These days this is a very common event. I'm sure there have been a kazillion attempts out there. My partner and broker has been purchasing properties for the past 5 years or so with the purpose of doing just that. I came on board with him a little over a year ago. I would go and check out a remodel he was working on. It was a lovely, but train-wrecked, Craftsman home. He was working on it when he had time and his crew was not having to do a property management task. I could see his visions and , of course , had my own opinions.
Well, I didn't work with him then, I had chosen a larger franchise office in Bisbee. I soon changed offices because it was too far away and came to work with Albert because he was creative and smart. The best negotiator I'd ever met and he was very generous with information and advice and I wasn't even working for him.
The home he was working on then turned out to be a showpiece. Really quite lovely. (sorry I have no photos, a family now lives there)
He recruited me with a day of driving around Douglas, showing me properties that he was working on or were waiting to be done. He filled me in on who owned what and where development was happening. I even spent a small part of that day instructing some of the work crew who needed to tear out flooring on another craftsman home.
Needless to say, I decided to work with Albert. Since then I have had a totally full plate. I have partnered up with him on a couple of the rehabs. We have worked on other projects for our investors also. So much has happened so quickly that I have not had time to properly document all the projects. And even worse I am not getting a complete photo diary because the finished projects are quickly rented or sold.
SO! I am committed today to choosing just a couple photos from some of the work done over the past year or so. I'd like to show the possibilities and share the experience.
I've done a terrible job at keeping track of where I put my photos, So I'll start with what I have found this morning. If today's writing doesn't get me through all of it, then I'll just accept that as fine...at least I will have done something.
820 15th,
This is our latest project started just this month. I have a couple of early pictures but not before the crew cleaned the weeds and truckloads of trash from the yard. It's a nasty dirty place, but has solid walls and floors. The house is long and skinny with a wall down the center. To get from one side to the other you have to walk from the front to the back and around. The kitchen is near the back. Our plan is to create 2 apartments . The kitchen living areas will be toward the front with a hallway down the center starting about halfway. Bathrooms at the back with 2 entries, one from it's master and one from the hall. This creates 2 apartments with 2 beds and one bath.
As you can see it is going to be a lot of work. We are not committed to moving quickly on this one.
We will save the speed of return for projects that we are working on for our investors.
A remodel that we recently completed for an investor went like this;
Client purchased the foreclosure home through our real estate company at 50k, we remodeled within 7 weeks putting 20K worth of work into the home and have it now under a 6 month lease option for 125K.
We replaced most of the floor coverings, doors , much of the roof , did some updating in the kitchen, moved a wall to create closet space for the master and a small laundry area. We also had to replace the covering for the patio and paint the exterior. The walls were a bit beat up and we got some guys in there to work the sheet rock.
One really important thing I learned on this project was that replacing the doors with prehung doors, though the cost was a bit more, made the whole home feel more new.
Today I can only find a few of the in-process pics
