A friend of mine is in the middle of rehabbing 2 of these. One was lived in, the other sat empty most of it’s life.
The lived in one needed a new evaporator coil in the AC system The one where the AC had not been running was OK. He threw new faucets at the lived in house but again the empty one was OK.
I really believe water is the other ingredient for the big problems. That is either condensation or water directly laying on things.
The electrical system in both houses had minimal damage. They replaced all the devices (switches and receptacles) and stripped back to fresh copper 3/4″ of insulation but the inspector said if they could just clean off the black stuff he was OK with it. That might be handy if the wires are short. They didn’t do anything to the panel, it was OK with the inspector.
They stripped out all the drywall and sealed the concrete block with barrier paint. All the insulation and carpet was tossed too.
That was really about it. He is figuring about $20,000 so far in a 2500 sq/ft house (what his bids total right now) but he says he is prepared to spend more if something else comes up. That was the bigger, unlived in house. The other one is more like $1800 sq/ft but he thinks that is ~$20k too. It may actually be more because he wants it to look new so they may be replacing some “used” stuff.
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This is the first I've heard of an actual rehab.
Does he own the houses or just acting as the general contractor?
I there any special testing going on or unusual liability involved?
Mike
Small wheel turn by the fire and rod, big wheel turn by the grace of god.
He is buying them, rehabbing them and either selling or renting.
This is one person who is actually doing quite well in this downturn.
He has been cleaning up short sales or foreclosures in hard hit areas and renting them up until now.
The Chinese drywall houses are in areas with a relatively strong market
If this market ever turns around he will be a bazillionaire.