A few years ago I had a listing that seemed like it wasn't going to sell. The owner had 20 cats living in the house and it had a pretty bad smell. The seller was also buying a property that was our listing and those sellers were also buying a home from us. All in all my business partner and I had 5 sides tied up in that one house selling. We decided to buy the property, renovate it and re-sell.
We decided that I would be the project manager and handle scheduling, purchasing, etc. I developed a schedule of major projects in the house as well as a budget for the project. The schedule was to start a few days after closing as we gave the seller a few days to get moved out. The house was left in a little worse condition than we expected with some extra "stuff" in the house as well, namely four cats. When I went to check on the house the day we were to take possession the very first thing I saw was a cat in the house. As it turns out there were a few cats living in the finished basement ceiling. Which required us to complete remove the basement ceiling and install new drywall.
My business partner also wanted to use a contractor that was moonlighting on the side from his real contracting job which pushed the timeline back considerably. I personally worked about 40 hours a week at the house in addtion to my regular job selling real estate full time.
The project took about 90 days to complete and all in all I was very happy with how it turned out. It sold fairly quickly and although we didn't really make a profit I got quite the education throughout the process.
Things I learned:
- Whatever you think the timeline and budget are, double it.
- Use a full time contractor.
- Go one step higher on the finishes than what you think is "adequate."
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Plan for what it should sell for and back out costs and profit, then buy the property for that price...or less
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