All Forum Posts by: Bruce C.

@Kerry Baird

I got a quote for tenting at ~2500. I got another quote for spraying (I forget the chemical) for ~350, and it is a local company my house cleaning company recommended. Being that it is Jan and off peak, it was worth it to try the spraying. If it was mid June I would have paid for tenting. I will add that the company will keep coming and spraying until you don’t see any more bugs. 

I did have the mattress covers, and they still got on one of the beds. They were the worst though on the sofa bed. From what I’ve read, ozone machine isn’t going to help, and the DE is only really useful as a preventative. You’ve pretty much got to chemically nuke the house one way or another. We’ve had 4 sprays total, and I think we’re good based on what I saw last night  

My daughter is old enough at 7 to be very useful, and she usually wants to help for a little while. I try to make it fun for them and throw in things like getting to use the nail gun or saw (while I’m holding it).  I also rarely make it mandatory and pay them a quarter or a dollar or two depending on how much they do. By the time their 10-12, if I can make this my full time job, they may have a good summer job to earn some cash. 

Been a while since an update. I’ve spent most weekends and quite a number of evenings after work trying to get house 3 going. Here is my end of year summary for 2019. 

Not much new to report on the duplex. After the animal hoarder eviction costs, no occupancy while fixing the upstairs unit, and costs of repairs, we ended the year -$660 cash flow. I consider that to be pretty good. We'll probably turn over the downstairs tenants this year, but as long as it doesn’t involve rabbits, pitbulls, and a roach infestation, we should start turning a good profit this year.

At the first AirBnB we’ve been fighting bed bugs. We’ve treated it a few times now and I think we’ve got it, but it hasn’t been fun losing the income. Just glad this didn’t happen during spring break or summer. Otherwise, before that happened, December Was going well enough. We’ll see how things go in year 2. I think it will be better than year 1 as we were slow to get bookings in the peak season last year before we had any reviews.



We’re close on AirBnB 2. Down to all the small stuff that seems to add up to a LOT.  Master bathroom just needs shower door and entry door installed. Lots of quarter round to put down around new floor. A few windows to paint, and the old wood floor needs to be cleaned and RE-urathaned. 

We have run in to a few new problems that have eaten in to contingency:

1) perfectly good gas line underground was off more than 12 months. Requires reinspection. No one would inspect as is, said a new line had to be installed. First quote was $6200 for 35’ of underground line. Wtf?  Ended up getting it done for $2200

2) city inspector flagged us for installing the water heater w/o a permit. ~200 to pull permit

3) ~$1k more in unexpected electrical

A few new pictures. We have a draw inspection tomorrow.  Need to pay off some of my debt from repairs to get my credit score out of the hole.  I’ve started the ReFi paperwork and hope we can get ReFid by end of January. 

@Timothy Church

Way to go. I meant to come check back sooner but have been pretty busy just down the road off 61st st.

So was permission for the brewery from your wife or the city?  :)  I suck at pool but will take you up if the offer still stands in mid February. 

Nice!  I'll walk over and help demo if you come over and help install floor! :)  

My kids favorite part about that area is the small fish market.  They'll usually let you feed the pelicans with the scraps from the fish cleaning.  

How many sq ft is that?  Is there much to do to the outside of the building?  I'm always happy to see downtown galveston getting a facelift.  I hope to be one of the ones contributing at some point.  There was an old 4plex that direction I thought about rehabbing before I stumbled on to my current house.  

@Sam B.

It was listed as being on a slab (diagram 1, lower ins rates), and I didn't second guess that designation based on what I saw - neither did my inspector or RE agent.  When I got the flood cert back, the house was considered to fall under diagram #6 (crawl space, wtf?).  I should have gotten the flood cert before purchasing.  Lesson learned.  I actually might have been scared off if i'd gotten a $6k/year quote and not known how low i could get it.  

Since the bottom is enclosed, apparently there is a HUGE rate increase if there is not some type of flood venting.  They are concerned that if the house is surrounded by water that the pressure won't be able to equalize and will collapse the house.  Interesting fact - there is a mark about 8' up on the walls, just below the living space floor that says "Ike - 2008".  The house was built extremely solid in the 40s, but I get their concerns.  

Minimum requirements are 1 sq inch of opening per sq foot of house above enclosed opening (living space), and the openings must be on opposite walls.  I've got ~2100 feet on top, so I cut a 10' long section 10" high on each side and covered them with wire mesh to keep animals out.  They wouldn't give me an estimate based on my proposed openings, so I didn't want to spend the money on 'engineered' vents and only get back $400.  I'm an engineer anyway, so these are engineered vents, right? :)

I'm paying $1800 a year on the 2nd house we bought that is a little under half the size and is also diagram 6, so I will likely be doing the same thing over there after we finish this house.  

Kitchen - the kitchen is not that large, and we are only replacing the lowers.  HD has some granite that is ~40/sqft installed if you get at least 25 sqft, and we have about 35 sqft.  We didn't go expensive on the cabinets - just the standard premade shakers - and we only have about 4 to install.  We've still got 100-200 on a sink and probably another 400ish on a dishwasher (that I will likely install myself), and we saved about 600 doing the demo ourselves.  If it wasn't for timing, i'd probably install the lowers too, but there are only so many weekends left.  

How's everything going your way?  Still in debt pay down mode?

Been busy painting and destroying stuff. Here’s my late update

Dupex: imalda repairs finally done and total right around 2200. Also have a few housing authority inspection items

Vayk1 - a week ago was our first unbooked weekend since...April?  Didn’t like that. We did however do some horse trading with one of the sets of contractors for the house we are rehabbing. They were displaced by imalda and need a place to stay. We let them stay a week, they cleaned so cleaning ladies wouldn’t need to, and they knocked $500 off their bid. Considering we won’t have to pay AirBnB fees and taxes, we both came out ahead. 

Vayk2 - lots of work going on. Contractors we bartered with cover tile ceiling with 1/4” Sheetrock and textured walls. I’ll say I haven’t been happy with their timeline, and some of their work had been subpar. Probably won’t be using them again.

Also got updated flood quotes back at $6k a year!!!!  After quite a bit of back and forth I decided to “install” flood vents in the shop on the bottom  floor, and by install I mean I cut some holes. Got insurance knocked down to $500!  Went from mild panic attack at $6 spending 4.5 more a year than expected to mild surprise. 

Deck is almost finished. New kitchen cabinets on order ($3800 from HD for cabinets and granite installed). We demo’d the old cabinets ourselves to knock a few hundred move off to try to get back closer to budget. Having some over runs due to rotted floor beneath old kitchen, electrical fixes here and there, and window repairs. My budget was 35k (the number I really thought I was going to spend) and I’m probably going to come in at 39. My contingency was 42. 

Lost a window unit..

Begging kitchen. That solid iron sink was heavy af

mid demo

Ready for new lowers

That sounds cheap for a 6 unit. I’d break it down by % and not put any time or money in to it for that small amount. 

If you really need to know how to break it down exactly, if the units are plumbed separately, you could install meters that you read and track an use to split the cities total reading

@Chris Nowlin just seeing this. How’s the project going?  This along the Seawall or near the strand?  Long term or vacation rental?

Have you actually had a conversation about it?  Everyone gets all worked up, people give advice to throw fits, and there may be reason to get concerned and get stern, but no one has talked yet. No one knows the details yet. 

Have an actual, real life conversation face to face conversation at the job site, get all the facts and details, and get the work scope straight. Then discuss if expectations are being met (Both parties) and what happens if they are not met.  Much more productive than internet worrying

Attic should be easy. You just buy rolls and spend a weekend rolling out batts or rent a blow in machine from Home Depot and get someone to help you. The machine is free if you buy enough loose insulation, and with 2 units you’ll probably need enough. 

At least here in Houston, you can hire it pretty cheap too. 

The walls are going to be an issue though. If you don’t pull them to expose the lumber and pay to put new drywall up and paint, then your only option I think is blow in expanding foam. That I don’t believe is cheap. 

Do you need new siding?  If you were planning on replacing anyway, maybe you could add insulation from that direction.