House Renovating Calculator

[Jade Cessna]

Hi,

My brother and I are new to investing and we have decided to each analyze 100 deals to practice this skill. However, we get hung up on how to estimate the renovation costs for different properties because of our lack of experience. 

Do you guys have any tools that you use to help calculate the cost or any advise on how to estimate while still being conservative?

Thank you in advanced,

Jade

[Adam Oldham]

Hey @Jade Cessna couple of recommendations 

1) A good place to begin with would be using J Scott's book on estimating renovation costs and copying that information into an excel sheet. And then going through a properties photos and adding items that need fixed & using the excel sheet to determine the costs. You will want to familiarize yourself with the terms such as psf, psy, or sq(square used for roofing which equals 100 sqft). If you see a term in that book that is unfamiliar look it up. 

2) I would try your best to familiarize yourself with all of the components that make up a house, I have used this book "The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home: A Step-by-Step Method for Managing Home Construction" numerous times to get a better scope of the details involved with renovating/building a house. This might be a little more advanced but the specifications spelled out in the book for each trade have helped me out tremendously and make sure that I don't miss any small details.  

3) Finally, I would highly recommend visiting the properties in person if you can, often the pictures don't show everything that needs fixed and sometimes its a judgement call with what can be repaired/kept and what needs to be completely torn out. With practice you will gain a better idea of this. Hope this helps!