Would a contractor come along for a walkthrough of a property?

[Vitaliy Gnezdilov]

My wife and I have been looking for SFH for over a year now and have passed up a few simply because we're inexperienced in estimating remodels.

I have made a conscious decision to get better at this, but wanted to know if contractors ever join potential buyers on a walkthrough of the property?

Is this something that they do? And how much might we pay for an hour of their expertise?

[Stephen Keighery]

@Vitaliy Gnezdilov yes for sure but you are generally going to need to pay them for their time.

[Vitaliy Gnezdilov]

Quote from @Stephen Keighery:

@Vitaliy Gnezdilov yes for sure but you are generally going to need to pay them for their time.

Of course. And happy to do so as going through the property with them will help me evaluate and estimate. It’s a worthwhile investment. 

How would one schedule a walkthrough with a GC? How much heads up do they need? Is there a specific service to look for when evaluating GC’s?

Or do I just call/ask around and invite one who feels right and go from there?

Thanks for your response

[Eliott Elias]

Yes they do, the good ones want to get compensated for it. 

[Bruce Woodruff]

I would say about $200 for an hour walk-around. Same as you would pay for a lawyer or financial consult....

[Carie Shaun]

This is recommended. And as they say, the time spent should be well compensated. Good luck finding the right contractor. 

[Vitaliy Gnezdilov]

Thanks for your responses everyone. Much appreciated. 

[Adam Tafel]

If not at the showing you can definitely get them inside during the inspection period. We do this all the time and I've never once paid a contractor an hourly fee. Finding a contractor with the time is the tricky part.. you can also get pretty far shooting detailed video and taking measurements. 

[Vitaliy Gnezdilov]

Quote from @Adam Tafel:

If not at the showing you can definitely get them inside during the inspection period. We do this all the time and I've never once paid a contractor an hourly fee. Finding a contractor with the time is the tricky part.. you can also get pretty far shooting detailed video and taking measurements. 

That’s actually a really good callout about the video. That’s a great worst case scenario. Thanks for that tip. Do you generally have a network of contractors you call? We don’t have any in our network that we’ve done work for so I don’t mind paying for their time. But I need to get into a habit of shooting videos. Thank you!

[Mike Hasson]

A good question and I commend your decision to learn how to estimate budgets. It will be invaluable in your investing journey. You'll get better with experience but here's a few suggestions to get you started. 

A) The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs by J Scott. This book break down costs to labor, materials, finishing levels and more. It really is a great start as a baseline for estimating costs.

B) RepairPricer.com - If you have an inspection report, you can upload the report to this website and they will use AI to give price estimates for everything in the report, with impressive accuracy. 

Even if you do hire a contractor, I still recommend to learn as much as you can, as not all contractors are the same, and there are multiple ways to do just about everything. Learning the language and the lingo, and having a solid understanding of EXACTLY what you want to accomplish will help you be successful. 

For example, will your project be fine with off-the-shelf cabinets from home depot, or do you need a custom solution? The custom builder pricing and handyman pricing are going to be wildly different, so when you do call on contractors, just make sure you know what you're asking for, and are comparing apples to apples when price shopping. 

[Vitaliy Gnezdilov]

Quote from @Mike Hasson:

A good question and I commend your decision to learn how to estimate budgets. It will be invaluable in your investing journey. You'll get better with experience but here's a few suggestions to get you started. 

A) The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs by J Scott. This book break down costs to labor, materials, finishing levels and more. It really is a great start as a baseline for estimating costs.

B) RepairPricer.com - If you have an inspection report, you can upload the report to this website and they will use AI to give price estimates for everything in the report, with impressive accuracy. 

Even if you do hire a contractor, I still recommend to learn as much as you can, as not all contractors are the same, and there are multiple ways to do just about everything. Learning the language and the lingo, and having a solid understanding of EXACTLY what you want to accomplish will help you be successful. 

For example, will your project be fine with off-the-shelf cabinets from home depot, or do you need a custom solution? The custom builder pricing and handyman pricing are going to be wildly different, so when you do call on contractors, just make sure you know what you're asking for, and are comparing apples to apples when price shopping. 

A comment worth its weight in gold! Will check these out. Thanks, Mike! Have a great weekend

[Bruce Woodruff]

Quote from @Mike Hasson:

A) The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs by J Scott. This book break down costs to labor, materials, finishing levels and more. It really is a great start as a baseline for estimating costs.

B) RepairPricer.com - If you have an inspection report, you can upload the report to this website and they will use AI to give price estimates for everything in the report, with impressive accuracy. 

I'd be careful with anything other than a quote from a real live Contractor who has seen the house in person. Sure, these tools can give a person some rough idea of costs, but I would never base my decision to buy/not buy on them.....

[Jonathan Klemm]

Hey @Vitaliy Gnezdilov - Sadly we are here in Chicago so can't help you up in Saint Paul, but for your own insight we walk properties all the time for investors.  We offer both a virtual and in-person site walkthrough to help investors get a baseline of construction and renovation costs.  

Different from a lot of other GCs we charge for our walkthroughs and it has been one of the best decisions we made because it really helps vet clients and gets us into alignment.

[Ana Vergara]

Quote from @Vitaliy Gnezdilov:

My wife and I have been looking for SFH for over a year now and have passed up a few simply because we're inexperienced in estimating remodels.

I have made a conscious decision to get better at this, but wanted to know if contractors ever join potential buyers on a walkthrough of the property?

Is this something that they do? And how much might we pay for an hour of their expertise?

We actually did this once on a property we were considering. It actually looked a lot more intimidating than it actually was. So thought this was super helpful. We ended up paying $200. But it was worth it for the peace of mind.  

[Laurel Chauvin]

Absolutely! Especially if you have a good relationship with the contractor.

[Vitaliy Gnezdilov]

Quote from @Ana Vergara:

Quote from @Vitaliy Gnezdilov:

My wife and I have been looking for SFH for over a year now and have passed up a few simply because we're inexperienced in estimating remodels.

I have made a conscious decision to get better at this, but wanted to know if contractors ever join potential buyers on a walkthrough of the property?

Is this something that they do? And how much might we pay for an hour of their expertise?

We actually did this once on a property we were considering. It actually looked a lot more intimidating than it actually was. So thought this was super helpful. We ended up paying $200. But it was worth it for the peace of mind.  

 Awesome. Thanks for sharing your first hand experience, especially so close to home. Glad to hear it wasn't as intimidating. This is the kind of revelation I'm hoping for (or the other way around—want to remove my bias). May I ask where you live in/around Saint Paul? We're in White Bear, but looking in Stillwater.