All Forum Posts by: Aaron Rouser

@Scott M., thank you for your response! My roof has some of these issues going on already, but I'l keep this list close so I know what to look for in the future.

@Patrick Snyder, I couldn't agree more! That has been my experience; if they advertise then they'll be more expensive. I'll be sure to reach out to prominent investors and see who they recommend, thank you!

@Joe Villeneuve, when we purchased the property, we didn't even consider factoring the state of the roof into our negotiations. This breakdown of how to perceive roof replacement as a factor of monthly CF has reshaped my thinking and I'll absolutely bring that into our next purchase. Thank you for your reponse!

My wife and I recently purchased our first ever SFR. We've been told by contractors who've visited our property that we should look into getting our roof replaced within the next year or two.

As investors, what caused you to pull the trigger on getting your roof replaced? What degradation signs did you look for? How did you fund the replacement? How did you go about hiring and trusting roofers to get the job done? 

We appreciate any and all roof replacement guides and rules-of-thumb you can provide, thank you!

My wife and I were in a similar spot a few months ago when we purchased what turned out to be a headache property earlier this year. We had the option of cutting our losses by selling the property OR to go ahead with our original plan of adding some sweat equity by fixing it up to hold/rent out.

First off, I 1000% echo what the other posters on this thread have shared. It depends on your unique situation, finances, real estate goals, the breakdown of this particular deal, etc...

What was the deciding factor for my wife and I was that the pain we were going through was temporary. The SFR we bought was in overall decent shape, and we forced ourselves to reframe our thinking so that we could make some lemonade from the lemons we believe we were given. We'd have an appreciating asset, in a desirable neighborhood, that we could eventually fill with tenants and turn it into a cash-flowing asset. We are still very new to the real estate game, but we remembered why we got into it in the first place, and that was to build a portfolio of appreciating assets that cash-flowed. Remembering our initial why gave us all the clarity we needed.

I hope you find some value from this, feel free to PM me if you have any other questions. All the best!

I worked with an outstanding gutter replacement specialist who replaced all of the gutters and downspouts on my SFR this summer. He was knowledgeable, fair price, worked quickly and did a quality job, and I plan to work with him again on my next purchase. Feel free to PM me for details!

Hi BP Community,

My wife and I are rehabbing our bathroom in our first rental. We've replaced the toilet and have removed a small section of rotted subfloor with sheet vinyl flooring on top and replaced it with LVP. We have another 40+ square feet of flooring to replace, but we wanted to pause at this phase. The bathroom walls are falling apart and need replacing too, and we're unclear if we should finish replacing all of the floor FIRST or if we should replace the walls now?

Looking for a good rule of thumb here; assuming they both need replacing, walls first or flooring first with bathroom rehabs?

Also, what cost-effective yet durable material would you recommend for your bathroom walls? Sheetrock? Drywall? Ceramic? Tile?

I'd appreciate any and all suggestions, thank you!

I couldn't agree more with @Nate Bell, real estate investing is a marathon, not a sprint. Starting a successful real estate investing career will be waiting for you once you earn your degree! You'll see that you'll be able to leverage that degree toward earning a position that will allow you to finance your investing.

Shortly after graduating, back in 2016, I quit my job to dive in to REI. I had no idea what I was doing, I blew through $30K in savings, amassed 20K in debt, was forced to move out of my apartment, and I had to drastically change my lifestyle. It took 5 years to get my finances in order, but I was in large part able to do that by relying on the earning potential that my degree afforded me. It took 5 years of ups and downs, but I finally purchased my first rental this year! It takes time...a degree that you can use to yield high income will be worth it.
 

@James Hamling and @Tim Swierczek, thank you so much for taking the time to craft these thoughtful responses to my post. There's so much there that I had never even considered, namely using a gantt chart for meticulously planning the rehab or flipping your perspective on how you can expand returns/reduce expenses when you find things are going off track. Cutting our losses by selling and walking away is still an option that's on the table for us, but for now I'm going to re-run the numbers and see what options are ahead before doing that. Thank you so much for sharing!

My wife and I purchased our first SF residence - 2Bd/1BA - at the end of July in Saint Paul, MN. The goal for this property is to add additional 500sqft of living space in an unfinished basement and add an additional bathroom on the first floor. After we make our additions, we move out, rent out the property, and then get started on our first multi-family property next.  

We originally set aside $30K for this project -- we came across these funds through saving for a year and taking out a loan against our vehicle. We've burned through about $24K on bringing aspects of the home up to code, framing out the basement, materials, costly mistakes, and we haven't even started in on the bathroom yet. We are certainly over-budget and are starting to think we bit off way more than we can chew for our first investment property!

For investors who have been in a situation somewhere like this before, I have two questions for you:

1. How did you end up pulling additional financing together in order to successfully complete your project?
2. For those of you who went on to buy another property, how did you get the funds together to close another deal immediately following your rehab on a previous project? (Getting started on a MF is very important to us and we want to start building momentum as soon as we can)

Thank you so much for your time, I'm open to any and all tips and suggestions!

@Mike Moe THANK YOU so much for this information! I hadn't considered drafting your own contract to help protect yourself and keep the handyman accountable. We'll certainly use this as we go in to our next project! 

Hello @Maritza McKinney, congrats on your deals! My wife and I bought an investment property earlier this year that needed some work; we planned on finishing a basement and adding a bathroom. We weren't handy and we had full time jobs, but were eager to have a qualified pro - a licensed handyman or GC - get started. 

In our eagerness and newness to the process, we made the fatal mistake of hiring the first guy who replied to our post for help. We did not vet him, nor did we ask for a list of references. He overpromised, under-delivered, cut corners, knew nothing about building codes in our city, employed teenagers, stole from us, caused thousands of dollars of damages to our property, and vanished.

What we are doing differently as we recover from this debacle that we hope will help you in finding and selecting a great GC to work with:

• Ask for contractor referrals from trusted, community established organizations. These can come from your local investor meetups, local BP forums, or from other RE professionals who have trusted and established businesses in your area. Those who have been in business for a while and who have no plans of leaving typically have found the best people to work with and are a wealth of knowledge. 
• ASK for references, and thoroughly vet those references! What was it like to work with this person? How was the contracting process? What was their communication style? Were they hard to reach? Did they balance completing your project with that of others? Did they prefer verbal contracts or have everything in writing? Great question to ask those references!
• Don't rush into any contract you aren't 100% comfortable with! Take some time, review it, make sure there is language that protects you if you want to back out of the contract early or specifies who pays for any unnecessary damages to your property during construction.
• Network with like-minded investors, ask for referrals! Has worked well for me so far!

While I'm still new to the process, this has helped me out tremendously, and I hope that this is of value to you! Best of luck!