Hi! We are getting ready to purchase our first house to rehab. I have a few questions. The home is a 2 bedroom 1 bath. The one bath is upstairs. There is a small porch off the kitchen. Would it be wise to convert the porch into a 1/2 bath and make a smaller “mud room”? I just didn’t know how appealing it would be to have the only bath upstairs. I would love to hear your advice. And when painting, is it best to go with neutral colors? I am thinking yes. The exterior is painting pink! I think painting the outside alone with dramatically increase the value of this house. I would love to hear your suggestions for a newbie!
Definitely seems awkward to send guests upstairs to use the bathroom, especially difficult with elderly guests. The downstairs half bath seems like a good idea.
Hastedt Life Rule #15 - “Paint hides a multitude of sins”…
Keith
as for the bathroom, sure it would be nice, but what the goal and whats your implimentation plan. Sure you get probably build a 1/2 bath yourself for $1k in materials, but what’s the pay back? If you pay a contractor, I could easily see 3-5k.
aak,
Do you only look for a monetary payback through and increased asking price or do you consider reduced time on the market (less holding costs, advertising, etc) as a good pay back.
Just asking as I am new and looking to see what seasoned investors look at as a pay back.
Rick
Those are all overall factors that drive up or down the profit…which will benefit you the greatest?
I think whenever you can add a bedroom or bathroom for relatively cheap, it’s the way to go. My first rehab ( in progress) is 3 bdrm 2 bth, but the entire roof needed replacing, decking and all. Had it been a nicer neighborhood, I would have added a second story master bdrm/bth suite, with walkins and storage. But it would have been putting lipstick on a pig in this area.
But not having to add a structure, and only losing part of a porch/mud room to add a bathroom is a no brainer to me. Who wants to walk up a flight of stairs to pee? lol
Before I’d ever consider any type of additions or build outs, comparing the “with” and “without” is essential. If comps with the .5 bath are selling 3 months faster for 10k more than the properties without, the decision is pretty simple. If comps don’t reflect a higher price and/ or a faster sale but it still makes sense functionally to convert the porch to a half bath, go for it. Only republicans opt-out of doing things that make sense…
Stop generalizing now Danny.
LOL
Sorry, your right. I’m sure you do things that make sense once in a while. You’d be the exception! You must not be a full-blooded republican.
“pay-off” comes in many form and can vary for each person’s situation. Yes, faster time to sell is very important; even if you don’t recover 100% of the cost in the final sale price. some times you need to correct and obvious deficiency such as a bad roof or your price/marketability will suffer. rememeber, selling real estate is just a beauty contest; you just have to be better than the house selling on the next block/street, etc.
if this is the same property as another post, you mentioned about renting. do you have tenants ready to go? or is this a slow season and you should take advantage of the time you have.
if its a flip, some of the questions are the same. right now is the middle of the winter so you have time to get things done before the prime selling season start in April.
perhasp a big one is do you have the cash to do it and will do you the work yourself. or hire it out. Also what the total value of the house? while it looks simple on the surface, you don’t want to dive into a project that ends up cost $7k on a house you paid $15k for (yes, that can happen)
so this is a long-winded to say, yes, it looks very interesting and worth further consideration, but you need to look at all the angles.
Thanks for all the great advice! To answer some questions… adding the 1/2 bath should increase the value as well as reducing the time it is on the market. We live in a small town, so hiring someone to do the major work will not cost too much-probably under $10 an hour (the reason my husband drives 2 hours to work in KC). Work here is much cheaper, which also brings the value of houses quite lower. I would just need to hire someone to put in the sink and toilet.
Obviously we could not paint the exterior for a few months as this is winter with snow on the ground and well below freezing temps. I have considered renting it as well after the rehabbing. Good rentals are hard to come by here. I can get the house for $25 and just a rough estimate of repairs would be under $5. I should be able to sell for $45,000. I still have a lot of work and learning to do. I spoke with the realtor on this house, who is a good friend of mine, and he said there are hardly any other rehabbers in this town. People are just not very motivated around here. We all farm and it is a small community. I would just like to test the waters here before moving on to the city. Any investors in KC or Liberty area?
I really want some honest opinions here as I am new!
And I will not have any trouble getting financed for this (or I hope not :). We have a small town bank and they are pretty good about helping us out.
Btw, DannyTheGreat… hillarious comment!
oneharrycat,
You only have a $15K spread here and have not included your holding cost, taxes, social security and realtor fees. What are you hoping to make on this deal?
Going by the laws in my area:
Adding the half bath means that you’d have to get a permit and have an inspection to close out the permit. When they come in to do the permit, the inspector can look at the entire house. Plumbing, wiring, foundation, framing, etc. In some houses that ends up opening a can of worms. Suddenly, you end up having to replace plumbing that you hadn’t planned on.
That said, what do the houses in the neighborhood have? If the standard in the neighborhood is 2br/1ba, it really won’t hurt you to leave it be. If the standard in the neighborhood is 2br and 1.5 or 2ba, then you probably should go ahead and do it.
couple of excellent points regarding real profit and dealing with inspectors.
I think you are greatly over simplying this project. Here’s some things to consider:
1.need to extend hot and cold water lines (insulation to prevent freezing)
2. need to hook into drain/waste system; may need to add vent pipe which may or may not require a roof penetration
3. for plumbing you may have insulate under the porch; motify the crawlspace to prevent freezing in the winter
4. change exterior door to an interior type (maybe)
5. extend electrical, need several outlets, overhead lights; may regard pulling a circuit all the way back to the main panel
6. drywall or other wall covering; paint
7. flooring and possibly finsihed carpetry (molding; base boards)
My point is there are a lot of things consider to make this a real bathroom instead of a toilet out on a porch. Also, yes, some handymen might be able to do the whole job, but this requires some skill and care. For example, an improperly mounted toilet can leak and then rot the subfloor before you realize what is happening. I have had to personally redo several bathrooms in rental properties I own due to sloppy work done in the past. Electrical----improperly done can cause a fire. Example: in a rehab a did back in 2003, I found several junction boxes with burn marks due to improper wiring technqiue and even a place where a small fire had started behind a wall due to splicing wires together behind wall (definiately not to code).
Just some food for thought; not trying to scare you.
Good luck