Smoke Removal Advice for Potential Rental

[Joshua Gordon]

My wife and I are a military family that is currently stationed in Japan and are looking at our first multi-family investment. 

We found a duplex in an area that we used to live in that is currently for sale. The duplex was under contract and just came back on-market due to the seller being unable to obtain financing. I ran the numbers and everything meets our deal criteria for location as well as our specific property analysis criteria.  

However, for the property to work, both sides of the duplex must rent. One side of the duplex is rent ready but the current owner's side has been heavily smoked in. 

I've never dealt with smoke damage or the cost of smoke removal. I would have to hire everything out and deal with logistics with a 12 hour time difference. The roof is >15 years old and needs to be replaced within the next 5 years, estimated 11k quote. One of the water heaters also needs to be replaced.

Two questions for the group: 

1. For those of you that have dealt with smoke removal before, what is the estimated timeline to remove the smoke along with a ballpark cost for removal in a 1,000 sq foot apartment? 

2. Where should smoke removal fall in the priority list when structuring the deal? 

[Eliott Elias]

Kilz and an ozone machine.