards. This place was terrible when we bought it. So before you start calling me a slumlord, this is part of our hyper affordable housing. We charge less than $1,000 rent, which in Washington State is insane. We did floors, walls, ceilings, windows, and most importantly, we added kitchenettes. Now these only cost a few thousand dollars. You can get these from Lowe's or Home Depot., but we were able to get these bad boys installed. The only thing I wish we didn't have to do, there's brick walls. So behind this drywall is brick. We had to run conduit to add the outlets to put this in. So yeah, you guys want to ding me, this could look better. However, you got burners, sink, mini fridge, storage. We feel like we want people to have more fridge space than just this tiny little fridge. So we added an additional one. So now you have a ton of space for all of your groceries. Bathrooms, we kept pretty simple. If you look at it, it still kind of looks like a hotel bathroom, but follow me here. You have a simple layout. This is basic, this is hyper affordable housing, but this is a city that needs the housing on a building that was completely failed. What you're looking for with real estate, in my opinion, if you want to do something good for your community, you're looking for highest and best use. What is the best use for this property on a great street, excellent location, middle of Moses Lake, almost the heart of downtown? Let's get people a place to live. That's what we worked on here. Now, this unit actually used to have a squatter in it for a significant amount of time. Someone was living here for, I think, 2 years. This whole thing was a disaster. We turned a dumpster fire into a profitable building. Anyone can do the same thing. I'll share the numbers with you a little bit later outside. So let's talk actual numbers. So the purchase price was $1.6 million for this hotel. We did a brand new roof on the entire thing. We changed the paint color from like a horrible gray and red to beige, blue, and white. We replaced a bunch of the windows. We renovated 15 of the 30 units, completely gutted them, redid them. We replaced a bulk of the plumbing, a ton of the electric. We converted the manager suite. We filled the pool behind me. Oh, we're going to turn that into community garden. It's almost done. We bought for $1.6 million. We got financing for $1,850,000. So we start with a quarter million dollar budget. Total reno, we had a couple of surprises along the way. Total reno cost went a little over budget. We went to about $300,000. So our all in is $1.9 million. Appraisal came through and we're almost done with the project. So our appraisal on the almost finished project came in at $2.65 million, which means we're in a very, very, very good position on this. Now, when we finish out the entire project and get it all leased, we should be a little north of $3 million, which means we'll have over $1 million of equity in the project. This is a 7-figure flip. This project took about 14 months to go full cycle. So if you're flipping houses, this is not a quick flip. This was a project that had a lot of ups and downs, a few bonus snags, one small flood, but we got through it almost in budget. We will make about $1 million total on the project. All right guys, this unit is a huge bummer. This is a 2-bed unit. We designed this. This used to be part of the old office. Then they converted part of it to a manager suite. The old owner actually used to live in this unit, crazy enough. But I'm in bedroom number 2. If you're wondering why there's no flooring and there's damaged walls and the whole place just kind of looks like garbage, we had a hot water line burst. So not only did we have a brand new kitchen, brand new flooring, we reframed everything, painted. We're on the home stretch. I think we needed to finish the bathroom. That was it. We now have had to rip out the whole wall, restart the kitchen. The appliances are all dead and fried. The ceiling needs to be redone because all that steam came up and killed it. This ends up being one of the most expensive things to happen to me. It's right at that threshold where you don't really want to do the insurance claim. It's usually better to write the check than to get your insurance all jacked. Thanks a lot, Washington State. But right now, this is what we have. So back to the drawing board. We're going to do one of my favorite projects a second time.
