Remote Real Estate Investing; Estimating Reno Costs

[Marco Fontana]

Hi everyone. New member here looking to get started in buy and hold rentals. I'm having some issues wrapping my head around how to get renovation cost estimates when investing remotely, or even in my area. I live in Boston, but have some realtor connections in upstate NY and Houston, TX. 

I'd have no issue driving over to NY to check out the houses myself or having my realtor connections send pics, etc, but what is the typical process for getting contractors to provide estimates before actually buying the house. I've read a few posts and watched a lot of BP vids on estimating costs, but was hoping there was a way to get an exact number before buying a house. 

Is it typical to get in contact with a General Contractor and have them visit the house with the realtor to give an estimate? Also, if I'm trying to get multiple GC bids, my thought was to have them all show up at the same time to get a walk through of the house with my realtor and provide me bids after.

Is this the common practice? I just don't want to have GCs show up to a house if it's not commonplace, but I'm also not comfortable with buy house that needs TLC, without getting close to exact numbers for renovation costs. Looking to use BRRRR as my strategy.

Thanks in advance.

[Jason Carter]

Just have your GC visit the house. Put the GC in contact with your agent to get access. That is typical. You need to get exact numbers and that is really the only way until you get a lot more experience. 

I would not have a bunch of GC's show up all at once. They tend not to like that or at least that was my experience. 

It's good to have another person to follow up on the GC's work too. Whether that's your realtor or your property manager you want boots on the ground to oversee/confirm the contractor's work. You need to be sure you're getting what you're paying for.