We make sad houses happy again

(512) 807-8777

Pick a Good One! Part 1 – Where to Start?

That’s not the answer I’m going for personally, but it worked when I said it to Lee. Thanks to BoredPanda.com for this gem!

I have been thinking about something that I think most of us have gone through, or will have to go through. It is actually something that I have learned many aspects about in the last year that could be beneficial to others.

The question is: How do you pick a contractor? This is not a single or quick blog post. I will make a few of these in this series and offer you my best advice. Please feel free to comment or email any questions you may have, or if you are in the area and prefer face to face, then come see me, and we can talk in person.

This can be a process that can take it’s toll on your nerves and patience. However, this is incredibly vital to the success and life of your home. It doesn’t matter if you have a small job or need your house built from the ground up, you are making, or have made, a very large financial investment. The last thing you will want is to find out after all of that money spent is that the job needs to be redone due to poor workmanship. Let Mandi make you a cup of coffee, and let’s chat for just a moment about how to pick the correct contractor!

Getting Started

We will begin by assuming that you already know what your budget is, and that you have priced it out to make sure that you are being realistic and fair to the contractor and yourself.

Jobs like replacing windows look pretty easy on how-to videos, but require a lot of time and skill. You should not expect something like that to only cost a small sum of money. Remember that you get what you pay for, and as we will cover later, the cheapest does not equal the best. Also remember that the windows cannot continuously bear the weight of the house on a thin piece of glass. Make sure your contractor understands that the windows need the support of proper headers and your whole house cannot sit on this half inch of glass for long. It is okay to have them explain how they will support the house above the windows. It should be simple for them to explain what holds the house up and off of the windows. Even my youngest understands this. Continue reading →

7Shares

Questions, We Get Questions

Just look at that face! The rest of us are also that perky.

One of the more enjoyable parts of being in this company is that I get asked a lot of questions about real estate investing, and other stuff.

I get questions about getting tenants to pay their rent, getting really bad smells out of carpet (I said replace it), what neighborhoods are good to live in if you have school-age kids, etc. It’s a lot of the same stuff a real estate person gets, with a few more landlord and investing queries.

People who ask probably don’t realize why I’m so happy to talk to them, so I’ll tell you my secret: I learn all sorts of great things from the people with the questions, maybe more than they learn from me. Every investor or rehabber has their own set of interesting experiences, so all their successes and failures are data for me to ponder and learn from. How did that person in Round Rock get the permanent marker off the counter top? How did my Cameron friend get such a deal on a fairly nice house? Now I know!

What’s in it for you?

Guess what? YOU can ask me questions! Or you can ask any of the rest of us, too! Whatever question you have is probably a question someone else also has, so don’t be shy. Ask in person, on our Facebook page, by phone at 512-807-8777, or in the comments on any of our posts (look for the TINY link at the bottom of the page).

Thanks! We’re friendly, ya know! I mean, just look at that friendly, purple-haired gal in the picture!

 

24Shares

Time Passes, Rattlesnakes Shed Their Skin, Life Moves

This was the kitchen, “before,” in 2013.

April 18th, 2017 was my first official day on the job here with the Hermits. I had no idea that I would meet a sad house named “The Rattlesnake Annex” in the next couple of months and fall head over heels with the possibilities. I knew she needed a lot of work. I didn’t know just how much, or how in depth it would become. Maybe it’s a good thing that I didn’t know then what I know now. I saw her bare bones, and let my imaginationrun with what could be. That is probably the best way I could have ever started.

The plumbing and electricity had been replaced, new septic tank had been dropped, the place had been cleaned up, walls torn down, new stairs installed and a barn was pushed down that seemed to help quell the rattlesnake problems that were there at first. I looked at it as needing sheet rock, paint, floor covering, cabinets, fixtures, etc. For that house, that would have been a prime example of “lipstick on the pig.” Rattlesnake has needed much more help to make her structurally sound again, and ready for a family to love her. The new plumbing has mostly been redone, the new electricity has been mostly redone, many mistakes that were made and covered up before and after Lee and Sue Ann bought it have been repaired and done correctly.

Continue reading →

22Shares

Driving for (Lots of) Dollars

We have quite a collection of these flyers, with notes on the back. Since we aren’t getting this one, you can check it out, if it’s in your price range.

One of the many things we do when looking for houses to buy is what they call “driving for dollars” in the biz. To do this, you pick a neighborhood, drive around all the streets, and make note of any house with certain characteristics, such as:

  • Obvious exterior problems
  • Neglected landscape
  • Appearance of being unoccupied
  • Very old for sale sign, or for sale by owner

We write down the addresses and put them on a list to send letters to. If we have a phone number, we call it and chat about their needs and our services.

If you go driving for dollars on a weekend, you often have a chance to visit Open Houses. Now, these are usually houses that are in relatively good shape, with a real estate agent already hired to try to get as much money as possible for the house. In these cases, we grab the opportunity to:

  • Chat with the agent (if the agent isn’t busy talking to potential retail customers and trying to earn a living)
  • Let the agent know we are looking for hard-to-sell houses, and hand out our cards
  • Look at the house to get ideas for future projects (paint colors, kitchen surfaces, etc.)

Anita and I were walking for dollars last weekend, and came across an open house, so I went in and checked it out. We were in a neighborhood where we normally wouldn’t buy (homes high on an Austin hill, ranging from $700K and up to multiple millions), but I figured I could get some ideas. And, I did. Wow, it has views and a really cool floor plan, but I knew I’d  remove some wall-to-wall mirrors and consider new kitchen cabinets. On the other hand, who cares. It’s in such a beautiful spot, and features so many quality details that I knew it wasn’t for us. Someone is going to buy it for close to list price.

Still, I had a chat with the agent, and he knows about us, now. Fingers crossed that he runs into a house that isn’t retail-worthy and lets us know!

We also took notes on some houses further down the hill that might be more for us. We will see if we can write them letters…

 

15Shares

Has it really been a whole year?!

This was the view from my desk before I started. Man! It’s hard to believe!

It really has! It’s hard to believe that a year ago, I walked into the office terrified. I hate being new at anything, especially a job.

Now, I take kids to school, get on the conference call, walk into the office wearing pajamas, drink coffee (beyond normal humans I would like to add), do office work, sometimes put on real clothes, run errands, pick kids up from school, and come back at some point in the evening, and office work some more after my pajamas are back on, go home and sleep, wake up, and do it all again. I actually really enjoy it.

Weird, right?

This of course is what the office looks like now that I have been here a year.

I can’t tell you what all I have learned in this past year. I know it is a lot. I can only pull up so much data at a time in my head, and I don’t really know how to re-say all the things I have already said in other blogs about loving what I do.

Instead, I think I will share some funny stories and memories because those can be told many times!

“My Stapler” (a tape dispenser)

Sue Ann took me shopping last May after I had been here a couple of weeks to get office supplies. We went to several stores, and bought basic office supplies that I would need, like a desk calendar and a tape dispenser. A beautiful tape dispenser! While shopping at one store, we saw gold office supplies. We really just laughed as a reaction. I picked up a gold stapler and said something along the lines of anyone having a gold stapler thinks their job is way more important than it really is. Now we have a running joke of, “Hmmm… that person has a gold stapler on their desk.” when we run into some of the more not so nice folks in business. Thankfully, that is not often.

It goes purple, pink, blue, yellow, and green depending on the angle you look at it from. It is also reflective.

Dreaming

Sometime soon after I started, I had this bad dream that I had accidentally transferred $12,000 into my payroll account. In the dream, Lee didn’t believe it was a mistake and fired me. He rehired me a couple of weeks later, but my pay had be drastically reduced. I told him about the dream and he laughed and explained that it wouldn’t matter if I did because he had to approve my payroll before my checks are done anyway. Then he told me about an old boss that he had who fired someone and then called them the next day, very angry because they were not at work.

Continue reading →

12Shares

Most Recent Posts

Pick a Good One! Part 1 – Where to Start?
04/20/18 - Education, Rehabbing - No Comments

I have been thinking about something that I think most of us have gone through, or will have to go through. It is actually something that I have learned many aspects about in the last year that could be beneficial to others. The question is: How do you pick a contractor? This is not a…

Continue Reading
Questions, We Get Questions
04/19/18 - Education, Networking and Advertising - 1 Comment

One of the more enjoyable parts of being in this company is that I get asked a lot of questions about real estate investing, and other stuff. I get questions about getting tenants to pay their rent, getting really bad smells out of carpet (I said replace it), what neighborhoods are good to live in…

Continue Reading
Time Passes, Rattlesnakes Shed Their Skin, Life Moves
04/18/18 - Rehabbing - No Comments

April 18th, 2017 was my first official day on the job here with the Hermits. I had no idea that I would meet a sad house named “The Rattlesnake Annex” in the next couple of months and fall head over heels with the possibilities. I knew she needed a lot of work. I didn’t know…

Continue Reading
Driving for (Lots of) Dollars
04/17/18 - Business Update, Prospecting - No Comments

One of the many things we do when looking for houses to buy is what they call “driving for dollars” in the biz. To do this, you pick a neighborhood, drive around all the streets, and make note of any house with certain characteristics, such as: Obvious exterior problems Neglected landscape Appearance of being unoccupied…

Continue Reading