Hi, everyone, its been a while since I posted here, we got another house!
we are 1 month and 6 days into the rehab.
So far all the the old plaster/drywall/fiberboard is off the walls . and the electric/plumbing/cable/tv wiring is complete, we will be installing all new windows starting tomorrow.
Got a great deal on the windows, home depot, accidently gave us 30% off haha , we didn’t complain! It was from combined special offers, 21 single hung windows for $1600 +tax (round abouts) out the door.
So far the plans are a whole new deck on the back, we’ve already installed a 200 amp service, its had a new 90%furnace can’t complain about that, and we will be installing siding.
Looking good. Where is the prop? I’m in columbus and working with some rehabers…they are also finding properties for the same price in the canton area. I should have them take a look at your progress as a good example of how to do it.
Thank you for the approval kdhastedt, we certainly tried our best with the last house, but I think the curent one will be even better.
We just installed yesterday 9 of the 21 windows we have, that went a whole lot easier then I expected.
Chaser: we live in the zanesville area, and property is located about 13 miles south. its a small village , everyone knows everyone.
we were actually looking into moving to springfield a few months ago , quite a lot of nice properties there, but decided we finally are getting name for ourselves locally and thought it best to stick around. We actually got our current rehab because an appraiser actually contacted out realtor personally, because he had seen our last rehab and wanted us to know about it.
4EEM: This is our fourth total gut rehab so we have learned some" but by all means not all" of the tricks to make it run fairly smooth. the main thing to do is plan in phases, demo/remove debris /plumbing/remove debris/ electric/remove debris/cable+phone/ drywall etc ;D
I didnt notice any permits hanging any where .Do you need building permits for the work you are doing ? With the current downswing of the market what do you expect to be your holding time?Maybe Im missing something.Why did you tear all teh old plaster down?
There is no permits/code enforced in the area we are working in. although if it becomes needed its a simple matter to get done.
As far holding time, well the market is fairly stable in this area and a properly done house in the right area will sell sometimes imediately to as much as 3 months, Atleast that has been our experience thus far.
why remove the plaster,? well because to get the top of price bracket of this and all the houses we have bought, the look needed to be finished, not just painted over.
Also you can’t install all the mechanics of the house unless the walls are removed. for example there was I think there was about 6-10 outlets/curcuits in the entire house before.
Now there is close to 20 curcuits and 40 outlets.
Also for us painting and carpet is not what we like to do. certainly that is an option, but paint and carpet, only does so much, and at these prices you don’t get a great interior on the house , when the seams on a wall are duck taped, and there is 1 curcuit to run the entire kitchen. I could not in all good conscious sell that type of house for and for that , you could only get 60k but for the extra work we might just get 80k of course in this busniess nothing is certain. so far we have gotten the maximum of the houses we have done.
We are so leary of another rehab and flip.We have done 3 and every one has been the apple of the neighborhoods eye when we were done but lost our but holding the dagone things.We go all nine yards also.We just dont completly remove plaster.and it doesnt look patched and painted when we are done .We use a lot of texturing Looks great and saves a world of back breaking work.
yeah that is harsh, I can see why you would be leary, have you lost any money on the deals?
One thing we are lucky with is, All of our houses have been cash deals so no holding cost for us, we also use lowes no payments for 12 months to pay for most of the matierals and hope it is paid before interest comes into play lol, other then that its just taxes and utilites till we sell.
Removing the plaster etc. is not for the faint of heart by anymeans! Its good you have perfected the texturing, it certainly can do the job as long as the walls you are working with are in good shape. I am no painter lol thats my partner(s) department thankfully lol
its just me and my brother in law working on these houses, but we usually have the plaster down in 5 days and it cleaned up in 10 , this current house went a lot easier then the last one, it had 3/4 inch plaster that weighed an unbelievable amount , a handtruck, and garbage can comes in handy , each 30 gallon bucket wieghed close to 200 or more pounds! I certainly won’t beable to do this much work continuiously we are hoping to get into rentals soon, and if that doesn’t work out we get a regular job lol , i’ve been offered electrical appretince a few times because of our work, but not ready to go down that path as of yet.
Well unfortunatly we did loose a few $k on these deals but they were all hard money bought and one was a gross oversight of repair costs.It is just my wife and I who do the remodel.She’s the best ;D so when it comes to heavy haulin we try to avoid it without sacrafising quality if necessery.So we decided to do multi family rehabs so we could keep and rent them and eventually recoup any loss should there be any and we seem to have found our niche in this as it has prospered us well But with rising taxs ins. due to hurricanes and overinflation of housing prices here in south Florida Well we finally have the opportunity to buy cash utilizing a heloc but our market has changed drastically and we are unable to find a fixer upper for less than $250K So we have been looking elsewhere and well we are strugling with the idea of long distance rehab ???But I think we are ready to take the plunge and quit the day job and buy 2 or 3 in a town far away where prop.s are plentiful and have at it now that our holding costs should be minimal.
Looking good ohioRehab! Can’t wait to see the completed project pics.
I am planning on rehabbing as well and doing most of the work myself (I have construction experience). I’ve looked at over half a dozen properties and it’s hard to make a jump at that first one. I can’t find any places so far with a decent foundation and straight floors. I can do roofing, siding, anything interior and electrical - but I’m not excited about straightening a whole house. I’d like to hear your comments about that. Thanks,
Jeff
campbellgroup, Sorry to hear you lost some $, But its god to see yuo turned it around, I can relate to the rising fixer uppers, around here any good propertys are gone the same day come on the market, its flustrating sometimes, last year we were outbid by a few thousand, 4 times >:(.
LoriK: Thanks for the compliment
Straightup: we will be updating some pictures, in a few weeks, we are starting drywall work now, just finished the windows today, doing the windows ourselves, we saved roughly $2000+.
It is hard to find the right property, but just keep your head clear and don’t jump on a property unless you know its what you want. there is nothing more grueling then trying to finish a property that your heart is not into.
Straighting a house is almost a guarantee, walls will not be the same measurement at the top, compared to the bottom, on anything older then 30 years and I have seen new 1970’s+ home that put a new meaning to out of square lol although you usually just have to work around those problems,
In the house we on working on built 1940’s , one of the timber beams 6x10 had a 2 inch sag/bow in it, we had to lift it up and ended up have to put a hefty jack under it just to level the floor, but I wouldn’t do something like that unless you’ve had help from someone more experianced previously, lifting a beam can be quite scary! it took two 12 ton jacks and a new pair of under garments to get that sag out! haha
When you remove the plaster do you wear masks? If so what kind? Do you wear the paper kind or do you go all out and wear the charcoal filtered respirators?
It is a must, you would not want and most likely could not breath that stuff in for more then a minute, because with older houses, you are dealing with more then the plaster dust, if the house has had fireplaces, there will be a lot of soot, and an unbelieveable amout of dust, people just don’t seem to clean behind walls . also in the case of insulation you will have fiberglass particles in the air not to mention the posibility of asbestos.
Generally the paper mask are really not effcient enough by themselves, I wear a charcoal respirator everyday while working, I have allergies and get sick easy, so I need to wear them.
But while working on plaster especially, I will tie a paper mask over the charcoal one and fasten it with a plastic zip tie, to extend the life of the mask. I get some weird looks, but for $40 a mask I will extend them as long as possible.
I concur with ohioRehab. The paper masks are barely sufficient for sheetrock dust from new installations…heaven only knows what kind of “cooties” will turn up on an old rehab. They’re not terribly comfortable to wear for extended periods but go with the respirator.
I am used to the mask now, but when I first started wearing the resp. the pain on the bridge of your nose is horrible, lol I now wear my mask for all 8 hours a day we are there.
When I was in the military, we used to have those all-day wearings of the chemical protective gear…not just a full face mask but the charcoal suits, rubber gloves, boots, etc…HATEFUL!
Thanks for the tip on floor straightening Ohio. Foundations still cause me to scratch my head, but I have a great home inspector that will check things out for me.
