HAD IT with contractors

[FL Beachgirl]

As you know I have been doing a major renovation of a house since February. Through the last 4 months I feel like I have been run through the ringer several times over. For me personally it has been a major time sink, but I've learned a lot and the experience has been extremely valuable to me.
Let me talk about one of the bigger lessons I have learned in all of this...

NEVER trust anyone else to be in charge of a project. Only hire people who aren't going to jerk you around with every lame excuse in the book about why your stuff hasn't been done on time.
I understand everyone has thier problems, but demmit, when you run a business you cannot bring them to work with you.
I swear there has been SO much drama involved in this project. Every single person who has come to work for me has had one issue or another.
I finally found someone I thought I could trust and now that we are down to the final punch list it's been like pulling teeth to get them through it.
I finally finished the house this evening and am ready for the appraiser to come tomorrow.
I need to post some before and after's tomorrow. We really did a complete renovation of this property from the street to the back fence. It looks like a completely different house now. So much so that we decided we aren't going to sell it. It's bigger than the house we are in right now so we are financing it and moving in LOL. I have a family waiting on me to get a final closing date so they can move into the house we live in now. they are going to L/O it from me and finance in a year. Too bad there isn't sh*t for equity in this property though or I'd have a chance at getting paid twice for it. Oh well, I just don't want to deal with the mortgage payment, I'll be happy that it will be covered.
I need a few days off, but I have to start the minor rehab on the Daytona property this week. We started doing a little bit of tear out, but that's as far as we've gotten. Oh, and the person I was going to have do the work for me has taken off with the 3k deposit, so now I need to figure out what I'm gonna do to cover that money and still get the project done. If he comes around (and he might...he is the same person that's done most of the major finishing work on the one I finished today) he will have another 6k coming to him for doing the work.

I'll post pics tomorrow. ;)

Jennifer

[Dan Auito]

Jenn is that the beach house one block off that you will be moving into?

[FL Beachgirl]

heh. I wish.

No, the one we are moving into is the one that's about 5 minutes from where I am now only it has 4 bedrooms and a pool ;)

My beach house we are starting work on this week so hopefully we can get out from under it without losing our collective backsides.

Jennifer

[Dan Auito]

I thought for a minute the beach house got the best of you. Keep stroking, you'll hear the waves and smell the salt air one day!

[FL Beachgirl]

naaw, I know damn well I can't afford to keep it. The taxes and insurance are about equal to a regular mortgage payment as it is.
Maybe some day when I'm wealthy I'll have one on the beach...ion the meantime I'll have to settle for something inland with a pool :P
I'd still like to know what to do about this contractor though. It's really not about the money lost either. 3k isn't chump change, but it's not my life savings either. This guy does really great work and it would be a shame to lose him. The floors and counters and bathtubs in my Tivoli property look like they belong in a million dollar home :) Hopefully he just got to feeling a little overwhelmed and took a couple days off. I just wish he would have said something to me...I can put up with all kinds of BS, but I HATE being lied to.

Jennifer

[FL Beachgirl]

OMG!!!! I cannot believe this is happening!!!

I just got a call from the contractors WIFE (who "runs" the office) saying I still owe her over $900.00 for carpet, even though I went into her office and PAID HER TODAY the remaining $235.00 in cash (yes I got a reciept)

The invoices I have are all a mess, but I was able to make a little bit of sense out of them. I know I am in the right, but dammit!!!! this is so stupid!

They are having big money problems, her brother is on her case to get her books in order because he is a partner in the business and she is treating her husband like a bad step dog because he can't be 4 people at once and do everything she books him for in 30 seconds or less.

They have a $3000.00 deposit from me for my next project and there is no way I will get that money back now, even trying to get it out of them in labor.
I can prove easily I gave it to them, but there is no invoice or anything to say why I gave it to them. Yes, I know that was a HUGE mistake, please don't tell me.
I'm really stuck.

HOWARD!!! What do I do now? I have signed invoices for most of it, but not everything...and they don't have my signature on everything they have either. I need to try to get that money back and I tried to do it in the nicest manner possible, but after the phone call I just got I know she isn't gonna play nice or by the rules ;(

Jennifer

[Thirdcoastinvestments.net]

Here is where I say, "Hire a reputable G.C." and here is were I say , "But".

Every company or individual is going to have some sort of "drama" in there lives but how that drama transfers to the customer (or doesn't) is the the true test. Contractors are the most difficult part of the investment game.
Here are a couple of my suggestions.
1) Check on progress regularly. (in person when they are there)
2) Get a time line w/ money back for going over.(stick w/ it and make them pay)
3) Reduce the down payment by paying for materials as needed.
4) EVERYTHING IN WRITING
5) Make it clear up front that you don't listen to personal problems and that if you hear them it will discourage future work.
6) Make sure that 100% of the work is completed before allowing them to move to the next phase of the project.
7) Don't avoid permits. They are there to protect you from bad contractors.
8) When looking for a contractor don't promise future work if they give you a good deal or do a good job. Let them know you have more work, but you have other trades to do those projects. Then they will know they could get more work if they do a good job w/out you having to say it. And they won't feel like you need them.


Or you could hire me to manage the project.:cool: (10% overhead 10% profit over the true construction cost) We manage projects all over the U.S.

If you have any specific problems with a construction project don't hesitate to email me personally. Jeph@thirdcoastinvestments.net I don't mind giving free advice.

Jeph
p.s. I have an office staff to deal w/ all my subcontractors and there "bs".

[FL Beachgirl]

Here is where I say, "Hire a reputable G.C." and here is were I say , "But".

Every company or individual is going to have some sort of "drama" in there lives but how that drama transfers to the customer (or doesn't) is the the true test. Contractors are the most difficult part of the investment game.
Here are a couple of my suggestions.
1) Check on progress regularly. (in person when they are there)

I was there every day. Apparently that didn't help because the problem is not with the guy who did the actual work, it's with his wife who wasn't there to see what got done and what didn't

2) Get a time line w/ money back for going over.(stick w/ it and make them pay)

We only "sort of" did that. Nothing in writing, he ended up going over the expected timeline by about a week total, which IMO isn't too terribly bad. It was all for reasons people couldn't control...like my carpet delivery got goofed up and so did my tile delivery, I ended up having to go pick up both things

3) Reduce the down payment by paying for materials as needed.

This I didn't do and I know I should have. But it was also to my advantage to let them buy the bigger materials like tile and carpet because they get a 40% discount as well as don't pay tax on either from the distributor where I would have gotten neither advantage

4) EVERYTHING IN WRITING
This we tried to do, but not all of it turned out that way. Some of the smaller things didn't get put in writing (which is probably part of the problem

5) Make it clear up front that you don't listen to personal problems and that if you hear them it will discourage future work.
I REALLY need to work on this one. I am a softy and a sucker for a sad story...I know, very bad quality for an investor

6) Make sure that 100% of the work is completed before allowing them to move to the next phase of the project.
This is another one that evolved as we went along. Some smaller things needed to get done before we could move on to the next thing. This is my first full rehab so there was no way I could have anticipated every single little detail that was going to come up when it came time for the estimate

7) Don't avoid permits. They are there to protect you from bad contractors.
Fortunately we didn't dp anything with this contractor that would have required a permit (that I'm aware of) So that portuion is not an issue at this time

8) When looking for a contractor don't promise future work if they give you a good deal or do a good job. Let them know you have more work, but you have other trades to do those projects. Then they will know they could get more work if they do a good job w/out you having to say it. And they won't feel like you need them.
Honestly, I think I crossed both lines...mainly in the promising department. And my biggest mistake in that was when things were going along smoothly and they were almost done with this project, I went ahead and put down the deposit on the next one...to the tune of a $3000.00 check

Or you could hire me to manage the project.:cool: (10% overhead 10% profit over the true construction cost) We manage projects all over the U.S.

If that would save me both money and headache in the future that's probably exactly what I would do. For smaller stuff I can probably handle it myself, but for bigger rehabs like the one I just got done with it would be SO MUCH easier to just let someone else deal with the every day drama and bs that goes along with dealing with contractors.

If you have any specific problems with a construction project don't hesitate to email me personally. Jeph@thirdcoastinvestments.net I don't mind giving free advice.

Jeph
p.s. I have an office staff to deal w/ all my subcontractors and there "bs".

Someday I would like to be "big" enough to have that as well ;)
In the meantime, I need to just buckle down and tough it out


Jennifer

[AIR]

Where are the pics????

[FL Beachgirl]

http://www.magicbullets.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7472


all there :)

Jennifer

[AIR]

very nice, I love seeing before and after pics. How long have you been investing? How many have you done?

[FL Beachgirl]

very nice, I love seeing before and after pics. How long have you been investing? How many have you done?

That's the funny thing, I have been "involved" in other deals over the last year or so, but this is the first start to finish I've gotten through.
I have been involved in the investing world for about 3 years now. The first year and a half doing nothing but getting educated through my local REI group and some smaller seminars.
I made friends with a local "guru" who has been worth 100 times his weight in gold to me with information and a lot of hand holding and he has made this deal possible for me in the way of partnering with me and providing the money we needed to do the rehab with...everything else for the most part was up to me. I got to make 95% of the decisions as to what we did with the house (with his final approval of course) and I am the one that came up with the plan from beginning to end. We used his paperwork to aquire the deal, and we are using his title company to close with, and of course his money, but everything else came from me...including countless hours of actual work on the house (boy did he scold me for that one LOL)
Since I will have some cash at the end of this deal I will be able to spend less time on the next property and be more able to find the next one and the next.
Plus I have a friend coming up from South Florida that I am going to teach how to find leads that I can turn into deals that we can profit from.

Anyway, I am out the door to go get more materials for the one I am currently working on :)

Jennifer
*boy that 2 hour nap felt wonderful yesterday, can't wait till I can do that every day*