Why Do We Rehab Houses Anyways

So this morning I was spending some time doing back research on our interview for this week's show. Yes I know this is hard to believe but I actually do research. No time is this more true than for this week's show. You see normally I know the answers to about 70% of the questions I ask before I ask them 

 

This week we are going to talk to Jim Simcoe who is a an expert in the Green Rehabbing space. Of which I have about zero prior knowledge. Yeh I have done about 125 rehabs of my own over the years.I have coached others on what to do, and about 15% actually listened, the other 85% learned the hard way, just like I did.

Green rehabbing, or Greenhabbing as it has been coined is about as foreign to me as the idea of caring about what someone is asking for a property before I decide what to offer. So off to Google and a few places our well versed guest this week sent me.

So I started reading up on the benefits of greenhabbing, the sustainability factor, the long term profit play, the short term incentives, the health factors. It all looked really cool and then I thought, "So why do we do this?" Why do we take a house that is in crappy shape and rehab it in a way the is eco friendly and utilizes sustainable products?

Yeh long term you can increase your profit on the property, and short term their are tax incentives. But if I know most rehabbers they have the attention span and patience of a fruit fly. So reality comes in to play here and they lose that long term perspective.

No I think the fact is that people do this because they actually care. Let's face it some of us recycle, it isn't mandated in our municipality, in fact I think we pay more for it. But we still separate out as much as we can.

We live in a neighborhood that has everything the modern person could need within walking distance, restaurants, groceries, cupcake shop! Thus reducing the amount of gas and carbon footprint we leave. So yeah I think we actually do this stuff more because we care.

On the show this week we will get into some of the nitty gritty on greenhabbing. We will talk about the business end, how it helps attract a better quality tenant, higher rents, more profits long term, more government incentives short term.

Just keep in mind that us real estate investors are basically lazy. We don't do anything unless we really want to, and then when we do we do it 24-7. So remember as you hear the business case the key is you need to have a passion for it and you need to care about it. Whether it is greenhabbing, lease-options or working short sales. Success comes when you care, or more specifically the will to overcome hurdles comes from passion.