Real Estate Investing Insight

Remember, as the investor its your job to have the big picture. You have the vision, you know the numbers.

Listen to agents, attorneys, accountants, property managers and contractors; but always make your own decisions. Always operate in your role as the owner.

Read The Video Transcript:

Hello just left the property that we had purchased that we knew was actually kind of lopsided and uh basically the add-on

which was a pretty decent size separated
itself from the main building and it was the
lower back of the house just sunk down and I didn't realize quite how much it had sunk down until now now that we're actually renovating it.
And it sunk down over eight inches so
the whole property just moved an entire eight inches and of course that's a problem but we
knew that when we bought the property
and I guess my point and the one reason why
I want to do a quick podcast is I've had several contractors tell me what a horrible
horrific problem this is and how
incredibly expensive it's gonna be

because it's moved so much.

And the thing is I kept kind of responding to them like "why do I care?"

 

None of that matters you know it doesn't matter if it moved an inch it doesn't matter if it moved eight inches.

If i have to remove all the flooring and if I have to take all the tear out all the sub-flooring out and if I have to repair all the floor joists and if I need to have tall his done to the property...

 

And if all this work has to be done anyways
what do I care about how much of the property actually moved if everything's

getting rebuilt?

Since everything's going to be brand new?

Then what's the problem? And I guess my

point is is is that: we're the investors and we need to make the investor-kind of decisions.

I'm not saying not to listen to contractors certainly not.

Obviously you really want to listen to

contractors and I understand there's a
huge risk in my choosing not to always listen to these contractors but at the end of the day
none of this really matters. There's no increase in labor,  there's no increase in materials, there's no increase of anything and the same thing kind of goes with a lot of the plumbing issues a  lot of these contractors kept kind of throwing at me saying
"you know look you're gonna have a huge

problem with all the plumbing in these walls, and under these floors with this bad plumbing and I'm like what do I care/

 

We're opening up this floor anyways and we have endless room to replace the plumbing

over there it's the simplest thing.

it literally you're talking about you

know 20 minutes of work to replace the

plumbing.

it's not like we're opening up walls
it's not like we're opening up floors to fix a plumbing issue we already have the floors open we already have the walls open
to me from my perspective it was really
not an issue and I think again my point being is is obviously we have to listen to these guys
that's what they get paid for uh i have
great contractors; but sometimes they kind of lack vision they just don't understand

the big picture on things.

And I guess that's the point I wanted to

have a quick video just to kind of say
that it's important to take a step back
sometimes it's important to just kind of see
it a little bit along the lines of that
I mean that's actually another good
point about this property is the tenant

actually installed a God-awful toilet in the middle of the floor.

She was in bad shape physically she

had the toilet installed until we gave
her a second bathroom this he could

actually get to.

She had a toilet installed right in this

cellar stairwell just right in the middle of the floor was the toilet and I had actually had a couple contractors that I worked with in my property management company and they kept asking me what you can do about this toilet what are you gonna do about this toilet and I kept kind of looking at them thinking what do you mean what am I gonna do about this toilet i mean it's the simplest thing it
unscrews two screws take it throw it

into garbage

We're putting in new flooring anyways so

what do i care if there is a hole in the floor that big and that's the problem that we have uh that's going to be underneath the flooring that we're putting in the toilet is the simplest  thing in the world to solve throw it into garbage uh but same thing like i said
it's important for you to keep your
investor hat on and listen to your contractors
Listen to any validity and what they
have to say ask questions ask them why they think a random toilet in the middle of the floor
is actually such a big problem and see if they actually have a valid answer and they might quite possibly and they often will have a valid answer but if they don't and you just say hey from my perspective, two bolts we unscrew it we throw in the garbage is there something i don't know if they respond no you're right then you're kind of good to go; but i just want to give you that uh just kind of keep your head
and your your perspective you know and
just you know remember who the who is the
investor who's currently in the actual
numbers and who are the actual contractors

Author:

Joe White

Joe White is a Philadelphia Property Manager and Real Estate Broker. He is the owner of Grow Property Management and has been involved in the management, sales and purchases of Philadelphia area rental investment properties since 2008. He is an author and works as a real estate investment consultant and construction manager.

View all posts by Joe White