First Things to take care of in the midwest

Now on my third house in the Cincinnati market, I wanted to share some important lessons I have learned with rehabbing a house in the midwest. If I had followed these lessons from the beginning I would have saved my self a lot of time and headache. The weather in Cincinnati has been very odd this winter with 1 week being in the single digits and snow falling to the very next week the temperatures being in the 50's. These wild weather swings can take a toll on a house when it is not completely sealed or when the heat is not on. So lessons learned and I will not repeat it on the Rockdale house that will begin in 2 weeks.

Lesson 1: Always repair your roof first. If there are any questions about the integrity of your roof you should have that done in the first week of the rehab. If water or moisture begins to leak in through the roof it can reek havoc on the plaster inside.

Lesson 2: If there are no cellar doors on the entryway into the basement or some other form of a barrier to prevent rainwater from coming in through the entryway then get new doors or at least a slab of plywood over the entryway to prevent water and mud from entering your basement.

Lesson 3: Call at least 1 week ahead of time for ordering materials. Never order only a few days before. This can cause a major delay due to delivery issues of either being late or damaged materials.

Lesson 4: Use asana.com to manage the project. This tool has been a game changer for our contracting business as the partners can assign each other tasks and communicate over the platform to keep everything organized. We can also create individual projects for each property and put the project manager or foreman on the project. You then can type out the schedule of the project as tasks and he or she can mark them as complete showing you how far along the project is.