All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

I've tiled bathrooms and showers before with pretty good results.  There are so many nuances and tricks to making a tile job look excellent.  Depending on how you want it to look you may want to do all the gutting, rough in, cement board, ect yourself and leave the final tile work to a pro.  We just did that on our last bathroom job and you can most definitely tell it's perfect and was done by a pro.  I'm probably more critical of my own work and therefore I see all the imperfections on a regular basis.  Good luck, If you're unsure about anything call a pro.  Insurance doesn't cover DIY plumbing negligence.  

There goes my plan to Live-in flip another house.   Staying for at least 5 yrs drastically changes my next play.  Fingers crossed.

Pipe heaters work great if there's a small area where there's a big draft causing the majority of the problem.  I had a real drafty spot and put the pipe heater there and then the foam sleeve over the top and the problem was fixed.  I don't think it's feasible to wrap every pipe in the basement.  Just be very sure that all your power cords are ziptied into place so nobody unplugs them.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Frost-King-6-ft-Electric-Water-Pipe-Heat-Cable-HC6A/202262328

Thanks Marcus and Brian for setting this up and sharing your stories/numbers.  It was great meeting everyone and these meetups are definitely motivating and inspiring.  The collaboration is clearly beneficial for everyone!  Looking forward to the next one!

-Chris

That's insane! A good trick to picking things up is a long shopvac hose with a woman's nylon over the end.  It picks things up without sucking them in and getting stuck (obviously that's way more stuff than I would have expected.  good luck..

I was talking to a friend who has several dozen rental houses in the Milwaukee area and he said that he only does month to month leases on them.  They are all in B &C neighborhoods.  He takes great pride in his properties and treats his tenants very well, but his theory is that if a tenant wants to leave, they're going to no matter what.  With month to month, he's never going to be against thousands of $$s in litigation and months of vacancy during the process.  Aside from potentially more turnover, what are the downsides of this?

Hey BP community, thanks for openly sharing so much knowledge and experience!  I've learned so much.

Just finished my 1st live-in flip… that I stayed in for 5 years because I loved it.  I bought the house in 2012.  It was in Mequon (which is an affluent Milwaukee suburb), it was an estate sale tri-level that had been on the market for over 6 months with zero interested buyers.  I threw them a low ball offer that offended them, and we countered several times and we settled on a price that was by far the least expensive home in the area per square foot. It was a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath, 2300 sqft on 1.7 acres but it had closed off walls, carpet in the kitchen and bathroom, garage that had been converted to storage closets for the old hoarders that lived there and the list of quirky stuff goes on and on.

After closing I was going thru paperwork and found that the previous people took out a $70k HELOC 5 yrs prior and put on a new roof/gutters, siding, water heater, furnace, new concrete driveway, extra insulation in the attic, and some foundation repairs. It was mechanically perfect except for and older air conditioner that worked just fine.

The numbers:

I Did all the work myself except for granite install and carpet laying.

Purchase price $185k + 25k in renovation= $210k invested

Bank interest was about $5k/year X 5 years= $25K

Total taxes paid $21k

Tax free profit because it was primary residence= $63k.

There was a bit of appreciation but not that much.The bank appraisal when I purchased it was $215 and the assed value was $280 so I definitely made money when I originally bought it.

I considered renting it or doing FSBO but called a realtor friend in for a consultation ahead of time. When he told me what he thought he could sell it for I first thought he was crazy, or just trying to overpromise to get me to use his services. But about a month later when he delivered an offer I learned a valuable lesson that sometimes you have to know when to call in the Pros!

I definitely want to pick up some rentals but I’m also trying to find a flip or 2 while I’ve got liquidity.   In the future, I absolutely like the benefits of a live-in flip but there’s no way to scale that into a business so i think its all going to come down to what deal i find next.

Anyone have any other recommendations? I need some AC service work done at a tosa home. I see that Dawn recommended A&N but there appears to be some questionable reviews of them online.  Google reviews has several positive comments written by people with the same last name as the owner and also one terrible one.  I'd hate to call one of the big companies and get sold an entire new unit when it could just be recharged.

Any help or recommendations are appreciated.

-Chris

This is all very helpful!  Thanks everyone.  I'm new as well and was wondering the same thing. After listening to the first 150 podcasts in the last 5 months the last thing I want to walk into is a high pressure "pitchfest" of people trying to me sell me something.  My first live in flip is currently on the market and as soon as it's sold I'm picking up a few rentals. Let the networking begin. :-)

-Chris

Remove the tile with chisel/hammer, remove the door, install shower wall panels (extend them slightly out of the shower so drywall wont get wet) and install a shower curtain.  

Relatively cheap, but more importantly much less time intensive than installing tile backing (durock), then tile, then grout, ect. Its also easier to make look nice without professional tiling skills.

Make sure everything overlaps in the right direction so water is shed down and into the tub, not behind the wall.  Caulk everything properly and your done for less than $1000k.

While your at it paint the entire bathroom with a high quality semi-gloss paint so that the drywall wont absorb moisture (1st line of defense) and its MUCH easier to keep clean.

Chris.