All Forum Posts by: Justin Sawyer

Hey Justin,

Learning to estimate rehab costs is a process that takes time and experience.  Here is the process that I recommend for learning how to estimate rehab costs:

#1 Read 'The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs'

First, you need to build a foundational knowledge of construction, inspecting properties and putting together a detailed SOW.

JScott's 'The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs' is a great resource for new rehabbers to learn how to Estimate Repair Costs on 25 common rehab repairs.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/store/the-complete-g...

#2 Explore Lowes and Home Depot to Learn About Material Pricing

Take a tour through Lowes and Home Depot (or their websites) and look at finishes materials and fixtures that you will consider using in your rehab projects. This will help you get a better idea of what tile, hardwood, carpet, plumbing fixtures and light fixtures costs for your rehabs.

#3 Contact Local Contractors for Labor Pricing / Hire a GC to Consult

Call local Subcontractors and get budget pricing for common repairs on your typical rehab project.

For example, call a roofer and ask what their average cost per Square of Architectural Asphalt Shingle Roofing would be on a 1,500 sf house, with a 6/12 pitch.

Note: Some contractors will be reluctant to share pricing without seeing the property, but tell them you are just looking for a rough budget number you can use on future projects.

You can also pay a General Contractor a consulting fee of a couple of hundred dollars (per house) to walkthrough a few properties with you and provide a detailed estimate of prices that you can use as your 'menu for future projects.

#4 Compile Your Prices into a Spreadsheet or Estimating Software

Once you start to get a better understanding of Labor and Material costs you will want to store this data into a spreadsheet or software that you can use to help you streamline the estimating process.

The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs comes with a spreadsheet that you can use to help you populate your own database of labor pricing and material pricing. Or you can download my estimating templates I have in my Biggerpockets fileplace:

Simple Estimate Spreadsheet

Detailed Estimating Spreadsheet

There are other Estimating Softwares available as well which can help you manage the Estimating process as well...

#5 Practice, Practice, Practice

Walkthrough potential rehab properties (or find properties virtually online) and practice creating detailed scopes of work, quantifying repairs and estimating rehab costs for the projects.

@Justin Sawyer Driving For Dollars is great, but very time consuming.  It's less time consuming if you are doing it virtually, but even then it's time consuming.  Propstream is a good way to get things going faster with their lists, but Propstream isn't that expensive so a lot of people have access to their lists.  We've closed about 20 deals in the past year, and I would say 90% of it has been from Propstream, and 10% from virtual driving for dollars.  

Door knock, drive for dollars and then cold call (you'll still have to pay for skip tracing). I think you're better off leaving your flyer on an interesting looking property than at a supermarket. 

Hey @Justin Sawyer - Door knocking a great way to potentially find a deal and work on in person sales. Ordering some cards and handwriting to specific (motivated) sellers. Good luck!

@Justin Sawyer the cheap method: blast it out on Facebook REI groups and on Craigslist.

The sophisticated method: pull a lit of cash buyers in your area from PropStream or listsource, skiptrace it and coldcall