Tuesday marks the end of week five on The Flood House renovations, and things are going well (see original schedule here)…
Last Wednesday, we had our final inspection by the city, and passed without any issues. The only remaining task to receive our Certificate of Occupancy is to pass our final mold test, which is being done tomorrow (Tuesday). We don’t expect any problems there, so once the final touches are done on the house, we should be ready to list it.
Over the past week, we (almost) finished installation of the hardwoods, carpet and vinyl flooring — our carpet guy actually forgot to measure one of the bedrooms, so we were 20 yards short on carpet for the installation today. Luckily, my distributor still has some left and can deliver tomorrow to finish the final room.
We also tiled the fireplace, had the original tubs and shower cleaned and polished (amazingly they look like new), got the appliances installed and finished the exterior touch-ups, including replacing some downspouts, repainting some trim and pressure washing the driveway.
On Tuesday, we’ll get the remainder of the carpet installed, our contractor will walk-through and complete the punch-list and we’ll have our final mold testing done. On Wednesday, the house is getting cleaned. On Friday, we’ll be staging. And on Saturday, the house will hopefully get put on the market for sale.
As for the budget, we’re actually pretty close to our target of $34,500. I expect we’ll finish literally within $100 above or below, depending on the cost of some final materials. More on that once we put the house on the market.
And I’ll post some pictures later this week…
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I’ve been following your blog for several months now, and it appears to me you and your wife are progressing very well with each rehab.I like the continious improvement you make in your business.. Keep up the good work and please keep blogging!
No hickups on the inspection? Such budget accuracy?
You have achieved mastery and I, sir, applaud you.
If I may, how much $$$ total did you go into this business with?
Hey Ivan –
Our contractors are getting very good at making sure the little stuff that the inspectors look for is getting done, and after working with much of the same crew for the past year or two, we’re getting REALLY good at estimating their bids before they even look at the property (and if they bid too high, we’re getting good at negotiating them down :))…
We originally allocated about $200K to the business, though we could have gotten away with MUCH less than that in retrospect. On House #1, we sunk half of that cash (over $100K) into the property and didn’t refi any of it out until 2 years later. So, if you ignore House #1, we really only started in the business with $100K. And with the lenders we found shortly after we started, we never came close to using that full $100K. My guess is that someone could have achieved exactly what we did over the past two years for about $50-75K — and that much money can easily be borrowed from family/friends/private lenders/etc…
“easily borrowed” huh? 🙂
Hey Shane –
Yes, if you’re persistent and can put together a good plan, it should be too hard to find a professional in your network (doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc) who has $100K in their retirement account and who is looking for a better return than they can get in the stock market.
While I don’t deal with private lenders, I know a LOT of investors who have gotten their start by borrowing money from some professional they knew who had retirement money and was happy to lend it at 8-10%…
You know, it’s funny you mention doctors. I’m pretty good friends with a fellow musician/drummer doctor in my town, and another fellow musician doctor in Fort Worth I’ve known for years. The thought never even crossed my mind to talk to them. Thank you. Now…to create a business plan…starting with yours and adapting to a buyer’s market in Fort Worth Texas area…