Maybe We Should Just Have a Drink Instead...

I’m in the middle of another rehab. It’s a property an investor partner picked up wholesale as a three- to five-year buy and hold. He plans to sell it after that. We’re managing the rehab, and then we will manage the rental, like we do for him elsewhere here in the Chicago suburbs.

It’s almost a gut rehab, but not quite. We gutted the bathrooms to the studs, but left the rest of the walls alone, for the most part. The home was built around 1951. It’s a brick three bedroom with a kind of split-level layout. It’s got one full bath near the bedrooms, a half-bath in the partial basement, and a nice-sized add-on family room with fireplace, overlooking a very deep yard with mature trees and a really great, though very leaky-roofed gazebo.

We’re doing about a $30,000 rehab on this one, and for the most part it’s gone pretty smoothly. The home had some hardwood features I wanted to keep and accentuate, but the carpeting and vinyl tiles throughout were shot. We put in a really nice Oak style 12 mm laminate flooring I got from Floor & Decor. The contractors did a fantastic job and the place looks great.

And here’s a tip that saved me 25 percent on the flooring: Like many major home improvement retailers, the Floor & Decor website allows you to “choose your nearest store,” or whatever. So I did, and the flooring I ended up buying was listed at $1.29 per square foot, which was within my budget on this property. I was perfectly willing to pay that price.

But if I logged out of “my local store,” and just went to the Floor & Decor website without logging in, the price for that very same flooring was listed as 99 cents per square foot!

So I basically printed out a screen save of their website showing that 99-cent price, took it with me to the Pro Desk at my local store, and they honored the price. Noticing that discrepancy in price on their website, printing out a screen save, and bringing it to the attention of the Pro Desk manager, saved me $500 on the flooring!

Now that deserves a cold beer, doncha think?

I’ll have more on this rehab, and other real estate adventures, in upcoming blog posts. Please don’t be afraid to comment, make suggestions, or get in touch with me. And maybe we can meet up for a drink somewhere too…