Calculating Rehab with Eyes

[Account Closed]

When you guys are doing calculations at the house, how do you personally know HOW MUCH the repairs are going to be? Some advice said to use chunks of $5,000 per major problem. What strategy do you guys use to get the numbers?

Thanks.

[J Scott]

Yes, in about 15 minutes I can estimate to within about 10%, and am accurate about 90% of the time.  I can do that because I've looked at thousands of houses and have flipped hundreds of houses.  There are no shortcuts (like "$5000 chunks" or cost per square foot), regardless of what people may tell you.

The only shortcut is lots of practice and doing lots of projects on the same types of houses in the same location using the same contractors.

When I first started, it would take me hours of putting together a scope of work, hours of talking to contractors and hours of walking the aisles at the big box stores.  IMO, that's the best way to start.