All Forum Posts by: Adam Craig

After this experience I am also thinking a bid on the job is the way to go. So if they give you a price on the job and unforeseen work comes up, how is the handled?

Example

On my last job - a simple attic redo turned into a nightmare after the city unexpectedly got involved. Do you write the contract to include (X) hours of unforeseen work or do you just renogatiate as you guy.

I have some guys working on a house that I am going t rent - The main guy works for $22/hour and his helper works for $15 - so on a 40 hour work week I am paying these guys $1480 -

They are doing everything from painting/floors/tile/cleaning and everything else.

So the problem is - I am not there to monitor there 40 hour work week. I do drive buys and stop in unexpectedly and always find them there, but I feel they might be milking the job based on the time it took other guys to do my previous 2 houses.

So how does most BP members pay contractors. Do you have them bid on the job or do you find guys to do it hourly.

I am on the East side but my property manager tells me everything goes very quickly in lakewood. It defiantly not what I would consider a dangerous area. There is a lot of competition but a lot of renters as well.

After a 2+ years of exhaustive research on everything real estate - I finally closed my first deal in July 2013. The rehab took about 6 weeks and a tenant signed a lease 2 weeks after my PM started to market it at $100 above what I expected.

I should have defiantly pulled the trigger way earlier but I have a tendency to over analyze. My second deal is a week from being rent ready and a third deal is closing in 30 days. 3 SFH was my goal this year and I am very happy with all the help I got here on BP.

I was once told I should not invest in real estate without a mentor for the first deal. Well because of BP and REIA - I feel like I had dozens of mentors at the same time. Thanks BP!

Too the Moon!

My first rental is done and now in the hands of the property manager. I am closing on my second deal in about 3 weeks.

I expected the first rehab to be a bit unorganized and it was. The order of operations was off and it caused us to take longer and go over some things two times.

Any tips on the order of rehabbing in order to improve efficiency? - demo/paint/carpet/cabinet replacing/exterior painting/landscaping/fixture replacement/cleaning?

Thanks Aaron!

I run a business and my time is better spent on it - so I hire contractors for almost everything.

Ill post some pics of the finished rehab

So I am nearing the end of the rehab on my first rental. This was a foreclosure that I got at a below market price so I conservatively budgeted 10K in renovation costs. I didnt think I was going to come close to that figure but I am probably going to be around 9K when its all done - the numbers added up quicker then I thought :)

So far we had a mold remediation done in the basement, painted the whole inside of house, replaced both toilets, replaced everything in the bath except the tube, upgraded kitchen knobs and door knobs, purchased appliances, changed all light fixtures, landscaping, gutter cleaning.

I guess I was wondering what is the correct approach when rehabbing a rental. The house is in a B class neighborhood and I wanted to make it nice - but I keep thinking that I could have probably got it rented without making it so nice.

Do you just make your rentals livable or do replace/upgrade to make them better. Is 9K a lot to spend on a 1200 SQ FT 3BR 1.5 BA bungalow? $2700 went to mold clean up.

Being a total newbi here - how do I know where the downspouts are tied into (ground/pipe). Do I dig them up and how far down can I expect to dig. Thanks

We just closed on our first house! The basement just had a mold remediation done and the flooring removed. Its only going to be a laundry room so my plan is to continuously run a dehumidifier and cross my fingers though I think it will require more work.

Its been raining in ohio the 14 out of the last 15 days so hopefully it clears up - but there are some small standing puddles near the walls on 3 out of 4 sides. There is defiantly water coming in near the floor/wall.

There are a couple things I am going to take care of like a sloping sidewalk and gutters cleaned. But I am suspicious of the downspouts being too close to the house. I have read about extenders but know nothing about them. How do I check to see where my downspout goes? Do I have to dig real deep?

Suggestions or steps to take before B-Dry or other waterproofing?

I know I have another post with a similar question but I have 3 painters coming for estimates tomorrow and new posts get more action.

I was going to get the walls painted softer tan (Sherwin Williams) - paint the basement floor grey and light grey on basement walls -

I WAS going to paint all brown doors and trim white because of what I read on BP. But I got a couple of responses from another post that said this is nice wood trim and to leave it for a rental - Now what?

The is a long term rental in a Cleveland suburb - B neighborhood.