All Forum Posts by: Matt Donley

The septic tank didn't need to be pumped, it needed to be built. The house had an old cistern that had failed, so there was no working waste drainage system on the property, which would not have passed conventional financing. They did end up finishing the septic install, it was just a couple weeks after our original closing date. 

So we ended up buying the house, but we had to do a last-minute cash deal because the seller was supposed to get the septic tank replaced by the closing date, and they didn't. Capital One was my mortgage company, but they literally closed down their mortgage business while I was under contract, so they said they would close on the deal, but wouldn't allow any extensions. Since the septic wasn't done, they dropped the contract less than a week before closing.

I ended up having to borrow money from family, then I refinanced about 6 months later after getting the bathroom remodeled. But to answer your question, I'm pretty sure the bank was ok with the condition of the house as shown in the pictures above, they just needed the septic tank complete, and it wasn't, so that's why I lost them. 

The title of my post is "Estimating repairs with no interior access using 3D modeling", so it's a moot point to say that creating a 3D model won't tell you if the house smells or how much damage exists because you wouldn't know those things regardless.

This post isn't about arguing whether or not you should invest in a house without being able to inspect the interior.

I was just offering a way to more accurately estimate worst case scenario repair costs when interior access is denied, by making a fairly accurate 3D model by simply extrapolating information from photos. I thought it was pretty cool, and could give investors more confidence when putting offers on properties while blind.

However, there's no reason why you can't modify the workflow I outlined above if you do have interior access. By getting some rough measurements of the interior, along with photos, you can use the 3D model to create a very accurate takeoff for the repair calculations.

Oh well. I'm a details oriented person, so I love stuff like this. I thought more people would find it interesting. I rarely post on the forum, so I thought I had a chance to provide some value. But, thanks for the feedback.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

How long does it take to create a 3D model in Sketchup? 

For me, it took about an hour to build the 3D model for this house. Obviously, you'd have to know how to use SketchUp. But I should say that SketchUp is one of the easiest 3D modeling programs to learn. Of course you'd also have to invest time in building your cost data, if you're doing that yourself. But the thing that's cool is you can build your database of costs in Excel, and link it to a template model in SketchUp, that way when you assess a new project you simply apply materials to the different faces in the model and the costs are generated automatically. 

What quantities are you trying to extract out of the model? Wall surfaces, floor surfaces, roof quantities?

Whatever data you need to assign cost to. Walls, ceilings, roof, floors. You could also account for appliances, windows/doors, cabinets, etc. Demo, insulation, sheetrock, plaster, paint, etc, it's all up to you as far as the level of detail you want to put into it. 

Instead of using "rule of thumb" estimates for areas, this 3D model enables you to be much more accurate. 

I think this is a great idea. If anyone has a project where they have floor plans of the house, maybe a new construction. Send me the listing of the house that has interior & exterior photos, and I'll create a model as accurately as I can. Don't show me the floor plan until I'm done, and I can see how accurate the model is.

Hi Michael, thanks for the feedback. What are you skeptical of exactly? The accuracy of the model? 

Yeah, it's certainly not as accurate as being able to measure everything and inspecting everything in person, that's why I presented this as a solution for only when you don't have access to the interior. 

What's the alternative when you have no access? Just guess? I'm curious how people assess risk on a property they have no access to? I just see this as a way to have more confidence. 

I wanted to provide an overview of how to more accurately estimate remodeling/repair costs on a property that has no interior access, by using 3D modeling. This would be property that is currently occupied, out of state, or not allowed access for other reasons (common on auction.com for example). Instead of blindly placing an offer on a property, assess your risk more accurately by creating a simple 3D model of the house that you can use to derive repair costs.

What you'll need:

• SketchUp Make or SketchUp Pro - You can download SketchUp Make 2017 for free at sketchup.com/download/all. (You'll need to create a free Trimble account.) (Also note that SketchUp Make is no longer supported, but it will work for our needs here.) SketchUp Pro is also available with 30-day trial, then $299/YR or $695 one-time fee.
• (Optional) Quantifier Plugin $79- This SketchUp plugin makes it easier to assign cost in your model, but it's not necessary. You can manually extract area calculations from SketchUp to import into Excel or whatever to manually calculate your costs.
• Interior & exterior photos from the listing - We'll reference the interior photos inside SketchUp using the "Match Photo" tool, to check the 3D model and figure out where each room is located in the house. The match photo feature is the "magic" behind this whole workflow. Exterior photos are useful for getting the shape of the house correct, as well as matching windows from specific rooms with the interior photo to identify where a room is located in the house.
• Google Maps - 3D mode and street view offer additional perspectives of the house from the sky, as well as the street. (Hopefully no trees block the house, lol)
• County GIS - Most towns and counties offer online viewing of their GIS data, which typically includes a property card that has a basic sketch of the footprint of the home with rough dimensions. These dimensions will serve as a starting point to get the rough shape of the house.

The objective is to build a very simple 3D model of the house which can then be used to derive areas and volumes that can be used for estimating repair/remodeling costs more confidently, when you are denied interior access to the home and can't measure/inspect the interior space. Of course there is risk and assumptions with doing this. This post is not about that. I just wanted to offer a way to better assess a property that you can't access for whatever reason.  This isn't going to be a complete step-by-step, but instead, an overview of the process I came up with.

Step 1 - GIS

You'll want to start by finding out whatever dimensions you can get your hands on. Most towns have online GIS (geographic information system) available. You can try to find it by searching "<town>, <state> GIS", so, for example, "Warren, RI GIS".

Each GIS system will be different, but basically you'll see a map of the town, and you should have a search option where you can search by address, or you can simply zoom into the property manually. Once you find the property and click on it, there should be a "property card", which you can click on to view more info about the property. 

On the property card, you'll see assessment info, area calculations, and hopefully a rudimentary sketch of the footprint of the home, with rough dimensions.

3D Model in SketchUp

Using the footprint dimensions, you'll model a simple box in SketchUp. Use the Rectangle tool to create a rectangle, then type in the dimensions to set the rectangle to the correct size. Then, use the Push/Pull tool to extrude up 8' for now.

Next, you'll want to grab an exterior photo of the house to use the "Match Photo" feature with. The match photo feature enables you to change the camera perspective of SketchUp to match the camera perspective of the photo. This enables you to 3D model, while viewing the photo overlay, so you can basically build your model to match the photos. (Match Photo is a little tricky so I'm not going to cover it here.)

By creating multiple "Match Photos", you can compare several perspectives to your model, until you come up with something that matches the house fairly accurately.

You can also compare images from Google Map 3D view, as well as Street View, to give you a good idea of proportions. Sometimes the camera angle distortion messes with our perception, so it's always a good idea to view from multiple angles so you can adjust your model. In Google Maps, switch to Satellite view, then click the 3D button, then click the rotate view arrows to rotate around the property. 

At this point, you already have enough information to estimate siding and roofing replacement! Just select the surfaces you want to measure (hold CTRL while selecting with the Select tool to select multiple), and in the Entity Info window in SketchUp, it will show you the total area of those surfaces.

Interior layout

The interior is more tricky, because you typically won't have any dimensions, so you'll only be working off of images. In most cases, there will be areas of the house that aren't photographed at all, which can still be valuable because you can infer things that may uncover more risk. There's probably a reason they didn't take a picture, and this process will help you ask questions to the seller about specific areas of the house that other buyers won't even know to ask about.

You'll want to choose the first room by finding a unique window that you can identify in both the interior and exterior photo. This reference will help you locate exactly where the room is in the house. Most likely it will be a bay window, double window, or maybe a small bathroom window that is easily identifiable. You can also reference a chimney and fireplace easily, or any other unique object like a front door, or whatever. 

Another important thing to look for in the photos are perspectives that show open doors into the next room. By referencing the paint color of the adjacent room, you can pretty easily identify where the rest of the rooms are located. (assuming the whole house isn't painted white, lol)

Once you've got a room, you'll literally just look at the photo, and guess the sizes and placement of things such as walls, windows, and doors. Use commonly known dimensions to reference scale. For instance, baseboard is typically 3 1/2" tall. Doors are usually 6'-8" Tall. A stove is usually 30" wide. Things like that. Use those dimensions to help you infer other dimensions.

Using these tips, you can get your model looking something like this, with all of the interior spaces roughly defined.

Estimating costs

Now I use a SketchUp plugin called Quantifier to assign costs to things in my model. I like it because I can apply materials to the surfaces in my model, and it will calculate a cost based on the area of the surfaces that have the material applied. In the picture above, you'll notice that the exterior walls are green, and the interior walls are yellow. That's just because I use a different cost calculation for interior walls vs exterior walls, so the colors are different. Quantifier also allows you to assign costs by volume, layer, and by object. So there's a lot of flexibility.

If you don't want to use the plugin, you can just go to the Materials panel, click the Home button to view all materials in your model, then Right-click on the material > Area, and it will tell you the area of the surfaces that use that material. From there, you can plug that into a spreadsheet or share that with your contractor to get pricing.

Finding issues

Now remember when I said that some areas of the house won't have any photos? Well, in this house in particular, they don't show the stairs to the second floor. I figured out exactly where the stairs exist (by process of elimination), but there is no headroom to get up there! I can assume that whatever access there is to the 2nd floor, it's not up to code, and will likely be an issue that needs to be addressed.

You can go as detailed as you like with this, adding cabinets, appliances, "junk to be removed", etc. As many objects as you want to assign cost to. It's a much more accurate way to estimate cost and risk when you don't have access, even if you want to calculate a worst-case scenario. The visual aspect of having a 3D model is very helpful too for brainstorming ideas and solutions. 

btw, here's the property I used in this example https://www.auction.com/details/254-metacom-ave-wa.... Funny enough, interior access is granted (to realtors only), but I was just using this house as practice for this workflow.

Let me know if you have any questions!

I currently rent a small office space for $250/mo. When I moved in, the place was a dump. I completely remodeled the space and it is a really nice office space now. However, I just moved 45 minutes away, and the commute to work is killing me. I plan on moving back to a home office, but I want to propose to my landlord to let me sub-lease the space, so I can try to make back some of the money I put into the office. I believe I could rent the space for $500/mo.

I don't currently have any sort of lease, I just rent on a hand-shake agreement. If I sublease, I would obviously propose creating a lease agreement and sublease agreement. 

Before I propose this to my landlord, do you have any advice on any terms I should suggest, or any other things I'm not thinking of?

I'm under contract on a single family home that has been remodeled about 90% there... Full gut, new floors, new kitchen, bath, insulation, drywall, electrical, plumbing, new roof, new siding, etc. However, there are odds and ends that haven't been completed. 

• There are a few interior doors missing.
• There is a small bedroom that was being converted to a master bath, and right now it is completely gutted down to bare studs. No electrical or plumbing or heating in that room. 
  
• The existing bathroom tile is half torn up (I suspect they had a hose burst on the washer machine and it soaked into the subfloor and popped the tiles.)
• No finished flooring in closet (subfloor exposed)
  
• Handle is missing on shower valve. (I was able to turn it on using pliers)

I was going to shoot for a remodeling loan, but decided to try for a conventional loan in order to keep things simple. My question is, does anyone know if these things will be a problem for the bank, or will it be fine as long as the appraisal comes in higher than my purchase price? Assuming the appraisal backs out the cost to complete these items from the comps.

I mean obviously a bank won't loan money if half the roof is missing from a house, but I'm not so sure about these items. Does anyone have experience with this? I've asked the appraiser, and my loan officer, and I can't seem to get a straight answer. I'm going to try talking to the underwriter next to get his opinion, but I'd rather get these things addressed now if I know they will need to be done before closing.  I was thinking of just throwing down some cheap flooring, and put some paneling on the walls temporarily just for the closing.

Thanks for your help!

Thanks for the feedback guys. @Ben Leybovich I have already placed an offer of $230, and it was countered. But $230k is my highest and best offer, as it values the house at $92/SF, well above the average. I know SF isn't the only factor that goes into value, of course not.

The agent suggested that I pay for an appraisal. I'm not sure what I think of that. I almost feel like the seller should pay for that, and then if we come to an agreement, I can pay her back. I'd be willing to pay more if I can be convinced the house is worth it, but I'm not sure the appraiser would differ more than +- 20 % of what I came up with. It's just tough cause I don't know the area well. What if the appraisal comes back lower than my offer? lol. Would the seller accept less? 

The kicker is that if the house were actually 3024sf, the price per sf would be $86 at the asking price of $259k, well within the average according to my comps. It really seems like a simple mistake, but they don't want to own up to it.