Apartment turns in old multi family houses

[Frank Maratta]

I’ve done about 20 apartment turns to this date. I always seek a higher end product, it helps attracting new tenants and things like wiring, overhead lighting with switches, in each room, all new interior solid core six panel doors, and all new plumbing help to make me to rest easy with very little maintenance.

up till now, I have always “pieced” these apartments back together. What I mean when I say “pieced” is that the multiple holes the electricians cut for wiring (and they are a lot) get patched, old varnished window and door casing gets sanded down and painted white, interior doors are slabs we cut down rather than pre-hung ( and in some instances the slabs we hang expand and don’t close and require trimming after time, hinges dont always hold, ect.  

A friend of mine recently took another approach to this and it got me thinking. He demoed everything down to the studs and just started fresh. 

His approach is certainly much easier and straightforward and at the end of the day his costs were similar to mine. 

Keep in mind these are all old house knob and tube, and plaster walls and Ceilings  and we all know that once you start cutting holes or Channels for the Electrican, plaster is a nightmare to deal with and piece back together. 

What do you guys who own apartments do for unit turns? Do any of you take the demo- to the studs approach or do you leave the knob and tube and basically just do the bare minimum with new flooring, paint, cabinets ect? 

For me, the old trim, doors, and old electrical is really what seems to cause more work then it’s worth. 

Demoing to the studs gives a nicer finished product with all new Sheetrock trim, wiring, ect. And seems to be a more efficient approach.  

Thoughts?

[Frank Maratta]

Quote from @Kevin Sobilo:

@Frank Maratta, excellent post!

First off, I have taken a similar approach to you. I work with what I have as much as possible. I have taken vacant uninhabitable homes and turned them into what I consider B class rentals in modest working class R-2 residential neighborhoods where most houses are C class.

On a rehab, I never gut a house. I upgrade most electrical. On a 2 story home, first floor outlets are easily rewired from the basement and 2nd floor outlets and ceiling fixtures are accessible from the attic with minimal intrusion. If necessary, in bedrooms some surface mount could be used. When furniture is in place surface mount conduit is barely visible anyways. Most times I am not using surface mount though.

The one place where wiring sometimes doesn't get updated is first floor ceiling fixtures. That is to save on excess patching and because its the least important to replace in my opinion. With the change to LEDs VERY little power is pulled through those wires.

When it comes to patching, I never considered patching plaster to be that difficult. It is a little more work than drywall, but the finished product is very good because with plaster walls, I often finish the process by skimming all of the walls with joint compound creating walls that almost like like new drywall. An advantage of keeping the plaster is that its SOOOO much more durable than drywall. So, there will be a little less maintenance going forward. 

With doors and trim, I have not had the issues you describe. 80% of the time I am keeping the original doors and painting them. Since I don't gut the house, the woodwork is also staying and being painted. With doors I need to replace, I have gone cheaper with hollow core doors. I only use pre-hung doors when I am framing a new space not in an old opening. They are light so, they tend not to get tight unless the house itself moves a little.

With flooring, I tend to refinish the wood floors in bedrooms because its cheaper and more durable and because I own a floor sander. In public spaces I will refinish floors if they are really nice or use LVP mostly.

I think this approach is quite a bit cheaper than a gut rehab both in materials and in labor.

Also, my goal is B-class. Could I make it somewhat nicer with a gut rehab, sure but would that make my deal better? Not really. I would spend so much more it would be harder to refi out all my money on a BRRRR deal and if I did, the refi loan would be larger making it harder to cash-flow. If I was flipping houses the math might be different but I'm doing BRRRR.

Kevin it seems like we take a similar approach here to our turns. The only difference I would have to note is perhaps the plaster in your area is reinforced with wire mesh. In that case, yes, I would agree it’s very strong. However, in my area, 80% of the plaster is just plaster and lath, it breaks, it splits, it’s weak. 

as far as the doors go; most of these old doors are varnished and required sanding and also have the old style door knobs that tend to break, parts are hard to find. This is why I just end up cutting in slabs and new style knobs. Tell me about your method, you paint right over the varnish? Does the paint stick?

and yes, there’s something to be said about the ease of wire mold for electrical, but wire mold itself is quite pricey in itself. I use this approach sometimes as well. 

the big thing is the ceilings. Most of these apartments have NO electrical overhead fixtures in the ceilings, or if they do- it’s a pull chain fixture wired to knob and tube. And not to mention, ugly pop corned ceilings    Yes, sometimes we wet it and scrape it off. But then we end up cutting channels for the electrician depending on which way the joists run for the ceiling lights.  At the end of the day, what I’m starting to realize is, it’s just easier to demo out the ceilings, new electrical for overhead lighting, and sheet rock.  Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always felt overhead lighting with a switch in each room helps to attract tenants. Feel free to disagree, I’d like to hear your thoughts. 

as you mentioned you skim coat the old plaster walls. I’ve done this too, but there’s something to be said about patching and skim coating takes time. 

we seem to have the same mind set, and yes I agree with you about some of the electric being accessable from the basement or attic, but some of these unit turns are 3 story buildings, so either the basement isn’t accessable or the attic isn’t accessable. 

I think the next turn I do, I’m going to send a crew of guys to demo out everything and start new. Just as a test to see what my costs end up being, versus putting things back together piece by piece. I can also insulate this way. Tenants won’t jump on an apartment because it’s insulated, they don’t know the difference. But I think overtime, the energy costs may speak for themselves and sooner or later that’s a factor they would take into consideration before a move.