Contractor Specializing in Apartment Renovations
Hello BP multi family members,
I am exploring the idea of of a new contracting business focused on the multi family market and want to gauge interest from the people like myself who own multi family property. I have been a contractor working with house flippers and home renovations but am needing to change directions since my last major job has completed. Please comment and provide ideas as I think this could solve a lot of issues for apartment owners. Scale and commitment from owners is key for this model to work.
The idea is pretty simple, build a contracting business that specializes in turning apartment units and performing small capital improvement projects. Prices would be fixed for various activities and would be available on a sort of "menu." You would have one contractor to go to for all your renovation needs and you would eliminate the hassle of surprise labor charges, delays because your preferred vendor is building a house and has you at the bottom of their priorities, and eliminate the process of getting quotes for work to be completed.
An idea of how this work would be an owner/manager could go online to order new flooring, painting, a window replaced, new toilet, or a light fixture exchange. They would indicate the desired range of dates for the work to be completed and provide the unit number and building for work to be completed along with an estimate for the floor square footage for the proposed work area(how most of the work is calculated off the "menu." You would even select the paint color, type of flooring, and other material from our list of standard options.
After providing confirmation for the scheduled work date we simply show up, you let us in, we perform the work, take photos to go along with our electronic report, and bill back the material and labor charge per the guidelines of the "menu" you ordered from.
In my experience of owning and managing my 23 and soon to be 31 units, I need work completed in 3 ways.
1. Scheduled work: this is for capital improvement type projects. I am planning 2 weeks to 36 months in advance for flooring replacements, patio doors, water heaters, kitchen/bath renovations, painting, or light fixture changes. Some things come to my attention from tenants that need to be replaced on the shorter timeline but are not emergencies so I tell them typically 2 weeks for that type of work. But most things I can plan months in advance and can stay within my planned budgets for maintenance/capX.
2. Apartment turns: Sometimes I know in advance, but generally only have a 30 to 60 day notice of this type of work. When the apartment comes available I try to get in and get out within days or a week so my next tenant can move in and I dont experience much loss of lease. This work is typically based on my expectations of the condition/damage performed by a tenant. I always try to get into a unit in advance of their move out so I can better estimate the amount of work that needs to be completed. Paint, sometimes flooring, and a good cleaning are usually the items needed during these events.
3. Emergency work: this is where we have a furnace or water heater or other problem that needs to be handled within 8 to 24 hours. This is 98% of the time specialized labor, but there are a number of options available and I have reliable contractors for this work.
The contracting business would focus on providing services for #1 and #2. We wont be doing designer kitchens, individuals residential bathroom remodel or building new construction. We will focus only on providing services for the multi family rental market.
We will contact apartment owners/managers to see if they are interested and if so walk them through the "menu" to be sure they understand our pricing, and provide a sample pack including material cuts and photos of our standard material offerings to see if they have any objections requiring special circumstances.
By eliminating the process of quoting each job and standardizing material we can cut costs in a number of different ways that will allow us to win on price while still paying employees a very competitive wage to keep good labor working for you. There are other unique ways we will be working with labor and the business model to provide an efficient set of systems but thats not necessary to talk about right now.
Please let me know your thoughts, objections, or recommendations. I will be focusing this in my market of Northwest Indiana to South Bend. However, I believe that if set up with the right systems processes, and pricing this could be a business easily scaled to other markets.
Thank you in advance!
Joel