What You know about pulling all nighters?

Question

Just pulled 2 all nighters to finish a rental property. Motivated to get to a bigger level. So decided to jump back end with my handyman and pump the property out. 3 weeks after last tenant(2 years) moved out and still repairing, applicant saw the house and passed the application process.

My idea is to crank 24/7 until I get to the next level which will crank more itself for me. Going to still try to schedule my life. It will be tough.

My goal while crankingis: -continue RE education(books, clubs), workout, and personal time(family, etc).

Only way I know is to actually crank it out. Like these fake guru's say. Damn I hate them.

Thanks for thoughts and ideas.

Aaron Mazzrillo · Answer

When you are starting out, it is good to save whenever and wherever you can. As you get more experienced and have more money, you realize your time is better spent doing things that pay more than $20/hour.

Nothing beats a great work ethic!

Michaela G. · Answer

Yeah, I've done a few late nights, but to be honest, I'm not into that.

Keep in mind that you lose your edge, if you don't have enough sleep. That's not such a big deal if you do basic stuff, like painting, patching - things that don't require thought.

But if your body is lacking sleep, it can be detrimental when you do due diligence for a deal. You need to be sharp for that

Aaron McGinnis · Answer

All nighters are not any kind of business plan. They will leave you broken - mentally, physically... and eventually, financially. 
	
	We used to pull all-night jobs. Work the crew (including me) for an 18-22 hour shift, then tell them to come back in a few hours to keep going. What we finally learned was that we got diminishing returns and that we were very poor judges of our own ability to be productive. Things started taking twice as long because everyone was exhausted and unable to think straight... and the long-term results were devastating on ourselves, our crew, our morale... well, you get the picture.
	
	If you need labor... buy labor. Labor is cheap - your health is expensive and pulling 24 hour shifts will ruin even a very strong person's health. 
	
	Gurus tell you that all you need to succeed is unflappable resolve and the willingness to 'go the extra mile and work the extra long hours' ... this is fine for awhile, but what you do becomes the habits you have... and the habits that you have make or break you.

I guess what I'm getting at is... do the all-nighters if you don't have a choice *This time* ... and the aggressively plan ways to avoid making those kind of mistakes that end up costing you your health and sanity.

Will Barnard · Answer

My last few all nighters gave me one hell of a hangover!

As far as banging it out yourself, that is good when starting out, more importantly than the savings, is the experience of how long it takes to do things, how much it should cost, and in what order you should do the rehab items. After you have this experience, you will find that hiring this out is more cost effective as your time should be spent on things that pay 10 times or more the cost of labor.

Sam Leon · Answer

be careful.

I have done that fairly frequently years ago but less and less now a days.  Getting old.

Also construction work doesn't lend itself to long hours.  I can do physical work, then sit down and do some brain work, but it's hard to keep going.  What my concerns would be when it gets to a point that it affects your reflex and control...then don't operate a drill press, a table saw or chop saw, or run electrical wires...a small mistake can do big bodily damages.

Kyle Hipp · Answer

I don't get tired when I am motivated and keep moving. I still work at my day job and work shift work. When I am on my 7 day stretch of 11pm -7am, I usually am up for 24+ hours a couple days. During the summer I had a couple large projects and worked about 16-18 hours a day, pretty much every day. I did manage to fit a healthy number of those days at home to be with my family as we just bought our house that needed some updates this spring. I do have some free time at work and used that to plan out my time effieciently. Once I start then I don't have to think much because I planned the most of it out. I intend on hiring out more and more work as time goes on but also enjoy doing the work myself. You can do it but planning is key. Remember your family as well, my dad is good to remind me that all this extra work is useless if you lose your family and give half of everything away and increase you expenses along the way.

Joel Owens · Answer

Yeah I do not go for all nighters anymore. At 38 my body says no way to that. I did enough manual labor at 14 with my first job.

I have to get 8 hours of sleep a day. You need rest just as much or more so analyzing numbers all day for yourself and clients.

The body wears out over time but you can earn even more with the mind as you get older. These days my exercise is at the gym or running when out of the office.

I did a bunch of turning units when I had my 20 unit and it's overrated. Yes in the beginning learning how it is done is good but after that just pay someone else. Now some investors just love doing this kind of work and to them it's fun. Me I can accelerate earnings with my mind over manual labor any day of the week.

I don't know how people stay up all night anymore as you get older. They must drink 30 red bulls or something.......... : )

Robert Carl · Answer

My first 2 houses I did all myself. Now I use crews for my gut jobs. Now I mainly do clean ups or small maintenace stuff. All nighters are killer dont know how I did so many in the beginning. I just wanted this one back up in running quickly for two reasons.

1. The main reason I have a house gutted and about to put the team back to work on the house to finish it.

2. Hard to find good tenants this time of year.

My role is less and less labor and more overseeing which Im backing out of that and my maintenace guy is overseeing more. While you building you have to be able to keep financing and Im not slowing up.

Less vacanies=Faster rehabs and more houses.

@Kyle Hipp good way to go with planning.

Troy Sheets · Answer

@Aaron McGinnis is dead on, there are many studies that show, at least in construction, how each hour past 8 in a work day your productivity drops off in quite a linear fashion. At 12 hours you're roughly only at 75% productivity and at 16 hours in you're nearly only 50% as productive as you were. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, just keep the above in mind though.

Brant Richardson · Answer

First rehab I did was all me, every single scrap of spare time and very long hours, over the course of months to make it happen.  My second rehab I hired a young guy who didn't have much experience but was bright and able for $15/hr as a helper. I could have found a lot cheaper if I wanted to. What a difference.  I could set him up to paint while I did something else or we could work together on more complex stuff.  Find cheap labor and use it.  I will never do it all myself again.

What You know about pulling all nighters?

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