All Forum Posts by: Christopher Boggs

Patrick M. - Congrats on your first property. If you pay cash for the house you should have no problem finding a hard money guy to lend you the rehab/holding costs, but there interest rates will be pretty high. Any FHA or Conventional (FHA) loans will require a 6 month to 1 year seasoning (ownership) period before lending money against the house, but if you find a local credit union or local bank that holds there own loan. You should be able to find someone to give you a HELOC or line of credit against the house. The best way to find one is just write up a list of what your looking for in a loan, and starting calling banks. The first question to ask is do you offer any loans that are non-FHA (fannie mae insured). If they do there terms should be negotiable.

Joshua Dorkin & @Brandon Turner from Biggerpockets started doing weekly podcasts a couple months back. They are really informative, and I have learned a lot from them. I would definitely listen to the 13 that they have done so far. Welcome to BP.

Link - http://www.biggerpockets.com/podcast

I am in the same market as Dell Schlabach and my carpenter charges $25 per hour, and at the VERY MOST it takes 2 hours per window to install, so $50 a window. Most windows though only take about 1/2 an hour to an hour to install. On the last house my carpenter was able to put all 16 windows in two days or about 16 man hours. We didn't have any picture windows or anything. Just basic double hung replacement windows.

This is pretty boiler plate, but if you qualify for an FHA loan you can't beat the terms. The owner occupant terms are 3.5% down and 3.5%~ interest rate. Even the investment FHA loans are pretty amazing. I believe its only 10% down on a SFH and you still get the 3.5%~ interest rate. If you don't qualify for those take a look at your local credit union/small banks. They have higher rates, but are they have much looser lending qualifications.

We are a couple days away from completing renovations on our first flip. It is a 1200 sqft, 3 bed / 1.5 bath SFH with an ARV of 80k.

Is it worth paying to stage a house like this? If so what would you expect to pay for this service on a house this size?

This is the first house where we are going to paint the exterior, and we need to pick a color. It is a flip, and we pretty much did a full renovation on the interior.

I hired a professional painter, but I need to pick a color, and that is not my strong suit.

Original paint color below

Suggestions??

Janine Badic and Colin L. - Thats a good idea on the shelving. If we decide to sell or renovate it again in the future we will definitely be doing that.

Keith Brown - No we didn't just throw away the budget. I meant to say that we over improved for a rental. Looking back we could of definitely gotten away with linoleum in the bathroom and foyer which would of been a pretty significant savings. Also the rear deck became a bit of a money bit. As you can see it was a rotting finished three season room when we started, and we knew that the beam was bad when we bought it, but after starting that repair we found out that the posts holding the beam were also bad. Then we found out that the ceiling rafters were shot, so we had to sister all of them, and then we figured well the decking was bad so we replaced them, and then we found out the floor joists were rotten, so we replaced those. We ended up rebuilding the deck from the frame up. It is a really nice feature of the house now though, but really excessive for a rental property.

Adam Craig - To answer your questions

Hardwood floors - Refinishing them is great, but it will create a 3 to 5 day period where you can't use that part of the house. You can also get a prefinished hardwood from home depot for about $2 sqft that installs in a couple hours. Saying that I just redid some floors in my SFH flip on Avondale Rd, and they look awesome. Carpet is great for bedrooms, and those second stories where there probably isn't hardwood to refinish

Paint Color (walls) - Most people use Navajo White or Antique White. They are both fine. I just did one in Realist Beige (sherwin williams color name), and I really like the results (pictures below). We have been using Glidden Duo. Its a paint/primer combo home depot sells, and covers almost anything in one coat, and its very reasonably prices

Pictures Here - https://picasaweb.google.com/115087615115568171260/Property1After?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCK-xjMaUzYvRugE&feat=directlink

Paint Color (trim) - I don't know if you are going to pay extra to have the baseboards taped and painted a different color, but if you do go that route. You really can't go wrong with just Bright White in Semi-Gloss. If you do decide to save a few bucks, and just roll them the same color as the walls. I would at least paint the door casing/doors Bright white. It really improves the look of the house.

REALLY IMPORTANT - South Euclid is a safe neighborhood, but that doesn't stop people from stripping copper piping and stealing A/C units. SECURE YOUR HOUSE, and that exterior A/C unit. Double sided deadbolts on any door that has glass or a window near it. Deadbolts on all exterior doors. Make sure window locks work. Motion sensor security lights outside, and a cheap wireless security system is also a good choice.

I just had a SFH broken into Saturday night. They busted in the old milk door, and reached in and unlocked the deadbolt. Then they stole the A/C condensor out of my furnace, busted up the ductwork doing so, took the condensor line to the outside, and took all the important parts of the outside A/C unit (pictures below).

That is gonna cost me $2500. Since vacant property insurance doesn't cover vandalism.

Adam Craig - I have a couple SFH Rehab projects going on around the corner in South Euclid. One is finished, another is 3/4 finished, and another is just starting. It will give you an idea of what certain upgrades will do. I can walk you through the properties, and show you what we did if you like.

Dawn A. - Thanks for the response. That would be great, but its only available in store, and the closest Menards is about 1 1/2 hours away. So the savings probably not worth the 3 hours of driving.