Have You Renovated a Fire Damage Home - What am I'm overlooking?

Question

I'm considering buying a fire-damaged home and fixing it for a Buy and Hold property. 3-bed room 1 bath.

What are your thoughts on the below? What am I'm overlooking?  What can I expect in terms of the fix?

The exterior is brick and still standing. The realtor mentioned that it was set by some homeless people and maybe contained to a one-room, etc.

To be sure of the damage, I'm going to get a walk-through of the property by a local Fire restoration company and my contractor. I hope they'll provide some insight.

Kathy Johnson · Answer

The fire itself may have been contained to one room, but you will need to look at the ductwork and smoke damage in other areas of the house.  Sometimes the fire department will open holes in other areas to make sure there is no fire going into the walls or ceilings so besides the actual damage from the fire, there may be damage from the fire fighting activities.

Artem Lopatchenko · Answer

Account Closed did you end up going after the deal?

Whenever you have fire damage there is also smoke and water damage to deal with.  While the smoke damage can be a simple fix, it can also require pulling insulation, doing mitigation, and replacing drywall (and unfortunately it's tough to tell until the remediation starts) even in rooms that were not impacted by the fire.  Also be careful with flooring, especially if it's LVP, LVP is great in preventing water from traveling in both directions, so once water manages to get under the planks they need to all come up.

You'll probably need to replace the HVAC ducts and get your HVAC system cleaned to get rid of the odor as well.  Also be sure to check with the fire department on what permits you may need to obtain the certificate of occupancy again.

I had one of my rentals get fire damaged on Apr 8th and I'm still awaiting to even start the reconstruction process, be sure to factor in the crazy long lead time due to construction industry being absolutely... fire hot... right now.

Account Closed · Answer

@Kathy Johnsonundefined Good point. It's so much I don't know. I'm going to have my guys put their eyes on it and I'll pay for the consultation from the fire restro guys..

We'll see.