All Forum Posts by: Scott Schaecher

We worked out a creative custom financing deal with Providence Bank to acquire 2  x 4 unit buildings by leveraging our equity in another building. They were great to work with and may be able to work with you. Call Nick Brunnworth at Providence Bank. BP won’t allow me to post his phone number but I’m sure you can track him down.

Coming by your self, with a significant other, with kids? Advice will vary depending on who else is in your company. Definitely have some suggestions on good restaurants and things to do.

@Joshua Tikal Thanks for reminding me to come back and continue this post.

So the drama continues, and we have learned yet another very important lesson.

Lesson #7: Fire quickly and move on. This is one we learned the very difficult way. If a contractor is not living up to expectations, do not wait and hope that things will get better. The amount of time and lost rent we wasted on waiting on our contractor to deliver was foolish. We finally decided to fire him in November, nearly 6 months after he started the project. What was supposed to be a 5 week project was not only not finished after 6 months, but the quality of work was so poor that we are now having to go back and re-do many, many things.

We found plumbing in walls that had not been soldered.

We found a bathtub that had not been installed with any support framing.

We found electrical running to nowhere, and full circuits non functional.

We found incorrect grout used in bathrooms that was already cracking.

We found sewer PVC fittings in walls not glued.

We found shower valves installed too far back in walls and then tiled over so the hardware could not actually reach the valves, requiring us to rip into walls to re-do plumbing.

We found they absolutely destroyed the wood floors.

We found brand new bathtubs had been scratched, chipped, and gouged because they were not protected and people had been standing in/on them and dropping tools in/on them.

We found exterior walls without insulation.

We found numerous doors hung crooked or even hinge bound so they didn't swing smoothly.

We found ceiling electrical just boarded over and hidden.

We found double tapped circuit breakers.

We found vinyl flooring laid right over screws sticking out of the old floor, so the vinyl plank flooring had bumps in it clear as day. I mean they couldnt have not noticed it.

We found the brand new, nice cabinets had been assembled and piled up - unprotected - before demolition had even started. Needless to say, they were not well cared for. Many scratches and gouges.

We found so much stuff wrong, it would blow your mind. I mean they had to have intentionally done some of the stuff they did. It would have taken effort to do things so incorrectly.

So the takeaway here is that our denial cost us dearly. We were in denial that we were getting screwed. We had high hopes that something would get better, and work would get completed. 

So now, we're in a situation that no contractor wants to come in behind someone and be responsible for the unknowns. We have been forced to hire subs and handymen by the hour to come in and address issues, not to mention us having to pour in many hours of our own time as well.

Things are coming around, we are nearing completion. But we still have probably 2-3 weeks left before we can truly call it ready for occupancy inspection. Absolutely ridiculous. We should have cut our losses and moved on very early on, writing off the losses as we realized them.

I hope to post a follow up to this story in the next few weeks once we have occupancy inspection completed and we have tenants occupying the units. Stay tuned!

Not from the app on my phone.

Is *not* gated

I have Rich’s home address which is it gated.

@Heather Henriques I’m sorry to hear your story and I hope these stories help others who are lured by this crook. Your story about permits sounds very very familiar - we got the same lines of “permit approved”. Until we got a cease and decist or order. We got the inspector involved and do forced him to get permit so in hand.

He should be in jail. I’m going to reach out to our local news station.

@Sarah H Stout see above, my phone reply wouldnt tag you.

@Sarah we need to talk. We fired him last month as it was going nowhere and the quality of work was unbelievably bad. We also started the duplex project with him in June. We’re now having to get people in to fix the crap that they did including tearing into walls to solder plumbing they didn’t solder, cutting out shower valves to re-set them as they weren’t in right, re-mount all of the kitchen cabinets and more. You need to get away as quickly as you can. We let it linger almost 6 months and we should have fired him after 1. PM me and I’ll give you my number.

Absolutely not paying another dime until the project is finished. I stopped by yesterday and saw more work had been done including replacing the drywall in the bathtubs with cement board and the entire basement stone foundation had been drylocked. Still lots to go but it was progress nonetheless. Will keep you posted! As for refinance, we haven’t refinanced yet as we need the rehab to be complete first. Need that rehabbed valuation! So at this rate our 6 months will be up before we even worry about refinancing. It’ll be 6 months since purchase at the end of October.