The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs by J Scott

[Chris Farinella]

About to start the second edition edited in, I believe, 2018. Does anyone have any thoughts on whether or not the content has become obsolete or remains relevant? I’m currently reading, listening, and learning and plan on jumping in the game within the next year or two, but as of now I have no construction or investing experience.

Thanks!

[J Scott]

As the author of the book, I'll chime in...

If you're looking for an accurate list of prices for various renovation tasks and components, the pricing the book is likely outdated for most areas.  A lot of people are asking if I plan to do a revision in the near future, and the honest answer is, until the market settles down and inflation is under control, any pricing speculation is going to be out of date pretty quickly.

All that said, the main purpose of the book isn't to list prices for things. The main goal of the book is to teach the methodology for looking at a property, completely inspections, determining what needs to be renovated, creating a scope of work, and then using that scope of work to get real life bids on both labor and materials.

And that content is not at all impacted by economic conditions or changes in the market.

For anybody looking to learn the methodology behind estimating rehab costs and learning the process so that they can start estimating their own projects, the book is as great as ever.

But I would certainly take the pricing estimates with a grain of salt these days.