Just want it to be over!!
Since about April I have been dealing with my first eviction/renovation on one of my properties. For background purposes I’m a fairly new real estate investor. I bought my first rental 3 years out of college and then the next 2 about 2 years ago. Most recently I had to evict a tenant who inherited with a purchase because I caught her stealing water and electric. She denied it and stopped paying rent. FFWD to July I’m able to get her trifling a$$ out the house and assess the damages. My god were there ever so many damages. Not only damages due to the prior slumlord who owned the place, but damages from the tenant purposeful, her low hygienic upkeep. So you all can imagine what I’ve been dealing with and yes there was a serious cockroach infestation.
So anyway I had/have full fledge renovation on my hands. So I call around to everyone I know and could find to get quotes. Now I’m quite handy. I can do just about anything I put my mind to, but a full renovation was not something I had ever did nor wanted to do. I figured I would do some stuff and pay a contractor to do any major work I wasn’t familiar with, and that I thought shouldn't be done by a jack of all trades. Well that didn’t happen. 80% of the contractors didn’t call me back. The other 20% took their time and when the did show up they tried to rip me off. So as a finance professional by day I know that time is money, and I had no time to continue losing money.
So of course I started the clean out demo process myself. What a MISTAKE! Now mind you all I only have the weekends to work and I’m normally doing all the work myself. Sometimes a friend will pop in and give me a hand or like for the cleanout I was able to hire some cheap labor (I had refused to handle some of the tenants furniture). As I completed the cleanout/demo phase I realized I still did not havea contractor and decided well if no one wants my money, I’ll just do the sh1t myself. What a MISTAKE!
The list of crap to be done is/was insurmountable for 1 handyman alone with only having time on the weekends to work. However, I took on the project anyway. I’ve always done things myself when they needed to be done and I guess I thought this was no different. Here I am 4 months later and ~$4k in I’ still not finished. Don’t get me wrong, the house has came a looooooong way since I began but it’s still not done. The budget is getting tighter and the weather is getting colder here in the Philadelphia area. As I progress in the property I understand more and more why some owners become jack legs or slum lords. The time, cost, materials, labor, and the issues just become overwhelming at times and you just get to the point of I just want it done. I dont care what it looks like as long as its functional it’s fine. I started out with a vision for this property but slowly dropped a lot of those ideas for budget purposes or just because I don’t care anymore. My main focus is only to get it to standard living condition to pass inspection by any means necessary. I just want it to be OVER!
My apologies for any grammatical errors above. I opted making correction.
I wish I could post pictures as well.