All Forum Posts by: Aaron McGinnis

In general, my schedule of work looks something like this -

Phase 0: Blueprint and planning phase, obtain site survey

Phase 0.5: Obtain permits necessary for work.

Phase 1: Rough demolition (Don't confuse demolition with the need for a dumpster. Very important. Construction can and will generate more trash than you ever thought possible!). Also start ordering and otherwise acquiring finish items (Like lights, faucets, etc.)

Phase 2: Build or repair footings to blueprint

Phase 2.5: Finish structural/fine demo

Phase 3: Repair existing superstructure and add new superstructure to blueprint. Roofing as soon as is possible.
Also quote cabinets and finalize kitchen layout. Start ordering cabinets.

Phase 3.5: Finish interior rough carpentry.

Phase 4: Rough-in mechanical starting with plumbing and HVAC, then electrical. Also install siding and finish exterior carpentry.

Phase 5: Repair structure after the plumber cut the whole thing up running pipes

Phase 6: Sheetrock and wood floors, trim. Tile (Except backsplash)

Phase 7: Paint

Phase 7.5: Sheetrock final

Phase 8: Paint final. Cabinets install. Countertop install. Backsplash install. Exterior concrete work

Phase 9: Mechanical trim-out (Plate covers, registers, trim kits, light fixtures as remaining). Install appliances. Exterior concrete work (Like driveway). Landscaping.

Phase 10: Cleanup

Dumpsters stay on-site until the job is 100% done and get replaced with 30 yd dumpsters until job completion.

With a rental, I'd probably replace the water heater if it was more than 8-9 years old.

A tenant may not be riki-tik about letting you know the water heater is leaking until it becomes a serious problem that'll end up costing you way more than simply replacing the thing in the first place would have.

Everything else, most rational people are gonna notice and let you know about.

I guess I'm just in disbelief that it'd cost that much. For $15k, I'd better be doing a full-blown install of a couple of 5 ton units.

If it really is that expensive, at the very least get some $11/hr workers to take out the old boilers/radiators/ect. then take them to a metal recycler and sell the metal for scrap.

Doing things this way is a risk for you. You get no meaningful warranty, you may be violating local laws and building ordinances, and you have no real assurance that the guy isn't installing stolen property that grew legs and walked out of his employer's warehouse.

I concur that this house looks like a total gut.

Off the top of my head...

I'd plan to replace all the windows. 'Round my parts, that's $179/window or thereabouts for vinyl Low-E.

I'd expect to rewire entirely or significantly to bring the house to code and as a safety factor. Hodgepodge wiring, IMO, is rarely worth saving.

Have you pressurized the plumbing? I'd expect most of the plumbing to simply go kerplunk on you the instant you put pressure on the lines... or at least for the shutoffs to leak horribly. I'd also expect the drain lines to be suspect.

Forget fixing roof leaks. If the roof is old and a-leakin' one place, it's probably systemic. I'd plan for a replacement.

You lack door hardware. New hinges and doorknobs do a lot to spruce up a place like that.

I assume your flooring price is 100% carpet. What about tile in the kitchens and bathrooms? Tile is not $2.39/ft after labor.

Your sheetrock price is pretty low. I figure about $13-15/board, at about $6/board plus mud. But then, I treat labor differently...

Speaking of labor - if you're planning for one sole guy, and maybe his helper, come in and do this job... I estimate that you'll get done before the sun goes supernova. Maybe. You've got an incredible amount of labor just in small things like doors, floors, and sheetrock. To say nothing about plumbing, electrical, roofing, etc.

If I've reverse-engineered your labor number correctly... It looks like you've simply said... 8 weeks of labor, 40 hours a week, at $25 an hour.

Simply put, I'm not sure that you've got nearly enough labor here. Especially not if you're using someone who is general-purpose, and not using specialists for things like electrical and plumbing.

I see in your pictures that there is definitely some carpentry to be done. In a structure that old, you're going to be running into dry-rotted wood, dead superstructure, and other nasty surprises left and right. You need a budget for carpentry, and most importantly you need a carpenter who is competent to work on a building that old.

Photo #5 looks like maybe that's asbestos ceiling tiles. You need to check into it... if that is asbestos, you need to factor for correct removal of the material.

With HVAC closing in on 15 years old, I'd probably plan for replacement. I'd also expect a new water heater to be a requirement.

Back to windows... without seeing them, I'd say you should probably count on, at the very least, reglazing them. Reglazing can turn into an enormously labor-intensive job all by itself. I normally just avoid that issue by replacing the windows.

Doors are the same way. Those are no doubt the awesome, old-school, solid-core 5-panel interior doors made of awesome and badassery.
They're probably also dinged, scraped, and chipped up. Consider the fact that to make them look nice, you or someone you're paying will have to spend HOURS AND HOURS with bondo, wood filler, a palm sander, and then paint to make them look good again. This can turn into a very costly endeavor.

On the flip side, a nice, new, masonite pre-hung door should only run you about $50 (At least, that's what it costs me) and should take a good carpenter approximately 10 minutes to nail in place. It can very easily be cheaper to replace old doors than to fool around with them for hours upon hours trying to make them look good again.

I can't quite tell from the pictures - is there a layer of plywood over the old floors, or is that luan subfloor? In either case, you seriously need to look at the floor from the crawl space and try to determine if someone in years past put that flooring there because the old floor and old joists had started to rot out for some reason.

If the original subfloor and joist are rotting... then hold on to your hat, because the whole thing is going to get seriously expensive in a big hurry and your cosmetic rehab job will have suddenly turned into a structural rehab job.

You need to seriously consider your dumpster cost. A job of this size could pretty quickly turn into more than one dumpster. (Actually, it's hard to do much with just one dumpster. Rarely have I run a job that didn't take at least 2)

Uhh, I guess I'm kinda turning this into a word-wall, so I'll stop now. Needless to say, you've got yourself one heckuva first project! I'll be most interested in your follow-up posts.

I assume you mean that you've gotten a quote for installing a regular forced air HVAC for 10-15k??

What is this, some kind of industrial complex? 10,000sqft house that needs multiple 4 ton units?

Maybe prices in your area are vastly different than in Atlanta, or you're dealing with some really weird situation where you have no attic and/or no crawlspace, but I'd never consider paying that much for an HVAC system.

To answer your question more directly... An I-9, as I understand it, is mostly about being legal in the country. If the guy isn't legal, I'd have some serious questions about how he is obtaining his refrigerant. Around here, you have to be licensed to get refrigerant... and personally, I have a policy not to hire mechanical contractors that aren't licensed. I've learned the hard way that it just isn't worthwhile trying to cut that corner.

I too give a disclosure statement. Heck, most of the time we've torn the house to the studs and sub and messed with every mechanical... I daresay we walk out of the house knowing it better than any regular owner ever will.

Get a general contractor to come look at the property. Be prepared to pay up to $400 for a detailed quote... doing a full blown estimate is harder than what a home inspector will typically do, and the guys who are good at doing it (Justifiably) aren't going to want to do it for free.

Watch what the guy does. Learn his trade well enough to get a good feel for how to estimate. Heck, as him if he'll tutor you in the fine art of estimating for a few extra bucks.

I'm right there with everyone else. My target ROI is in the 10-15% range. That's a number that I've seen sustained in my market over and over again, and if I'm inside that range at the end of the day I'm a happy man.

That's not to say that I haven't had some serious partying going on when I've knocked it out of the ball-park and made 28%... or done the 'walk of shame' out of the attorney's office when I've made 5% (or worse)

To answer your last question... yes, my number holds true across the price ranges. That's also why I don't dink around with small little deals - there's not a lot of meat on them bones and usually just as much work as the bigger ones.

You say you can't see the inside, huh?

Bull-caca. Go find an open door and get up in that house! ... or expect a rehab bill up to about $75k, 'cuz that's how much you can end up spending to gut and rebuild a house like that.

I said this in my first post, but I think it bears repeating and elaborating -

A 30-35k budget is very tight. Very tight indeed when talking about doing a 'touch virtually everything' renovation. It's very easy to run over budget.

Before we got started on the reno I was talking about, we spent many happy hours bouncing excel sheets back and forth determining what the scope of work was. We cut a lot of places in favor of certain splurges elsewhere.

Don't just assume "This rehab will cost $XX,XXX"... you need to do proper estimating - room by room, fixture by fixture.