Recommendations for carpet install and paint?

[Ashraf Farrag]

Any recommendations for investor-friendly (affordable) individuals that to do carpet installation and some interior paint refresh on my rental?

[Christopher K.]

@Ashraf Farrag - I pay $12.75/yard installed for your typical builder grade carpet. $2.50/yard of that is labor. The other $10.25/yard is for the carpet and a decent 8lb pound. I pay about $2 more than this a yard for a mid-grade carpet. I'm used to pricing carpet by the yard, not the foot .. but If you want to figure it out by the foot, just divide it by 9 (so about $1.42/sq ft for labor and materials for builder grade carpet). 

I pay $2 a foot for interior paint (3 color scheme). That's labor and materials for walls, trim, and ceilings. If I were painting the walls and ceiling the same color, or really trying to save money (lower end rental, etc) and painted the walls, trim and ceiling one color, I could get it done for closer to $1-$1.50/ft.

I'm in the flipping biz, I don't currently do any rentals, and I like to provide a good, solid end product for my buyer. Even though in this seller's market, I could probably get away with half-a*&ing various parts of the rehab and it'd likely still sell, it's just not how I do business. I do see flips come on the market with what I would consider to be sub-par rehabs semi-regularly, but it's hard to know from a distance whether they did it intentionally just to pad their bottom line, if they're inexperienced, or if they just aren't good at what they do. With that said, there are several people that know what they're doing in this market and do turn out a quality product.

Anyway, while I think my carpet prices are pretty competitive, or a bit lower than a lot of other guys I know, I purposely pay a little more for a better-than-average painter because it's worth it (to me). Painting seems to require a little more skill or finesse than laying carpet, so it doesn't cost me in the end to go with the guy that gives me the lowest price for carpet, if that makes sense. 

All of my subs are insured (and licensed, where applicable) and experienced. This costs more than the alternative (aka - the cheapest guy you can find on Craigslist or your cousin Joe or whatever). On the other hand, I give my guys a lot of work year round and also pay them quickly. So this gets me either a better price or preferential scheduling (when I call they'll generally either drop the job they're on and go to mine, or they'll push me up to next in the queue), which having the job done faster saves me money on multiple fronts.