All Forum Posts by: Rachel Gill

I'm going for a certain aesthetic for my rehabs and Ikea's kitchen cabinets fit this look and are in the price range I'm going for.  From what I've heard, Ikea's cabinets are fairly easy to put together, but somewhat time consuming.  Has anyone run into an issue with their GC's putting the cabinets together.  Seems a bit more labor intensive than the standard pre-fabbed cabinets from HD or Lowes and I'm wondering if I will get charged out the wazoo for this type of thing?  

@Ned Carey My thoughts exactly!!

I found a distressed, unoccupied home in a great little sought-after neighborhood. I looked it up on MD's real property search website and it appears that the bank owns it as of Oct 2014. My plan was to send the owner a yellow letter, but now that I know it is bank owned, what are my options/next steps? Any advice is appreciated.

All valid points.  Thank you for your responses everyone.  I consider myself a bit of a risk taker and agree with your mentality @Manny Rodriguez  that with great risk comes great reward.  But the reverse is also true, you can lose a lot of money if you don't know what you're doing.  I have aligned myself with a great mentor and am hoping that following in his footsteps will be a tremendous help.  @Kris Walker - great point on the communication thing.  I do believe that some people are completely risk averse and there's not much you can do to convince them otherwise.  @Cal C.   "Talk to the Hand" - love it!

What do you say to the naysayers? And what if that naysayer is your spouse? My thought is that actions speak louder than words, so I'm hoping that my first flip & fix is a success, which will speak for itself. Anyone have any experience with negative nellys in your life when it comes to REI?

Josh Caldwell I would suggest thinking outside the box. Branding is sooo important when you are attempting to stand out from the crowd. Think about what your customers or clients might identify with on an emotional level. Continue to use that slogan or logo over and over again until it is recognized and you become the go to. A sign that says "we buy houses" does NOT stand out any longer, but a creative logo will. If you can't think of anything on your own, I would suggest you pay a graphic designer or someone with branding experience to do this for. It will be money well spent. Just my two cents. Good luck!

Lisa Maceda You sound like a girl after my own heart. I think there is a place for keeping the classic details and bringing the kitchen, bathroom, etc. completely up to date. My intention is to focus my business model on this, but we'll see. Would love to see some pics of your recent project. It sounds lovely!

This house is gorgeous Art! Love the bathroom and the fireplace!

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

@Rachel Gill There absolutely is a place for rehabbing and restoring old homes. It's what I primarily do and I find it very profitable, both monetarily and in personal satisfaction. 

For you, it will depend on your market, finances and abilities. There are many challenges in the process but it is so worth it.

 That's so good to hear Art.  The personal satisfaction part is what I believe is drawing me in.  The old homes are where my heart it is.  I'm hoping to somehow make this a part of my business model.  

Originally posted by @Dave Gallogly:

We live and work (flip) in the metro area of Minneapolis MN.Over 70% of the homes we work on are from the 1910’s to 1950’s.Many of our homes have outstanding woodwork, original tiled bathrooms, and hardwood floors that just need to be brought back to life.For us, we have to remember that these houses are not ones we are living in, but are doing for resale.With this mindset, we might make a definite different decision on what we do with the house compared to if it was our personal house. Our houses that we work on are not restoration projects, but more of a bringing the original flavor back to life with some updated points.

For an example, last year we worked on an amazing home with a smaller footprint (720 sq ft) but had three stories.The Craftsmanship of the word work was outstanding; just a little rough at places and 90% of it was painted.If this was our own home, we might have stripped the paint, revealed the oak, and refinished all the woodwork, making it drop dead gorgeous (We love natural wood). After thinking it through from a profit vs. what we liked, we went ahead and prepped the woodwork and enameled it.The house still has much of its original style, while still profitable. On the sale of the home, the new homeowner told me how much they loved the dove white painted woodwork.

When we have looked at homes that begged for a true renovation, but we could not get the numbers to work.

 Good to know Dave.  That's kind of the route I was thinking of taking.  Maybe not completely restoring the home, but leaving some of the charming touches like woodwork or original floors and then modernizing other parts of the home to save time and money.  I just can't see stripping all of that history and character out of a home.