That piece of art in the entry is really perfect for the place!
I forgot to mention that I gave a personal gift to the wife/mother during the final walkthrough. I am just so sick and tired of scrubbing that house over and over again. To get ready for the final walkthrough I was madly trying to clean the mirrors/glass and vacuum up the floors. My dang vacuum battery (it is cordless) died and I couldn’t find the charger. I realized I had to start all over again on Friday after the tent comes off. It is just a losing battle. Then I had a thought that this poor woman would have to probably clean after the moving in and then has to try to clean out her entire current house after moving to get it ready for sale.
So, I wrote a check to her personally as a gift and told her it was specifically for cleaning services. Her choice, clean the Eastridge house again after they move in, or use it for a cleaning service at her current home after they move out (that is the much larger chore!). This one small gesture goes a long way to let the buyers know that I understand the giant ordeal that is ahead of them, and I would grateful if they didn’t nit pick that there is a hand print left in my house somewhere 
That is so nice of your, CB. I’m sure she will appreciate that, just like we appreciated the gift certificates for all of our three cars to a local detailing shop given to us by the builder of House1 (the city would not sign off on paving plans for the private road, so we had to drive on gravel and mud for a couple of months after moving in).
CB, how very thoughtful of you! I’m sure the new owners are very touched by your thoughtfulness and will love their new home!
Our sellers paid for professional cleaning when we bought the house. It was SO appreciated, as we never would have paid for that ourselves. We both declared on the spot that we’d make the same gesture when we eventually sell.
CB, it’s heart warming to read how this project is being wrapped up and how much the buyers love the house. Kudos to you for a great job all around.
Best wishes for your new project to go more smoothly for the remainder than it has so far.
FINAL PROJECT WRAP UP
I know all the inquiring minds want to know how the schedule and budget went. Well, they went south, as usual !
SCHEDULE
My original goal was to try to get the property out to market by September 1st. I only missed that by 2 weeks, so pretty happy about the schedule.
BUDGET
Well, this wasn’t as great as the schedule. There was a combination of issues that caused the budget to go way over. My original estimate was somewhere between $85k and $100k. I probably originally posted $85k. The listing agent assured me that his experience was $75k to remodel. But this is the same guy that told me to keep the grid windows and don’t bother changing them. I’m guessing my competitors would have somehow kept it to 75k, but what fun is that?
Purchase Price and Purchase Costs $607,000
Demolition and Trash $7,000
Landscape/Drains $6,300
Kitchen $20,700 (does not include the vaulting/structural or drywall)
Bathrooms $17,000
Flooring $12,300
Roof $12,700
And the famous Miscellaneous!!! includes drywall, painting, doors, windows, baseboard, garage, laundry, and you name it! $44,000
REMODEL COSTS $120,000
Carrying Costs $23,500
Selling Costs $35,000
Sale Price $850,000
WHERE DID WE GO WRONG WITH BUDGET?
I don’t feel so bad about this the more I watch Flip or Flop… same thing always happens to them. They start thinking $75k from their contractor and then they need a new roof, new wiring, new plumbing, and on and on. What do they do? They seem to just raise their asking price to cover everything. It doesn’t really work like that in real life, but we got SO SO LUCKY! My target sales price was $785k, and then we got the gift of the house below that sold $855k in 2 days!!! So, we shot for the moon at $848k and it flew off the shelf! At 785K I would have broken even and walked away empty handed. The higher price got me back to my original plan.
This project had an additional wrinkle in that I had a personal situation right from the beginning in May. Part of the reason the costs got a little out of control is that I dropped the ball managing the project for at least 4 weeks. Things moved forward, but a couple of things had to be changed after I got back in there. Here is my estimate of where some of the overruns happened
Permits - not in original plan (and some of the added costs in construction) $4,000
Roof - went over budget at least $5k
Drainage/Landscape - went over budget $2k
Flooring - over $3k
Tile - over at least $1k
Garage/Laundry - never was in the plan $3k
Window replacement $4k
Moving some plumbing around in bathrooms $1k
Stucco (was going to do this ourselves, but hired specialist) $1k
Pride of craftsmanship - priceless.
Making a family happy - ditto.
Congrats, CB!!!
@coralbrook you made money! Woohoo!!
“Time to find another house to flip!”
Congrats, cb!
What I don’t get on Flip or Flop is how they come up with their reno prices.
The contractor will walk into the bathroom from hell that needs to be totally gutted and redone. “$6,000” On what planet?! Does he have slave labor or something?
Good question @notrichenough
I think they just walk in and know shower costs X, toilets, vanity, tiling, X and come up with $6k. Also, general demolition and painting costs are in another budget. That’s before you open up the walls, decide to move the plumbing, decide to steal room from an adjoining closet, decide to upgrade to beautiful tile, etc.
In my world, it can get done for $6k, as shown below:
Plumbing and Plumbing Materials $500 (assumes 1/2 day to cap off and remove, 1.5 days installing new shower valves, p traps, angle valves, etc.)
Tile and Tile install $3,000 for cheap tile
Toilets, Vanities, sinks, fixtures $1,000
Shower glass $500
Installation of all that stuff $1,000
As an example, I just finished the bathroom from hell for my friend. I told her budget was $3k (remember there is no general contractor or overhead costs involved here)
As soon as we opened up the walls, all hell broke loose. I told her to expect another $1k just because we had to drywall everything including drywall and paint the adjoining room. And, of course, we still ran over budget but that was because she purchased the fixtures and vanity outside of my budget.
Here’s the breakdown for a small hall bath, gutted to studs and redone:
Bath fixtures including new shower valve, faucet, towel rods, shower rod, toilet paper holder (she wanted the brushed gold and they were a little pricey) $600
Vanity $350
New bath exhaust and shower lighting $150
Mirror and Lighting $250
Tile $750
Tile Install $1000
New bathtub/parts $400
Labor (plumbing, electrical, drywall, painting, etc) $1,200
$4,700 for small hall bathroom
If I could redo my hall bath down to the studs for $5000, I’d be getting it done! Not around here. It would be $10,000 plus.
Easily. Here it would be $15K, I suspect, but I’m not about to find out. My bathrooms have all been done recently.
$4700 is the wholesale price. Whoever is doing the plumbing and electrical isn’t making $100/he looked they would if I hired a plumber.
Plus the contractor doesn’t work for free either, so that’s 2x the price right there.
We are temporarily living with one functional bathroom, and let me tell you I will NEVER move into a place with one bathroom. At least 1 1/2 is essential.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Our relatives just redid 2 bathrooms — it ran 6 figures!
Yes, that is bare bones cost at $4,700. That’s pure time and materials without a high cost for plumber or electrician. I did call in an electrician for 2.5 hours to pull some new wires for the exhaust fan (bathroom did not have one at all) and set wires for 2 sconces instead of the standard vanity light. I gave him $100 for coming over and helping.
@HImom I just cannot fathom how someone could spend $100k on two bathrooms, unless they were brand new additions hanging off a cliff that needed major scary foundation work or something.