Fire Damaged Fixer-uppers...are They That Bad?
What seems to be the most expensive repairs associated w/ fire damaged fixer-uppers??
I recently returned from a property that has been red tagged by the city as unsafe. The only portion of the property that was severely damaged by the fire was the kitchen area. Based on comps, the house will easily resale for b/w 85k-90k. The asking price is 16k.
I guess my question is as follows: On a 1200 sq. ft. property w/ fire damage, what are some of the price ranges and repair costs that you as investors have had to dish out when it came to repairing these types of properties.
Thanks.
It is too hard to estimate costs without knowing the extent of the damage.
Need a great more details like:
ARV
Purchase cost
Repair cost
Potential Rents
Go to the city or county and pull the property file for any details you need to know.
Talk to the local inspector and see what they require to bring the property back to code.
Be sure to deal with the mold factor as well.
If the city or county has condemned the property your rehab cost will go up greatly.
You will most likely be required to have the property inspected by structural engineers.
[addsig]
Rehabinator
I agree. My only concern is that the kitchen just happens to be in the rear right corner of the house off of the exterior wall. The fire burned long enough to reach a few of the trusses that were resting on this wall. I also noticed that this same exterior wall had electrical wiring running through it which was burned to shreds so I will assume that the house needs to be completely rewired. The most irritatating part is that the fire only burned the portion of the truss that rest on this wall just enough that they need to be replaced. I am just wondering how I will be able to replace these trusses w/o having to take off an entire section of roof decking in order to remove the truss..
I will contact the inspector who evaluated the property for more info...on that note, if a city inspector has already inspected the house, wouldn't it be redundant for me to get another inspection after and if I get this property under contract??
[addsig]
I have done two fire houses. I had to get a structural engineer to draw up plans and have them approved by the city. Everything you do will be under the codes microscope so you need a general contractor to get all the proper permits. I found a GC that would get the permits, but let me get my own subs. Everything took longer than planned because of the permits and the timing of work. Getting electric was a two week process because the meter was pulled and we had to get a permit for a pole. Then once we had the permit it took the electrician and FPL two weeks to get it set up, etc, etc, etc. It took 6 months and I made 34k. Bought the house for 20, put in 45, and sold for 110.
bgross
how severly damaged was the house?25%,50%....this is my first rehab and I know that if done right, it will be a success and something to learn from.
[addsig]
That's why I prefaced my answer in regard to taking your assumptions as actually turning out to be the facts...
as for the electrical, a corner of a house being burned doesn't destroy the electrical through out it. Besides I'm sure not every wire runs through that damaged wall - unless of course the service panel was on the outside of that wall!
But code requires connecting wiring to either be accessable in a junction box or in an accessable fixtures box. So if you had a wire that ran through the wall and was burned, a simple fix would be running an new wire to replace it and it might just have to go as far as the next room over to an outlet to tie into the rest of the undamage circuit. Of course that is demonstrating a fix to a situation that would be easy, if the circuit ran through the wall and went another 150 feet and ended up upstairs on the far side of the house before it entered a box, then you would have to replace all the way to that box.
Trusses don't have to be replaced with another truss. Trusses were invented to replace traditional rafters built on site. There is the likely hood that all you would be required to do is rebuild the damaged trusses with site built rafters and do sistering.
Excellent info rehabinator. Have you ran into similar issues w/ burnt properties?
No, never bought a fire damaged house.
I just finished a fire damaged house. Any wood burnt more than 1/8 inch deep must be replaced or sister boarded. We gutted the two rooms involved and started from scratch with new wiring, drywall, etc. Some of the roofing and exterior siding was scorched -- replaced and repainted. It really wasn't much worse than a regular rehab job. Make sure you prime and paint the whole house to seal any smoke smell.
If this is your first rehab you might want to find a good GC to help. I do very little of my own work any more. I've already got a day job.