All Forum Posts by: Andrew Whicker

Thanks for all the replies!

I'll keep the old oven and top then.  I think the oven looks cool anyway.  Stove top and hood are kind of lame.  But, who knows maybe that's just me?

I didn't even think about repairing those doors and painting them.  But, those pre-primered doors were only $35 a piece and I only need 3 of them and I think the house will look a lot better.  

Do you use semi-gloss paint on the doors?

Here's a photo of some typical dry wall damage.  Is the standard mid range rental idea to just paint over it or repair?  How do you like to repair?  New section of dry wall?  Spackle like crazy?

Drywall Damage (top layer torn off):

Video #2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qUBIjQ0xPk

Again, thanks for all the help!  You guys are awesome.

Cheers,

@Joe Mulcahy 

@William Hochstedler 

@Mike Palmer 

I looked into tax foreclosures on condos when I lived in Houston.

First of all, just run the numbers already.  Calculate the income / cost from a condo you see on the market.  

Second, call the association. They aren't going to hide from you what the expectations are. They may hide future 'special assessments', but they aren't going to hide what services your HOA payment gives you. If the HOA pays for the roof, then you can show how much you save in repairs by taking the cost of a new roof and dividing it by the number of months between replacing a roof. Then you can take your HOA payment and subtract the two numbers. Maybe you're overpaying for your free roof, maybe not. Who knows? Run the numbers. (Just an idea off the top of my head, feel free to beat me up on it : )

Third, think about your exit strategy. What are you going to do with a condo to make it sell? What if you are one of the people above who said their HOA rates went up 35% in a year, do you think that might make your condo harder to sell?

I also think you're kind of at the mercy of the condo association.  Oh, the new owners don't care if they the tenant quality goes to crap?  Too bad.  They don't care if the grounds aren't kept up?  Too bad.  I could be wrong on this, but this seemed logical to me when I was looking into them.  The BP experts could verify.

The ones I looked at were similar to apartment complexes and weren't all that special.  I guess you could look into vacation rentals thru a condo.  

As a side note, someone just posted that they quit their job after acquiring 28 properties and, a summary of his own words, stopped working when he made somewhere between 10k and 15k a month in cashflow. That's not 100 properties. I think those were SFR's but we'd have to check.

Immediate questions:

- Source for cheap interior doors to replace these damaged doors? (Haven't searched BP yet)

- Small oven + Stove top.. do these have a negative effect on rent?

- Painting Stove top and Oven.  Thoughts? 

Kitchen Plan:

- Tile flooring

- New paint on cabinets

- New hardware on cabinets

- New Formica counter tops

Kitchen (View 1):

Stove Top:

Small Oven:

Kitchen (View 2)

Bed 1:

Bed 2:

Door Issues:

Diary of Rehab / Buy and Hold:

Hi,

I thought I’d post my (minor) rehab to this forum. This website has really helped me out and I hope this will help someone take the plunge a little bit more comfortably. I’ll attempt to keep you updated on my going-ons of this rehab. I hope to go through most things with you in terms of both scope and cost. I have a kitchen I must remodel, two bedrooms that need painting, an interior door that needs to be added, and a small home inspection list that needs to be completed.  Please give me criticism / ideas / responses, if you have time.

I will warn you in advance that A) I have a full time job and B) I spend a lot of time in the mountains with friends to make me happy. In other words, this will be slower than a lot of other people’s rehabs. Also, I will be doing this work by myself except for the few times I can get some friendly help. The goal is rent ready by Feb 1st.

My first step is to paint the two bedrooms. One was orange and one was dark gray. Below are the costs of doing both. I have a ton of tools to work on cars and to work with metal, but house rehab is new to me and I don’t have a lot of tools that can be used for that. So… I’m putting costs into two categories: consumable and non-consumables (after 6.85% sales tax, Utah). Consumables being the stuff you’re going to have to buy every time unless you have extra. Non-consumables being tools that hopefully you buy once and store til your next go around. I’ll also tell you what store I bought stuff from. I know HD and Lowes are more expensive than other places.  If I find places with great deals, I'll let you know.  I have photos of the receipts if you are interested in more breakdown. I guess I’m just trying to provide you with an idea of costs.  I’m trying to do all my rehab under $3k in consumables. Hopefully less than $3k in total.

Second step is to plan the kitchen.

Without further ado, the breakdown:

Bedroom Paint:

Consumables: $397.63 (Home Depot / Lowes)

Non-Consumables: $147.20 (Home Depot / Lowes)

The wall area of both rooms is around 700 sq ft (350 sq ft each). Each room is basically 10’ x 10’ with 8’ high walls.

These costs includes 5 gallons of off-white flat paint, 1 gallon of ceiling paint, and 1 gallon of semi-gloss white for trim. The off white paint is Glidden paint + primer. I asked for the most common off white color and kept the paint color receipt. I chose flat paint because I think it looks better. The opinion seems to be half and half on whether to use semi gloss or flat in rentals. Much of the opinion could be centered on rental rate expectations and ability to touch up. Use the search function to find opinions of other BP members.

I consider brushes and plastic ‘down cloth’ sheets to be consumables. Besides paint, these are the other expensive consumables.

Photos: (see next post)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwQI-yS8hEE

Yeah, sounds like it's a personal decision.  If you have the money and you think it is worth it sort of thing.  If it makes you happier to have a vacation home vs having the extra money then go for it.

Not everything is an investment decision.  I spend a lot of money and energy on climbing and I don't get any green pieces of paper back : )

Also, from talking to people who do the vacation rental thing, it sounds like a part time job.  Why do it if you don't want to and don't need to?  

Ski pass + personal house within 5 minutes of resort with no other obligations?  Sounds like a winner to me : )

Are you going to live on the NV or CA side?

With the advent of places like airbnb.com and vrbo.com you'd have to really want a place of your own.  For about $100 / night you can rent houses and condos all day long and never have to clean, maintain, insure, etc.  And obviously you'd be able travel to many places instead of one place.  I mean it sounds like you're not going to own this place to make money on (by renting out), right?

I'm guessing ski season will be pricey though... can you share the condo with friends / family?

I haven't yet looked into the tax deductions of owning a second home, but spending $2k a month to get what in return is the question I guess.

I have a potentially dumb question:

Why do investors prefer a contractor that splits profits with them vs hiring a contractor?  I'm assuming the split looks like:

- Cash investor: 100% repayment + 50% profit

- Project Management (labor) investor: 50% profit

While the normal scenario would be:

- Cash investor: 100% profit

- Project Management (labor):  $XXX cost

Wouldn't the cash investor make more in the 1st option or do GC's cost more than 50% profit?

Thanks,

I hate zoning.

Yes, I have called them before on a improperly zoned triplex that was zoned as a duplex.  They said the same.  They just don't have time.

I didn't know if nightly renting fell under a different heading than monthly renting, but really this is a local question and I need to get a hold of local resources. 

Kind of a dumb post. : )

Cheers,

Hi,

I'm looking at a Mother in Law and my thought is to rent it as an AirBnb / VRBO property.  It is zoned as a SF residence.  

Question:

Does zoning have an effect on renting it like this?  I'll be living in the house full time in the 'basement' area, completely separated from the guests.  I want to rent the 'top' level.  I know I need to check other local laws (the huge AirBnb debacle thread proves this), but how would I know if zoning has an effect?

This seems like muddy waters..

Cheers,