All Forum Posts by: Adam Abdel-Hafez

Sorry for the poor grammar, I wrote that on my phone

That makes no sense that the water is coming in on the side of the house not uphill. That means you have a lot of water in that area. I honestly do anything I can to avoid waterproofing as like I stated above, I rarely see it as necessary. Do you have downspouts draining right near that area? Do you need to add drain pipes (just corrugated pipes attached to downspouts) ~5ft away from the foundation? Go to the home and look at gutters/downspouts and see where the water is going. Also look at the terrain and see where that water is going. I have added railroad ties with a drain and gravel in a worst case scenario and had success. I have had quite a bit of experience with this stuff and have never had the need to waterproof or add interior drain system w a pump. In the other hand, I have gone behind many water proofing companies that did wrapped the foundations, French drain, etc and it didn't solve the problem. These people end up with the same problem and I go in there and do a $200 repair and everything is good as new.

People love to jump to the conclusion of major waterproofing the foundation and or adding a sumo pump and French drain. From My experience that is very rarely needed

Not to say anything about your contractor, but have you physically inspected the gutters? You need to inspect things like are the gutters flush with the fascia, are the gutters sloped properly, don the downspouts have drain pipes/elbows directing the water away from the house, etc. You really want to control water from the exterior of the building rather than the interior

I cannot see the picture very well as I am dong this on my phone, but do you have gutters? I would say 90% of water intrusion (other than leaks) is from missing or improperly installed gutter systems

Mark Gallagher it sounds like you are hiring day laborers/handymen whereas Adam Martin is actually hiring contractors. As a contractor, I would never accept payment on a daily basis. I cannot schedule my crew and or buy materials in a timely manner when I work on a day to day basis. The same way clients deal with giving contractors money and them running, contractors have to deal with clients not paying them. I have dealt with doing the work and the client being satisfied but still not paying me. I like it how people always talk about contractors screwing over clients but never vice versa.

How do you know it needs foundation work? Could it just be some rotted framing? In reference to paying contractors, it varies depending on the job. For rental rehabs especially, they are very quick no longer than 2 weeks max but typically 1 week. It makes no sense to have multiple draws on a 1 week rehab, so I typically do 50% upfront and the remaining after completed. If it's a large renovation that will take months, then I have no problem with doing 10% upfront but not for a rental rehab.

Gabriel R. What is your goal with this property, flip or rental? You can do both kitchens for a flip in a middle finishes class for about $15k for both. New roof, depending on the size of the house, but let's just say it's a 20 sq roof at $4k. That's half of your budget and not including permits, electrical and plumbing problems with adding the 2 kitchens and basement/attic being gutted. You have not accounted for paint, exterior work(you mentioned siding, that will blow your budget with siding). It is possible to get it done for $40k, but I don't think you have a lot of wiggle room in that.

As others have stated, it all depends on how the tenants left the home. If you want pricing, the lowest I have seen is probably $0.25/sqft and the highest is around $8/sqft. Obviously the lower end one the tenants kept the home in excellent condition where we really didn't have to do anything but clean and do a few minor repairs. The higher amount, the tenants trashed the home. Paint the entire house, new flooring, landscaping, a lot of misc repairs, cleaning, etc.

Yea, you definitely want to use a company entity specific credit card for the accounting reasons mentioned above. We use capital one sparx business and we get 2% cash back on all transactions.