Home Renovation

[FritzIam4IU]

10 minutes ago, rogue3542 said:

So I rehab houses for a living, and I've also done some extensive renovations on the two previous houses we lived in (I pretty much flipped them, too really).  I feel like I've pretty much seen it all at this point. 

The last house we lived in that we fixed up and sold had a toilet that was loose in the master bath, so I knew I was going to have to replace that section of subfloor.  When I went to fix it after pulling the toilet and taking up the tile floor, I literally fell through the subfloor, and the rot went under the tub, so that came out, and then the laundry was on the other side of the wall that the tub was on.  Apparently, they hadn't cemented the sewer pvc pipe in the wall, and there was a bunch of mold.  So, essentially fixing a loose toilet became tearing one and a half rooms down to studs and joists, and performing major structural work to the joists as well.

It's hard for me to watch the HGTV shows because of how far removed from reality they are (though I watch them sometimes as I like to see the end product and need to stay up to date on the newest trends being pushed).  For one, all of the flipping shows fail to mention that nearly 8% of your sales price is going to be eaten up by closing costs, which, on some of those expensive houses, can turn a slim profit into a deficit.  But....the worst thing is how dramatized they make "obstacles" they run into.  They absolutely know about most of that stuff before they've torn one cabinet down, and don't even get me started on how scared they make the homeowners on random mundane diy mistakes.  Also, if I see one more "pro" use a table saw without a fence while having someone pull the board through while they put their fingers inches from the blade, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.

Home inspectors need to be chosen carefully.  For liability and insurance reasons, they have to call out EVERY little thing they find, and they can't really give guidance, they can just present the "facts" that they've found.  If they do give guidance, they open themselves to litigation.  In my experience, some are really good, but most have no idea what they're talking about.  For instance,  I had an inspector call as a major defect that white wires were used as hots and the meter was too far from the box, which totally ignored the fact that in 240v circuits whites are the second hot leg (I mean, come on, it's not only a standard industry practice but explicitly listed in the code), and older houses were built with different codes that grandfathered in such things as distance between the meter and box.  An average person doesn't need to know these things, but an inspector should.  They also tend to create (usually in first time homebuyers who couldn't turn off the water to a toilet if their life depended on it) anxiety through the fact that they have to call out so much but can't really comment on it beyond "it's not right."  I'm not saying it's their fault, either, it's just kind of the tough reality of the situation and how easy it is to get sued in real estate.

Geothermal (at least what we would call geothermal) works by using water cycled down pipes into the Earth and back to the unit to normalize the temperature, making it more efficient.  It's essentially a heat pump, only instead of using the extreme cold or hot outside air, it uses the 54 degree temperature of the Earth.  Anyone who has had a normal heat pump (unless you had the best they build) knows it's pretty inefficient, especially when it's really cold outside.  It's interesting stuff, but almost prohibitively expensive upfront, as two wells need to drilled anywhere from 50-400 feet, and that ain't cheap.

Here's some more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heating

 

That was crazy about the toilet! I would not have been able to hold it together if that happened to me ha!

The commission thing is what lots of people don't understand who have not sold a house in some time (or ever) and watch those HGTV shows.

We actually have a really good home inspector for the house we are buying. He has a reputation in the area we are moving to for being really thorough. He did a house we sold for the buyers, and we have used him once before as well for a house we bought previously.

I actually hate geothermal. We had it in our last house and I didn't care for it...BUT...the house we are buying has no natural gas running to the subdivision so we will need to stick with the geothermal for now. We got a quote form some HVAC people we have used a couple times and do lots with geothermal units as well and was quoted about 12k for a new system (there is a 30% tax credit I believe right now however).

Thanks for your input! What area(s) do you do your rehabs at?

[rogue3542]

12 hours ago, FritzIam4IU said:

That was crazy about the toilet! I would not have been able to hold it together if that happened to me ha!

The commission thing is what lots of people don't understand who have not sold a house in some time (or ever) and watch those HGTV shows.

We actually have a really good home inspector for the house we are buying. He has a reputation in the area we are moving to for being really thorough. He did a house we sold for the buyers, and we have used him once before as well for a house we bought previously.

I actually hate geothermal. We had it in our last house and I didn't care for it...BUT...the house we are buying has no natural gas running to the subdivision so we will need to stick with the geothermal for now. We got a quote form some HVAC people we have used a couple times and do lots with geothermal units as well and was quoted about 12k for a new system (there is a 30% tax credit I believe right now however).

Thanks for your input! What area(s) do you do your rehabs at?

Mostly Indianapolis.  I really concentrate on Irvington for a few reasons.  The first and most important is that most rehabbers avoid it all cost because it's a designated historic district and falls under the purview of the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission, and they are extremely stringent and difficult to work with.  Add to that the fact that their requirements far exceed what most people in Irvington can afford to keep their house up, and it becomes a difficult proposition to flip.  For example, you have to have all wood windows, doors, and siding.  Vinyl windows for my last house would have been about 5k while wood were 16k, but it didn't matter because the commission deemed the existing windows in good enough condition that they would not allow me to replace them anyway.  In order to even repair the windows, I had to send about 50 letters to nearby property owners, community organizations, and city offices and then go to a hearing to get my plans approved.

Since I also do woodworking and have the ability to build custom doors and windows myself, I can afford to flip in Irvington where others cannot.  As my volume increases and I'm not able to keep up with supplying these custom fixtures myself I'll have to reconsider, but for now it's a great niche for me.  I also love the construction aspect of flipping, but as I move quicker, I'm really not able to physically work on the houses, so building things for them allows me to still do something I love.

I also really like the Near East Side, St. Clair Place, which is essentially just west of 10th and Rural.  It's really coming around.  Last summer I bought a house for 20k and sold it for 165k.  The house across the street from the one I did is pending now at 190k, and there are houses selling for greater than 200k blocks away.  Granted we had a healthy renovation budget, but it's a really cool up and coming spot in the city that has largely stayed under the radar.  That being said, I'll rehab a house anywhere in or around Indy if it's a deal that makes sense.

As time goes on, I'd like to expand to other cities in the Midwest as well as NWI, as I know that area extremely well.

I didn't mean to say that no inspectors were good.  I've met a few inspectors who are actually great, but since the real estate market in Indianapolis is booming, you get a lot of "newbies" who don't really know what they're doing, and that goes for realtors, too.  You know, as I think about it, I've even had title company trainees sitting in on a decent number of closings as well.  I also had a roofing contractor once give an estimate who didn't know what a ridge beam was and kept calling it a 1x....I had a real Ron Swanson in Lowe's moment on that one: "I know more than you."

 

[FritzIam4IU]

1 hour ago, rogue3542 said:

Mostly Indianapolis.  I really concentrate on Irvington for a few reasons.  The first and most important is that most rehabbers avoid it all cost because it's a designated historic district and falls under the purview of the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission, and they are extremely stringent and difficult to work with.  Add to that the fact that their requirements far exceed what most people in Irvington can afford to keep their house up, and it becomes a difficult proposition to flip.  For example, you have to have all wood windows, doors, and siding.  Vinyl windows for my last house would have been about 5k while wood were 16k, but it didn't matter because the commission deemed the existing windows in good enough condition that they would not allow me to replace them anyway.  In order to even repair the windows, I had to send about 50 letters to nearby property owners, community organizations, and city offices and then go to a hearing to get my plans approved.

Since I also do woodworking and have the ability to build custom doors and windows myself, I can afford to flip in Irvington where others cannot.  As my volume increases and I'm not able to keep up with supplying these custom fixtures myself I'll have to reconsider, but for now it's a great niche for me.  I also love the construction aspect of flipping, but as I move quicker, I'm really not able to physically work on the houses, so building things for them allows me to still do something I love.

I also really like the Near East Side, St. Clair Place, which is essentially just west of 10th and Rural.  It's really coming around.  Last summer I bought a house for 20k and sold it for 165k.  The house across the street from the one I did is pending now at 190k, and there are houses selling for greater than 200k blocks away.  Granted we had a healthy renovation budget, but it's a really cool up and coming spot in the city that has largely stayed under the radar.  That being said, I'll rehab a house anywhere in or around Indy if it's a deal that makes sense.

As time goes on, I'd like to expand to other cities in the Midwest as well as NWI, as I know that area extremely well.

I didn't mean to say that no inspectors were good.  I've met a few inspectors who are actually great, but since the real estate market in Indianapolis is booming, you get a lot of "newbies" who don't really know what they're doing, and that goes for realtors, too.  You know, as I think about it, I've even had title company trainees sitting in on a decent number of closings as well.  I also had a roofing contractor once give an estimate who didn't know what a ridge beam was and kept calling it a 1x....I had a real Ron Swanson in Lowe's moment on that one: "I know more than you."

 

We looked at a house that was a "historic home" once and decided against it because of all the red tape. I can only imagine the headaches dealing with all the bureaucracies on a regular basis...I don't think I have the temperament for that ha. That said, it sounds like you have found a nice niche market. I am not overly familiar with that part of Indy. I have family that lives on the northwest side, near Eagle Creek Park, and some of the surrounding areas such as Noblesville.

The house we have been working on is in Southwest Michigan. The issue we have had here on a couple of occasions, is that because contractors are in such high demand in this area, all kinds of new "contractors" have sprung up and don't know what they are doing. I have had a few heated encounters with a couple of them on this house. The good/trustworthy ones are booked solid for weeks/months in advance and are probably making a killing, so all these newbies are springing up to try to get the overflow and are generally more trouble than they are worth.

I did understand your point on home inspectors, and agree. The first house we bought we were moving back to Indiana from North Carolina, so we just went with the guy our realtor recommended. This was a mistake. The guy either didn't know what he was doing, or did a half ass job as I found out after we moved into the home. I have also had to deal with my share of incompetent realtors...so I hear you on that as well.

We are negotiating with the seller of the home we are trying to buy over the home inspection this week, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully, it works out as we really like the 2.2 acre lot this home sits on (very private with lots of trees etc)...and the house was custom built and has more space than we would ever need. It needs lots of cosmetic work done to it, but hopefully we can get that knocked out over spring/summer. We have thought about buying another property as a rental/flip down the line...but something we can work on while living in the house we are buying. My wife and I are in agreement that we don't want to live in a house we are rehabbing again!

[rogue3542]

2 hours ago, FritzIam4IU said:

We looked at a house that was a "historic home" once and decided against it because of all the red tape. I can only imagine the headaches dealing with all the bureaucracies on a regular basis...I don't think I have the temperament for that ha. That said, it sounds like you have found a nice niche market. I am not overly familiar with that part of Indy. I have family that lives on the northwest side, near Eagle Creek Park, and some of the surrounding areas such as Noblesville.

The house we have been working on is in Southwest Michigan. The issue we have had here on a couple of occasions, is that because contractors are in such high demand in this area, all kinds of new "contractors" have sprung up and don't know what they are doing. I have had a few heated encounters with a couple of them on this house. The good/trustworthy ones are booked solid for weeks/months in advance and are probably making a killing, so all these newbies are springing up to try to get the overflow and are generally more trouble than they are worth.

I did understand your point on home inspectors, and agree. The first house we bought we were moving back to Indiana from North Carolina, so we just went with the guy our realtor recommended. This was a mistake. The guy either didn't know what he was doing, or did a half ass job as I found out after we moved into the home. I have also had to deal with my share of incompetent realtors...so I hear you on that as well.

We are negotiating with the seller of the home we are trying to buy over the home inspection this week, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully, it works out as we really like the 2.2 acre lot this home sits on (very private with lots of trees etc)...and the house was custom built and has more space than we would ever need. It needs lots of cosmetic work done to it, but hopefully we can get that knocked out over spring/summer. We have thought about buying another property as a rental/flip down the line...but something we can work on while living in the house we are buying. My wife and I are in agreement that we don't want to live in a house we are rehabbing again!

Ha, I've done that and it is no fun.  Southwest Michigan is a great area.  When I was a kid and we would go to the beach, we'd drive the extra mile and go to New Buffalo, though I think it was also because it gave my Dad an excuse to take us to Redamak's haha.

[FritzIam4IU]

25 minutes ago, rogue3542 said:

Ha, I've done that and it is no fun.  Southwest Michigan is a great area.  When I was a kid and we would go to the beach, we'd drive the extra mile and go to New Buffalo, though I think it was also because it gave my Dad an excuse to take us to Redamak's haha.

Mmmmmmm Redamaks!! I love me some Redamaks ha! Growing up Redamaks was about 20 minutes or so from my house...we ate there several times a season.

[Reacher]

I used to go to Redamaks as I'd pass by a few times a month during the summer. Grew tired of their long lines and high prices so I think last year was the first summer  I didn't stop there.  Found other places (like Albanos) to try instead.