Beware the "Spray and Pray"

[Andrew Watson]

We are dedicated long-termers.  We buy, thoughtfully renovate with resilient materials and finishes ("Bulletproof Chic") and then rent.  Our focus is on SFRs.  Recently we've been working to consolidate into tighter geographic areas.  We have in-house management so tight groupings is far more efficient for us.  To do that we are selling a few homes and then buying a few homes close to our other properties.  

On the purchase side, we have reached the point where we don't even look at "renovated" homes.  The "workmanship" that we're seeing, across the board, is nothing short of disgraceful - paint hiding rotten siding, vinyl flooring over rotten sub-floors, "new" shingle roofs over 2 old roofs where the structure can't support it, load-bearing walls removed with no structural replacement, even a swimming pool that was buried.  For those of you who invest out of state, do take extra caution and make sure your Boots-on-the-Ground team is being extremely diligent. 

We prefer to rehab our homes ourselves - keeps us from having to deal with major maintenance issues in the first few years - but the tight market has forced us to look at some rehabbed properties. Fortunately, we haven't been burned, but that's because we're seeing what we're buying.  Based on what we're seeing today, we would rather buy an uninhabitable, blight home and take the time to renovate it than buy anything already renovated.  

I'm sure you already know this, but I just wanted to make everyone is aware of the trash that is being sold as "renovated", "rent-ready" or "turn-key".