Major Rehabs - Repair Vs. New
Anyone who does major rehabs.
Have you found that it is less expensive to rip out all of the old sheetrock, trim, etc. and start over from the studs out?
My last rehab took eight months to finish. The hardest part was repairing the large holes in the sheetrock and trying to match the texture. The termite eaten studs and sills were a big job, too. 
You have to set a price on your time, including the extra costs of taking longer to do the project.
Compare that to the cost of new rock.
I try not to destroy or demolish anything that I don't have to. But sometimes it's cheaper and other reasons make it better.
Example: current house had 70's style paneling. We considered leaving or painting it and decided to tear it out and re-rock. Will see what happens with the bottom line, but I can tell you the place is a LOT more attractive.
Good luck. Our first property took us 1 year.
I have done a few properties. I have found that when needed, tearing out is easier. For instance, we had wallpaper in 2 bathrooms. After we got through one layer of wallpaper we found out that they had painted over a 2nd layer. So, being that we were tearing holes in the sheetrock, we decided to rerock.
In my opinion it comes down to time. One could spend 2 weeks on getting rid of wallpaper, or spend one week and rerock. The rerocking would look a LOT better...
Good luck and happy investing!
BTW: One other thing I have learned, it always takes longer than you expect to rehab, though you can make a lot of money
I have only done two. The first had been abandoned for years and the neighborhood kids had destroyed it. I stupedly didn't have the central A/C or well checked by a professional and had to eat the cost of new ones. Luckily I still made out with 15K.
The last one, my wife always kids me about this, I paid $500 more than the asking price because I felt desperate to find another property to do.
I am learning, even though my mistakes seem to cost me a lot of money.
Martman - Last year I offered and paid 56k for a propery that was advertised at 54k. I put in about 4 months of work, part time, and an additional 15k, more or less. It just appraised for 120K last month. Another I offered asking price and their terms, and with about 5k and two months, that just appraised for 32k more than I paid. A few months ago I offered and purchased a propery at 5k over asking price. I don't know the results of that yet, because I just began working on it, but I think I'll do ok with this one too. These were all bank repos, and if people look at me funny when they find out what I did, who cares? My realtor used to raise her eyebrows, too, but not anymore. If I need to pay a little more to tie up a real bargain, it's fine with me. Whatever works! Zach
Zach - How do you find you bank repos?
I think when it comes to sheetrock it depends on your level of expertise. I generally think nothing of repairing the sheetrock. But I have 10K in tools especially for that and can do it very fast.
In the west you can get it hung, taped, and textured for .60-.67 a square foot. If it took you 4 months to do it part time you might want to have a pro do it. I am getting to the point I will only hang a small amount myself, but I will do the textureing. A Graco HP compact makes that pretty easy.
You can additionally use 1/4" sheetrock and go over the old stuff and save tear out. There are many options. My second project took me almost a year
[addsig]
Hey,
Most shortcuts in Rehabbing a property only add to the time it will take to finish!!
If there is one baseball size hole (a fist in other words) you can patch it. If there are several holes, rip it out and redo the whole sections.
On day one of any rehab, gut everything you can (within reason). Haul it all away. In a week you will not remember what it looked like and you will have a nice clean work area.
Trust me; this approach will save you weeks and weeks of work.
A lot of determining whih way to go depends on you expierance. If you are a remodeler the cost would be much higher to do new construction and vise verse.
I am a remodeler gut to me is a big word. When you were repairing walls would it have been cheaper to rip the trim and replace it after new walls???
Depending on the house walls don't sell the house as a home if there is a hole fix it , crack fill it, wave wave back and say goodby.
Differant wall texture can be skimed with compound to flat sometimes. Ive also sprayed the walls with texture (ceiling popcorn) after it dried scrape the popcorn off for a consistant finish.
Try useing plaster of paris for repair instead of compound and paper tape.
Great another remodeler out there!
Vitex is also fast drying and cheap in large bags and works great on repairs. I could repair 10 baseball sized holes in 1/2 the time required to rip out the rock and replace and texture.
I talked to Kevin Myers, author of "Buy it Fix it Sell it & Profit" who generall says to avoid doing the work yourself and spend time doing what you do best. He said that in my case the scenario was a little different. "you have 5 guys capable of a fast professional level of work use your own judgement".
Within the next 6 months to a year I hope to be out of the commercial end of construction and remodel. I will sell my business to a partner and do rehab/CRE full time. When this happens I will not hang very much sheetrock myself, ever! I will however patch, repair, and texture. Additionally I will trim out, reglaze tubs and sinks and maybe counter tops. But the heavy tear out and rehang of a house?? Naaah!..
[addsig]
Here are a couple of tips. If you have "non structural" rot or damage to a painted wood surface i.e. window sills etc. Bondo is the worlds best wood filler and you can make the wood look better than new when you paint it. It will also last far longer than the wood
When seeking help with a rehab get a remodel contractors help, they are far more creative and far tougher than a new construction contractor. They also will have a lot more tools.
We do both new and remodel, but remodel pays the best. Why? because 80% of US construction is in remodel and only 20% of the contractors will do it (a book on running a construction company).
[addsig]
Stock pro
My happyest day in RI was quiting my remodeling bussiness. No more retail customers( they cost over 1/3) of the job.
get those people out of the way!
try quick fix for plaster someday.
a lot of new construction is apprentice training anyway.
bondo is also great for outside but messy fast and verry permanent.
Kevin has agood point no such thing as sweat equity unless you are a hobbyist. Doesn't matter who does the work. It all gets paid for
Buy yourself a small compressor and a cheaper texture gun. Home Depot has a cheap system that uses dry wall mud in what looks like gallon plastic milk jugs.
I fix any big holes, and run a skim real think and quick over the small holes. Then shoot the texture over the walls, let it sit for about 10 minutes and then knock it down with a big dry wall spackling knife.
This covers a multitude of sins and you come out with knock down textured walls for about $30-$40 per room. You could do it for about $10 a room with a better gun that uses dry wall mud out of a 5 gallon bucket.
Looks like a million bucks for next to nothing.
Great to hear about other "adventures in rehabbing"my most recent was a roof tear off and there wasn't any roof felt ended up replacing most of the sheeting. Two things matching texture. One always mud further out around the patch than you think you need , then a really slick tip is to thin some joint compound use a paint brush to feather the existing texture when this dries a light coat of primer will show any voids then you can texture starting on the existing area working in to the patch.
Second you are looking at the patch with a critical eye and it always looks worse than you think it is.
Have fun
Mike