All Forum Posts by: Sean Kollee

This market has been extremely difficult to get reasonable labour cost, but it is better lately given the recession.  I am sympathetic from some respect to paying higher wages because the men you hire have the same rent, gas, insurance costs etc, and maybe even a family to support and their own aspirations to better their position in life.  This city is renowned for its high cost for services like dental care.  It is hard to pay labourers 15$ per hour when you go to the dentist and one unit of scaling (15 minutes) cost 75$.  This is the exploitive situation that uninsured people who work for an hourly wage with no benefits face.  I have a lot of respect for the guys I hire and wish I could do better by them.  

Regardless of my sentiment on this issue, I am building to make a profit not to support tradespeople.  It is a hard business to be successful in, but an easy business to enter, which is why so many people fail at it.  

HI what is the dimension of the property? odd shaped lots are quite tricky to deal with regarding subdivision.  Infill construction really does not work well with triangle shaped land.  I have completed five homes in killarney in the last few years, and the market now is worse than I have seen it since 2009.  The duplex market is particularly unattractive so I am only working with townhouse product (market equally poor but much more attractive to buyers due to lower cost).  

Cost in cdn$ was in the 16 k range depending on how I added it up but the developed component was just 600 ft. Since I had already paid framing and insulating the basement as part of my project I didn't include that part ( just lumber and it was only 350 ). I also put in a glass shower door and more tile and cabinetry expenses than I would have if it was a client paying directly as their allowance would have been more modest. Overall I couldn't find much room to cut. 30 days was only possible because of the recession and I was on top of the job with a vigour and focus you wouldn't get from employees or a contractor. Basically I needed to do it good and quick as part of a townhouse sale. It was a money losing job in a sense because it was a freebie to sweeten the deal but it made the overall deal ok. For a Reno business to do that job and cover staff overhead and profit I think 22 k would have been a minimum. If someone offered me a chance to do it again for 17k I'd refuse, I don't need to practice working for free.

To make a sale in a tough market we had to include the basement development, and we had 30 days to  do it. We prepared a tight schedule and stuck to it to meet our objective of having the basement done in time for the client walkthrough.  Cost was close to $13k USD and $21.55/sq ft.  This was over budget by about $1000.  Costs/pics/schedule below.  For further information on the hardship involved see our blog post.  End result was very positive (client expectation surpassed).  This is the fastest I have ever built anything, as I don't do much renovation and it was very time/management intensive to stay on track.  I am interested out there in bigger pockets world, was this too expensive?  Where could I have cut back?  Note this was done in a high cost Canadian city (for labour in particular) and cost was adjusted back to USD.  You read tales on bigger pockets of flippers rehabbing the entire house for less than 20k, yet I just spent 13k on a simple basement and bathroom development, and nearly a month of effort to get it done right and quick enough to meet my schedule.    

framing	562.5
lumber	262.5
plumbing rough in to final install labour	525
tile material only	536.25
electrical	787.5
tile labour	483.75
lights	75
quartz countertop material and labour	450
cabinetry supply and install	637.5
drywall to paint all inclusive	4950
carpet supply install	1368.75
cleaning and dump fees	75
plumbing finish supplies	506.25
finishing all in (doors, trim, materials)	1200
mirror and shower door	360
central vacuum tie in	150
total	$12930
Cost per sq ft	$21.55

Hi I contacted four of the local " we buy houses " type companies in the Calgary area all by email over the past few weeks. These are all businesses with websites and they advertise regularly. Not one response. Very peculiar. This leads me to think perhaps wholesaling doesn't work in this market because it is currently overpriced for the style of property I buy or motivated sellers aren't responsive to their advertising. So, my challenge (if you Calgary based wholesalers actually are for real) is to find me land. I am looking for inner city sw property zoned for multifamily. R2 isn't really my focus and there is lots of it out there on mls right now. I don't want or need realtors. I want at least mcg zoned land to be purchased from a motivated private seller. I want a great location and a good size plot. There is my list of wants. Go find it and maybe we can make a deal. Thanks

Should have been a little more specific. Vegas would be great climate wise but I am stuck in the Calgary area only for inner city sw projects.

How did it go finding courthouse type deals? I have wanted to try that and I think 2016 may be a time to get some given the down turn.

Hi sorry about the delayed reply I didn't see this until just now. A sample of my product is here at mls # C4040186 http://www.findcalgary.ca/mls-C4040186-Unit_2_2206_24A_ST_SW_Calgary_Alberta.html Generally I require investor capital of 50% of project cost for a multi unit project. Most often I would use bank financing for this however I could easily be convinced to use private lending. What I can't do is offer the type of rates seen in recent years from the hard money guys. Paying 12% plus fees makes little sense given the tight margins these jobs can have, high city fees, delays and tough market. Other types of financing could be helpful such as presale of a single unit to assist in acquiring bank financing or a loan for land purchase.

Hi I contacted four of the local " we buy houses " type companies in the Calgary area all by email over the past few weeks. These are all businesses with websites and they advertise regularly. Not one response. Very peculiar. This leads me to think perhaps wholesaling doesn't work in this market because it is currently overpriced for the style of property I buy or motivated sellers aren't responsive to their advertising. So, my challenge (if you wholesalers actually are for real) is to find me land. I am looking for inner city sw property zoned for multifamily. R2 isn't really my focus and there is lots of it out there. I don't want or need realtors. I want at least mcg or mc1. I want a great location and a good size plot. There is my list of wants. Go find it.

You seem to have a pretty firm grasp of the house hacking concept. Consider this winter finding a good deal on a slow selling r2 lot, and put in a low offer. You may get a lot at 100 k less than last year or more of a discount in a good sw inner city location. Partner with a builder to build a duplex and sell half, and lower your own cost base on the side you keep. This is one way to upgrade in the Calgary market that I have a done successfully last year. Another is to find a horrible outdated single family house and rehab it. Benefits of this are you get to build to your own specification without having to pay steep builder upgrade fees. Downside is market risk and hard to finance, possibly don't make enough profit on the project. If this sounds like too much work or market risk then right now there are dozens of half broke builders trying to unload inventory. Just go buy something you like.