All Forum Posts by: Adam Sporinsky

What are people's favorite stores and outlets in Chicago and the surrounding areas to buy inexpensive tile and vinyl or allure plank flooring?  I'm looking for some < 2/ft. stuff for an apartment building that I've been rehabbing.  

Do people just shop the big box stores or are there any hidden gems with low prices that people know of.  Perhaps outlets or overstock places?

Hello,

I am working on renovating/make ready for a 4 unit apartment building I recently purchased in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago.  I've been opening lots of walls to replace bad old plaster, and have decided to do some rewiring, some plumbing updates, and I also need to get several hardwood floors refinished (sand/stain/commercial poly).

Anybody have any great electricians used to working on old buildings (1919), and plumbers that are trustworthy, do great work at a fair price, etc. or any hardwood flooring people that they have gotten great results with in the past?  This is my first building, so I am trying to fill in some missing pieces of the contractors I need to get it ready.

I suppose any references for debris removal or demo crews would be really useful too, I made quite the mess :)

I'm looking for recommendations for contractors to help me renovate/make ready a 4 unit apartment building built in 1919.

Specifically I need an electrician that is experienced in rewiring old buildings like this one, a good/honest plumber that can help update some piping, figure out where certain shutoffs are, possibly install manifolds to allow water shutoff to each floor individually, etc.

I also need recommendations for great hardwood flooring specialists, I need to do a lot of sand/stain/poly refinishing.  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks BP

@Dell Schlabach

Well I certainly tried.  Someone else came in with a bigger offer.  Oh well.  I just need to find another mold house now.

@Dell Schlabach Thanks for the excellent reply and congrats on the great deal, I can see from the price history that it was a pretty solid profit.

Do you remember ow long the remediation steps took/how much time they added to the overall project?  Looking for what my expected impact on schedule would be.  I assume no other work can be done at the same time, but is it possible to do a new roof during mold remediation for instance?

Does anyone have experience here with rehab costs on a house with mold essentially everywhere?  I looked at a 1600 sq ft. house in the south suburbs of Chicago and nearly every wall was covered with mold, as were the light fixtures, doors, vanity cabinets, etc.  There was (and still is) about 2 feet of standing water in the basement and a sign on a bathroom sink that mentioned a burst pipe so I think the cause of the water and mold was a water leak while the property sat vacant (they dropped the price by over half after a few weeks on the market, so I think this theory makes sense).

I am assuming I will need to remove and replace all of the drywall, everywhere, all the fixtures, doors, windows, etc. but I am not sure if there would be other costs involved.  For instance, is there any chance that the studs behind the walls would also be moldy and if so would I need to cut out and replace them or do any re-framing, or would dehumidifying the place work?  Is the electrical likely to be damaged due to this issue?  I am assuming I will need to replace most or all of the plumbing system.

Any advice would be very helpful, if the costs aren't too out of control beyond what I was estimating, this could end up being a great deal at the right price.

Hello all,

I have a question about how to figure out months of supply for an area.  I am trying to come up with this as suggested by @J Scott in the flipping book.  Right now however, it's March, the last month was Feb, which is not the greatest real estate month.  If I want to get the months of supply as number of houses on the market / monthly rate of houses sold, my numbers are going to be low for the rate being sold since the last 30 days were snowy.  

How should I be handling this?  Obviously, using values from last summer could be misleading if the market changed, but the last few months are misleadingly low due to being winter.  What would others suggest I use.

For instance, in the market I am analyzing tonight, the last 30 days saw 9 houses sold.  The last 90 days saw an average of 12.3 houses sold.  The last 6 months saw 14.3 average, and the full year shows an average of 17.25.  Should I average these numbers out? Should I use the 6 month average or the 3 month average, or an average of those two numbers or something?

Looking forward to hearing what people think.

Thanks @Cave Johnson and @Cal C.

I guess I'll need to set up a post asking for good foundation repair company refs in Chicago.  Makes sense though, I can see how this issue wouldn't be generic enough to get a good ballpark without a professional actually seeing it.

Good morning BP,

I'm currently considering a deal for a ranch house in the south suburbs of Chicago, and when I went to look at it with my agent, we noticed two cracks in the slab (no basement) of the property, pretty much right down the middle of the building.  The cracks show on both sides of the house, and once inside we could see some sinkage in the middle of the house, the floors were sloped in towards it, and all in all, it needs to be repaired if I do this deal.

What type of cost have others seen for this type of work?  Since there is no basement, I imagine the repair involves cutting through and replacing parts of the floor to be able to access the cracked part, but I don't have any experience with this type of foundation work.  Is it worth doing? How much does it Cost?  Other than this issue the building is in pretty solid shape, and the taxes are low enough that it would work both as a flip and as a rental property.  I am trying to get a decent estimate so I can see what price I would need to pay for this house to get a deal done.

Any help would be really appreciated, I am sure someone out there has dealt with this type of thing before.  Maybe you know someone who has and can mention them into the post?

Thanks @John Weidner for the answers.  Those are monthly costs, correct?

@Joey Nakayama, how can I quickly tell if that is the case.  Will seeing the same number of gas meters as units tell me that the heat isn't centrally managed, or do I need to be checking for 1 furnace per unit?

@Frank S.  Thanks for pointing me to that for the garbage pricing.  So 120/ year in garbage, then about 1200-1600 for water.  

Seems like 2k/year in S/W/G costs is a reasonable number for me to run Expense calculations with on a 4 unit and under property?