How to find measurements for long distance rehabs.

[Alexis Hernandez]

Hello everyone. I'm currently reading J Scotts book on Estimating Rehab costs. At the same time I'm practicing estimating rehab costs. I'm having trouble finding measurements like linear feet for gutters, soffits fascias, as well as sq. footage for siding and any walls. How  do you find these measurements without bothering your realtor as I would be doing estimates for several houses that may not work. These are only for quick estimates and I would get confirmation from a contractor. Any help is appreciated! 

[Ke Nan Wang]

Hi @Alexis Hernandez, I'm a licensed contractor in Florida and have been doing rehabs and new constructions for years. 

I'm assuming you are doing this long distance correct? Otherwise I would just go pull the tape on the property in person. Make an appointment first of course. 

In our county's property appraiser's website, which existing property would have a rough digital floor plan that shows its outside parameter and main spaces (conditioned, garage, porch etc.) Do you have this on the property appraiser's website? Once you have the parameter, linear foot is very easy to estimate. Sometimes the building department would have an archive of blueprints of the house. For our building department is 10 years. I wouldn't figure a less than 10 year old house needs a rehab but it's another resource for you where you can get your hands on building blueprints and it cost you nothing.  

Another thing is you really don't need to do it for every house, you will figure this out once you start doing it. You will find similar sq ft, similar layout houses will have about the same cost in those items you mentioned. You don't need it done to the penny. You can estimate in thousands of dollars and that should be good enough for your analysis. 

Like for me, I know a new gutter for 1600 sq ft - 2000 sq ft house cost about $2000-2500. A siding job will cost about $6000-8000 labor and material and exterior paint is about $2500 to $3000 for the entire house. And that's good enough to do rehab estimate. You always want to err on the high side then put about 10-20% on top of the total cost depend on how confident you are with your number because it will always cost more in practice.