All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

@Ned J. Seriously, INVESTORS, stock up on rubber gloves. We can handle a little thinset in our hands, but breathing all the remodel dust without a mask sucks! I’m going to see if there’s any bandanas left, but probably have to resort to a t-shirt scenario

The masks probably aren’t helping people much against the Corona Virus, but right now, in middle America, there are investors buying up all the dust masks from all the paint stores etc. There’s likely going to be an EPIDEMIC harm to remodelers handling harmful materials, such as cutting hardibacker etc without protection. I deal with old plaster demo and asbestos etc, and today I ran out of masks. I can’t find any and the specialty stores are saying someone came in and bought the 20pack boxes to resell (probably online to China or selfish hoarders). This is getting apocalyptic for me. I should have been a better prepper.

@Jonathan Greer ** danger was supposed to read “damaged”

@Nancy Y. This does not look good. The water looking streaks going down the walls could be roofing leaks (what else?). Those water pipes are practically non repairable and will need to be replaced largely in areas where they are danger since they are threaded corroded steel pipe. If those cracks are in the foundation, this sounds like a bad gig if you are debating over $7k repairs. Probably more like $30-50k or more to do stuff right such as: replace roof, repair foundation, replace water piping, put a new panel in. I’m pretty optimistic on repairs, but this could be one of those people that keeps everything dirty and cluttered so you don’t realize all the problems. I would more likely buy something like this from foreclosure for a low ball price. The pics were really blurry, so I could be exaggerating here, but I’ve been a licensed general contractor for over 10 years and rehabbed houses for the majority of that.

Does anyone have a step by step for hiring employees? I’ve always hired subs and operated as a sole, but it’s time to figure this out, and it seems a little grey for some reason. I purchased worker’s comp insurance, registered with the irs an EIN number (easy). What’s next?

We are outside of my home state CA, beginning a transitional operation in VA for the moment, that serves multiple states to complicate things a bit! So we need to be able to hire employees from various states, for our company currently based in VA, which services any state in the US. Additionally, my wife noticed Square offers a pretty stream lined process to deal with payroll, but we still don't have a bearing on a clear step by step process to make sure we have it together. Lastly, we have an employee lined up for an out of state job that starts in 4 days. Any help on the employee hiring process is appreciated.

@Kellan Martz sounds pretty good. St Louis seems to have seen some population decline, but that may have been mainly due to a shift out towards Wentzville and St. Charles. I think a savvy Saint Louis move could be good, as prices might be suffering a bit, but it should come back eventually.

@Kimberly Kesterke the short answer is yes. Yes you should have to replace the light bulb.

@Kasay Mardis you don’t need a contractor for this. Just get a handyman. A couple gallons of waterproofing roll on stuff might work for your situation. Anyone could find a way to replace a riser. I mean we’re not talking about a tread here. Measure it, have Home Depot rip it to size. Throw a few finish nails in it.

@Morgan Madill I don’t know man... if you lived anywhere outside the US, where would you want to be? People want to be where the action and freedom is and opportunity. As people press into our country because of our fought for freedoms and flee their countries because of lost rights, I think it will be harder and harder to own RE in the US. If I lived somewhere else, I’d be making the shift to the US for sure if I could find a way. Jobs are increasing, and foreigners are pouring in. This doesn’t seem like an expiring trend and this doesn’t seem to promote an RE crash.

@Jay Hinrichs since you seem to have some serious experience in logging, I’ll ask you about stumps. I’ve logged a couple places .. small lots. The first time we had a logger cut stuff up, then the excavator pushed the 3’ stumps over and pulled the root out. Then came the huge burn pile that was a full time job for 2-3 days. Finally, the stumps never seem to burn anywhere, so we buried them. I believe the dirt that gets stuck in the stumps makes them impossible to burn effectively, therefore it’s better to cut your tree low and do any necessary grinding. Obviously if you have to grade an area lower, your best bet is pull the stumps, but if you’re just trying to make clearing and level land, are you a fan of cutting low, then grinding or something the stumps? I always appreciate you experience with lumber and logging. It’s very interesting and something I’d love to do more of for fun and profit.