It's a New Month

I guess if it's August first, it's a whole new month and thus whole new opportunity for the multi units.

Lesson learned -

• If the plan ain't working - change it.

Plan one was to simultaneously fix the safety items and begin a studs-out renovation on one side of the high-end duplex.  Historic building, exterior is beautiful, should be a $700-800 per side property when done.

The reality -  my usual guys can only work on one job at a time. Tornadoes, floods, mammoth hail, apocalyptic weather immediately preceding the purchase made the availability of new contractors problematic - they're scarce as hen's teeth right now.  Plus, all that nasty safety issue stuff is adding up and the $$ are flying out the door.

New plan - Fix all the safety stuff including foundation repairs to 1920's frame duplex, update and re-install safely the power lines to up/down garage apartments, fix two major gas leaks, new roof and fascia on historic duplex, re-build chimneys on single family where one chimney was literally falling off the house.  Pull crew off major reno long enough to do a minor reno in a different unit and get some more revenue coming in.  The fancy duplex isn't going anywhere and if I'm going to keep spending money like a politician, I'd better make some too.

Plan Two was more marketing oriented; brand the new company, get business cards, signs, web page, blog page, create client base, etc.

The reality - I must have been smoking something at one of these new vapor bars that are popping up everywhere.  Business cards, yes.  Signs, just got 'em, yes.  Web page... pardon me while I laugh myself sick over the idea that I could read a book, buy hosting services with a template and build my own professional web page...

New plan - hire a web page designer, found a guy that will host as well as provide one hour of professional services a month for updating the page when pictures and information changes.  Now I just have to go take pictures, send him image files and create text for the web site.

On the bright side, nothing I've seen yet changes my expectation of this being a highly profitable long term project.