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Monthly Archives: April 2018

Pick a Good One! Part 2 – Getting Bids

On Friday, I gave some ideas for how to find a good contractor. Today I’m sharing how to get bids on your project from the list of potential contractors you selected.

Thank you “Mean Girls” for the perfect meme to describe how I feel over the “why I’m late” excuses…

Make appointments

Call and schedule appointments for the prospective contractors to meet you at the project site and ask them to “bid the job.” This just means that they will look around, talk about what you want, discuss what they see, measure areas, think about materials needed, propose a time frame, and discuss what kind of budget you are on.

It’s smart to iron out right now who will provide and deliver materials, and who will take care of fees associated with that if they will pick up the materials.

Evaluate

First thing to notice is whether they arrive on time. Of course weird things do happen sometimes, so if they are late, ask them why. If they had bad directions or had vehicle trouble, did they call and notify you of this? Personally and professionally to me, if they do not respect the timelines of an appointment for a job, can I trust them that when they tell me they will be finished with the job by a certain date that they truly will be? Arriving late to bid a job also shows me that they do not respect my time and schedule, and this will be two strikes against them off the start.

I give 30 minutes, and I will call them. If there is no answer, they have 10 more minutes. If they show up after I leave, they have wasted their time, but no more of mine will be wasted. I have not had to do that so far [Sue Ann and Lee have], but that is my policy. Ask them to also bring names and numbers of references (three or four is good) of people they have worked for that you can contact. You can also request any pictures they have of their before and after jobs. A truly competent and good contractor will be happy to show you their hard work, and for you to have references.

If they seem to shy away, or would rather just tell you about them, citing excuses as to why that customer would give a bad review, then I would suggest politely informing them that the project may not be a good fit for them. This is your money that you are spending, and if the job is not done well, you will foot the bill. Even if you take them to court over a bad job and win, you will still have to hire another contractor to come in and fix the mistakes which will cost even more than the original job did to begin with [Sue Ann knows this first hand]. Be wise with your money, and do not be afraid to turn down a contractor if you do not get good references or have positive feelings about them.

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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 →

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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!

 

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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.

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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…

 

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