Take My Copper.....Please

REO properties are a dime a dozen. They are popping up around every corner and in every neighborhood, good and bad. What seems to be the latest fad, unfortunately, is the downfall of the mortgage industry's exotic loans, adjustable ARMS and plain ol' folks who just wanted to get into a house that they could call "their own".
Over the course of the last year, I have developed a niche for REO's and investor specials. I work hard at seeing the potential of ugly houses and often find myself pointing out the possibilit of such great finds to my clients. I took my Client to see such a home last weekend, only to discover that all of the copper piping had been stripped. The pic to the right is the underneath view from the basement. The 2 holes are where the copper had run up to the baseboard heater. The other pic is of the holes in the wall that the thieves punched to get to the copper. What a job- wonder how long it took them to do this anyway? It was a neat job, with the exception of the holes in the wall. We even found a neat hole in the glass of a side window that was punched in to unlock it and crawl through. What seemed like it could have been a great find initially, ended up to be an "ok" find. It's still a house with great potential, you just need a bigger budget to replace the plumbing. I have spoken with plumbers and HVAC professionals who have shown me the way of PEX. With copper running a couple dollars a foot, PEX is a great alernative to copper. It is a flexible tubing, used for plumbing needs is a cost efficient replacement for copper pipes. PEX 's flexibility and strength at temperatures ranging from below freezing up to 200 degrees Fahrenheit makes it an ideal piping material for hot and cold water plumbing systems, service lines, hydronic radiant heating systems, snow melting applications etc. Wonder if there will ever be a run for stolen PEX tubing in the future? Still have copper pipes in the house? Be careful, those theives are probably eyeballing it right now. Someone once told me to paint the copper pipes every twelve inches or so, theives don't want it as much as unpainted copper. It's worth a try..............