All Forum Posts by: Jon Lafferty

@Manmit Singh

 I just went through this in NJ. I cringed at the initial thought that I was poisoning someone but the truth is lead paint is everywhere and everyone has levels of lead in their body. Young children are typically those who suffer from lead poisoning. Having said all that in NJ you must use a state certified contractor to perform any lead abatement, the home cannot be occupied at the time of abatement and there is an inspection required by both the local government and a third party other than the contractor performing the abatement.

I had trim replaced on 3 bedrooms, we are talking 5 " base trim, doors and windows. All total it cost me around $3000. I shopped around for this price with the first two specialists coming in at $5k and 6k.

Complete the abatement, fix the unit and over time you will hopefully regain profitability

@Carrie Giordano you can definitely install this flooring yourself. In my experience the key for longevity is a good clean subfloor and taking your time to align seems as good as possible 

Measure twice and cut once because this stuff isn't the cheapest either. 

Good luck, you can do it!

I've used allure in my last 2 rentals because I got a great deal on one of those black Friday sales. I think it was .99 sq ft. I just wrapped up the install on a never ending rehab I'm just wrapping up and I'm pretty happy with the results. 

Allure in Bath and living room / dining room

carpet in BR

tile in Kitchen

Welcome @Brian Hall to BP. I used to live on Budd Blvd in your area but moved a little further south. Check out the local REIA meetings, we have quite an active community of investors in the NJ / Philly markets.

On top of that glad to see another Army vet in the house :)

Wow how time flies, I wish I could report back that this rehab has been completed but I'm busy getting my masters degree in landlording :)

I have my first eviction on March 13th.

The rehab is coming to an end with 3-4 weeks of work left.

Completed Punch list:

Kitchen: cabinets mounted, counters cut to size and mocked up, electric completed for stove, new light fixtures

Bathroom: new everything, drain lines, feed lines, tile surround vanity, new toilet

BR1-3: all drywall and molding has been completed and prepped for paint, new light fixtures

Utility room: washer dryer hookup installed/ electric run, New furnace, 2 new windows

Living Room / Dining room: Drywall repaired, new fixtures, 5 new windows

Remaining punch list:

Paint: Going with realist beige on walls, white molding and ceiling

Flooring: Allure vinyl

Demo ramp / stairs in front of house, repair / replace existing steps

General Cleanup

Another lesson learned:

I had set what I thought were realistic timelines / phases for my GC / Handyman folks. What I have learned is that you really need to watch how you disperse funds in relation to milestones. There have been times I've paid a contractor and didnt see them for another week. Many of the trade folks seem to keep bidding other jobs to keep thier cash flow going. The problem with this is they get spread to thin. Now that I am nearing the end of this rehab I have trade folks working 5-10PM because they need to work during the day on a different job. 

In the future I will try to do a better job defining SOW and payment schedules with milestones.

Here are some photos of the rehab in progress:

Bath:

Kitchen:

I've been having success with allure vinyl planking. It's not the cheapest by any means but it as long as you have a decent sub floor it is easy to lay down and really has been indestructible.... so far :)

I also use tile in my kitchens just in case.

Here is a photo of a bathroom we are doing 

1. Showing up after project has begun

2. Timeliness

3. Quality of work

In my experience some contractors may also run into money issues and need to leave your job prior to completion to start another job and secure another up front payment. This can go on and on until they are spread too thin. Like @Todd Fox says, NEVER pay upfront. Depending on job size build a pay structure into the SOW. For example the project can be broken down into phases with each phase paying xx% of total price.

wow, south jersey has been blowing up lately. Nice to see so many folks from our area on BP.

Happy investing to all.

@Shane Robbins welcome to bp

@Joseph Argento welcome to BP, this the premier site for information on the net. We also have a great local REIA you should check out. Check out sjreia.org for more information. The next meeting is on 2/2 in Brooklawn at the metro diner. Hope to see you around.

Another week gone by and we have continued work on this rehab.

We had quite a bit of demo to do in the bathroom and decided it was easier to pull the entire floor / subfloor out and just lay new flooring. After demo we found 8 layers of flooring in the bathroom, yikes!

All other demo has been completed to include replacing all drywall in mud room, bedroom 1 and the bathroom. Unfortunately we couldnt complete drywall work because the gas company has yet to make it out to turn on service. No heat - no drywall mud and taping.

This leads me into a lesson learned. When a property has had utilities disconnected for greater than X (for me this was 1 year) it will require coordination between the local township, contractors and the utility company. For me this has been a small pain point but lesson learned. I should have planned this out far in advance of "jumping in". To date all utilities have been inspected and turned on except gas.

All rough plumbing has been completed to include new PEX feed lines.

All receptacles have been replaced with new receptacles. We have installed a new 220 line for the stove and completed the design of the kitchen. I'll provide pictures once the cabinets are installed.

We have completed / fixed all sub flooring in the home. The finished flooring will be a mix of carpet in the bedrooms, 12x12 tile in the kitchen and allure vinyl planking in all other rooms.