All Forum Posts by: Aaron McGinnis

Bridget,

I know Atlanta pretty darn well. If you'd like, drop me a message with the address and I'll give you my quick opinion of it.

Other than local REIAs that give some mediocre discounts at places like paint supply stores, I can't say that I have seen something like this.

(Setting aside builder organizations that are really more about prestige and blood money than they are cost savings)

The problem, of course, with buying bulk materials is that you either need a bunch of guys who want their sheetrock/nails/roofing/whatever immediately, or you have to store the stuff somewhere which typically negates any real cost savings... not to mention shipping charges.

Sheetrock isn't a low-cost of entry business. Go price bazookas, drum sanders, ladders, walk boards, ladder jacks, stilts, and other assorted odds and ends needed by a good crew to do the job right. Not to mention a vehicle to transport said equipment.

Right now ain't a good time to start a business that you have no background in and no contacts in. Work is scarce. The painters and drywall guys I know are all starving to death and will happily work through a weekend as long as the sun is in the sky in order to get paid.

If you're trainable, you're much better off trying to find a job on a crew. Be prepared for long hours and low pay as you compete with the crew leader's cousin for the low man position.

On the other hand, what do I know. If you really want to start a business, and you know you're being laid off in 5 months, START NOW. Start lining up weekend jobs and see how much you can make at it.

1) I would like to see at least 3-5. That's what an FHA appraiser is going to look for.
2) Within the neighborhood. If I have to exit the neighborhood, I want to stay within a mile.
3) Typically between 5-15.
4) My own money. That's some expensive HM right there.

5) Of course I have. The times it has happened have been when I got caught by market forces... the end of the tax credit was the most recent example. The whole zip code of a project we were in took a nose dive and lost about $60,000 worth of value in a matter of months.

James,

Have you already closed on this house? If you haven't, you need to seriously reconsider your budget. I don't see $4-9k worth of rehab here... more like $30-50k depending on how bad the structure, roof, and mechanical systems are.

Just taking down the wallboard, then putting up and painting new sheetrock will use up around about 120% of your maximum budget.

Before you do anything else to this house you need to STOP and get some estimates. Even if you're planning to do 100% of the work yourself (And I hope you're not), materials alone will blow your budget by a lot.

Just looking at the pictures you've put up, I'm willing to bet there's some DIY electrical. And by that I mean "Disaster It Yourself"... the mast in the back looks like it was put together by a 3 armed moron. If I saw my electrician put in a TEMPORARY mast that looked that bad I'd tell him to never darken my job site again!

Something to do for dust contamination... buy a lot of sil (Maybe 2mm or so) and turn the area into a giant plastic bag. You'll spend easily $50 on Sil, but it will make cleanup very easy.

You won't find batt insulation for 24" centers. Get regular batts and cut them length-wise to fit... if you have 16" joists (That's a giant joist. Sounds like an LVL beam or something) you may be able to stack more than just R-30 in there.

Basically, the more insulation you can cram into the space, the more the sound will be deadened.

I'm going to disagree with Jon here, and say that putting batts in the ceiling would have a positive effect on sound dampening. We've used batts in that way to deaden sound from bathrooms and laundry rooms adjacent to living areas with good effect... even R13 would make a difference.

Lowes sells sound insulating sheetrock that would help as well.

Sound can also travel through the walls, so having insulated wall cavities would make a difference.

On the very expensive end of things, consider using foam insulation (icynene, sp)... it'd cost a fortune, but that'd be as good as you're gonna get for sound dampening effect (It'd also make the space such that you could heat it with a birthday candle and cool it with an ice cube, but that's another story entirely.)

A thought for further research would be to look this topic up on websites geared for musicians. I know a few drummers who had excellent tactics for soundproofing their practice rooms. This can get as expensive and complicated as using a sound-baffling matrix material (looks like egg cartons) in the walls and ceiling to reduce noise.

Jeff -

I use Adobe Acrobat 9, which I bought several years ago. I'm sure there's a newer version available, but I intend to use my $300 software package until I upgrade to an OS that won't run it anymore...

I have an allergy to paper that exceeds most people. If I've got more than a few pieces of paper I'm using, I begin a vicious cycle of fear and self-loathing.

My solution -

An autofeed scanner is a big deal. Everything... EVERYTHING I need to keep gets scanned in and organized digitally. Every receipt from rehab work, every tax document... everything.

Like J, I use the full-blown Adobe software suite. It is expensive (I think I paid $300) but it is easily the best money I've spent for technology.

I have a copy-paste version of my signature for contracts.

Finally, if I simply MUST fax something (Most agents now do prefer e-mail), I use MyFax.com to send and receive.

What you're describing isn't actually a serious rehab.

Unfortunately, I have sort of a hard time believing that what you're describing is going to be the whole story.

Unless the wiring has been upgraded, you've probably got ungrounded wiring throughout and possibly a panel and service that need to be replaced entirely.

The plumbing will probably end up being replaced in part or in whole. I'd at the very least want to replace all the drain traps... after 50 years, the cast-iron likes to develop leaks.

You didn't say anything about bathrooms or kitchen rebuilds, but in a house that old you're probably going to find rotted subfloor under the bathrooms... maybe even rotted joists. Not a huge deal, but you have to deal with it.

How is the siding?

Even with all that, you may still be better off renovating than building new. Here's the criteria I'd use to evaluate -

1) Is the house in a configuration that I like.
2) If it isn't, can I move a wall or two and be happy with it?
3) Do I need to add significantly to the square footage of the house?
4) Am I going to discover that a grand total of 8 studs and 5 joists AREN'T rotted and everything else has to be replaced?
5) Do I have the competency to build a new house, and get my money back out of it?

If the house fails on 1 and 2, or 3 and 4 are true, then if 5 is true, then think hard about tearing down and rebuilding.