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<p>Kinda like most flipped houses? ;)</p>
<p>Yes, I would agree that it is close to a total rebuild. But, the time and cost for demolishing the old house, plans and new construction would be prohibitive. It would take at least six months to get to market. Also there are not any manufactured homes in the neighborhoods that I have ever seen, outside of mobile home parks. Very few mobile home parks in San Diego. So it would be impossible to sell.</p>
<p>And yes, profits are squeezed very tight in our market here. I am targeting seven percent on original investment. We will see what happens. I am watching the market soften a bit in the neighborhood after about twenty percent appreciation over the last year. I am just hoping it stays stable and does not go downward.</p>
<p>Regarding Plumbing and Electrical:</p>
<p>My total budget for all the new plumbing and electrical is $3,000. We will see how far off I am going to be.</p>
<p>Plumbing Labor I pay $20/hour (I know, why so cheap?? but I have a loyal guy that I kept busy through the hard times of 2009-2012). He worked as a journeyman plumber for a large developer in San Diego but got laid off during the downturn. He is not specifically licensed because he cannot afford to keep his license renewed right now, but he knows more about plumbing and code than anyone I know. The way this works for permits is that I am the general contractor and he is a sub-contractor that I 1099 for labor payments. I buy all the materials. He does all the work and then, because I pull a homeowner type permit and I am the General Contractor, I meet the city building inspector for inspections and sign off. Have only had one issue that had to be corrected so far. I estimate 32 hours for all the rough plumbing. </p>
<p>Electrician I pay $40/hour. Electrician is licensed and bonded and has done a lot of permitted electrical work for me.</p>
<p>Another note: When we opened up the floors to do the foundation work, we found that the gas line had completely deteriorated under the house and gas must have been just spewing out. The house was red-tagged by the Gas Company and now I know why. </p>
<p>Also, all of the electrical wiring is frayed and deteriorating - old knob and tube wiring. I am just so surprised that the entire house didn’t explode in a fire ball!!! The prior owner/landlord should really be ashamed of themselves. Imagine the liability just waiting to happen!</p>
<p>Are those two problems going to make the cost rise above your estimate?</p>
<p>No, our inspection uncovered that we would need all new drain lines, new water lines and all new electrical with new main panel. We just didn’t realize how utterly dangerous the house was. But I was planning to replace it all and bring to code anyway. We’ll just have to see how far off my estimate was!</p>
<p>These manufactured homes are not low end and they put it in places like Palo Alto, I think San Diego is not in the par on housing cost in Palo Alto. There was a story about a 3 car garage sold for 800k in Palo Alto. The price per sf could be $200 and up(with built in sub zeros), but I had him to quote the lowest, which is around $90.</p>
<p>I did say custom built, did I? The only difference from stick build is that the pieces are build in factory, they assemble the home on site.</p>
<p>I would be interested in whether the manufactured home companies sell pre-fab detached garages? That would be interesting to me. I’ll have to research it</p>
<p>Here’s an interesting factoid. I just googled pre-fab garage and found Wood-Tek. Probably not the cheapest out there, but their estimate for small 2 car garage, single story, shipped to San Diego is $22,750. I know that I can build the garage for $15,000 including permits.</p>
<p>I think the issue is shipping costs to our location, although I know there used to be several mobile home builders in the Inland Empire area down here. Not sure if they have gone out of business in the housing downturn.</p>
<p>Yes, you need a local builder for the low end.</p>
<p>Perhaps you should look into shed builders. HD sells a large shed that could be one car garage.</p>
<p>The reason why I know about those pre-feb builders is that one of my commercial listing calls for 40 homes in a location comparable to SD, it is no where near the housing price of Palo Alto but still. A new home over there sells over $1m, the guy was thinking of putting those homes on my listed properties.</p>
<p>I was told, the prefeb mfg will have EVERTHING ready in two weeks and it takes one day to assemble and inspection, CO will be the next day. It is not just a shell and takes more time to finish the interior.</p>
<p>I was also informed by other builders that Muti-family projects can be modular also. They just stack them up 3 to 4 stories high. Again, they are not cheaply built either. We had a potential project in San Mateo and it is not a location to sneeze about.</p>
<p>Looking at your electric and plumbing cost of labor, I just realized that I over pay for the job I just finished. I should, like you, take down the interior and redo the electric and plumbing, instead, I dwell on the preservation of the “old” feeling and screwed up the whole thing.</p>
<p>Well, what is your estimates on the interior finishing and if that includes sub floors? I had a conversation with a contractor, he charges $25,000 for a 2000sf house, no sub floors, but including tiled kit and bath, all walls and ceilings, insulation, painting and all. I did it for about 15k(2000sf), but like you, I was a GC as well. Garbage removal is another $1500 or so.</p>
<p>The difference of you fixing up and total rebuild is that you did not expand and still have to live with that 7’3" ceiling. Where you spent $$$ to make $ or just a mere difference. The efforts are the same but the result would be different. What would a 2000sf new house selling for in that location? I think the 6 mo wait is worthwhile. And if you have a pre-feb, they will have all the approval in hand for you, so in about 2 month, you will be on the next project.</p>
<p>The angle stop I replaced was only two years old, a quarter turn variety. What a piece of crap! What about workmanship?</p>
<p>OMG!!! Did I mention that this job is NOT glamorous. Just had to share what happened today. First, it must be 95 degrees here today and most of the windows are boarded up over broken glass. Two fans going inside but they are not even making a dent in my sweat.</p>
<p>My brilliant idea was to pull out all old sewer lines from under the house today. I was standing in old tiny bathroom trying to draw new layout. First pipe cut, raw sewage spews everywhere, especially all over me. No running water in house, they had to take me outside and hose me down. </p>
<p>The old galvanized pipes were completely clogged, there was no way any toilet or shower waste was draining anywhere. The stench from the torn out pipes is overwhelming. This is the worst I have ever seen ( or smelled). </p>
<p>Did I mention that prior owner/ landlord should be thrown in jail??</p>
<p>Sent from my Nexus S 4G using CC</p>
<p>Glamorous!!</p>
<p>Take a nice, long shower tonight!</p>
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Home Depot shows some garages that can be ordered. </p>
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That’s the kind of thing that’s pretty funny - unless it happens to you! Seriously though - if you have any open cuts/sores, put disinfectant on it as soon as you can because there are all kinds of nasty things living in sewage.</p>
<p>When I have my septic tank pumped it doesn’t smell so great (but I avoid getting covered in the stuff).</p>
<p>Interesting thread. We’ve never tried a flip, we buy for rental income and plan to hold forever. Thanks to the ridiculous interest rate environment these days and HARP, we’ve refi’ed everything to 15 yr morts with rates from 3.25-4.625%. All conventional financing.</p>
<p>The worst renovation we’ve had was a foreclosure that had a pipe burst on the top floor, which poured water into the structure for months before someone noticed. We had to hire a mold guy to gut it out and remediate. Mold was in all the wall cavities and under the hardware floors, which all had to be ripped up and tossed. On the positive side it made it very easy to replace all the plumbing and wiring.</p>
<p>Re pictures and links to pictures - youtube links are allowed now. Youtube has a thing where you upload pictures and it makes a video slideshow out of them for you. I think it is also allowed to post non-clickable links, so if you add some strategic spaces that are easy for people to manually strip out or leave off the http:// or whatever you can do it that way.</p>
<p>And Zillow is way off on the values in the area because nothing has sold recently - or at least they had better be way off or I am in big trouble :)</p>
<p>Just caught up on one of the Flipping San Diego shows that I taped. I turned it on and went ‘I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS’, the guys bought a house that my lead and I crawled through last November. This house was only 500sf, no yard and the worst part is there was no place to park anywhere. So no place to park trucks or receive deliveries. I passed on making an offer on the house. I watched this flip go through it’s entire construction phase because I drove the street every day on my way to one of my projects in the North Park neighborhood.</p>
<p>Here’s the reality of that show… they said they purchased it for $249,000, finished it in 3 weeks (are you kidding me???) and sold it for $450,000. They showed numbers of making about $93,000 profit on a 500sf house.</p>
<p>I did a little research and this is what really happened:</p>
<p>There were multiple bids and they got the house at $249,000 ($13k above listing price). But I can see how they got the house, they used the listing agent as their buying agent - so they had the inside scoop. Also, there was an awful lot of the selling agent’s sign showing on the show - like plugging the agent. They purchased the house 11/19/2012. </p>
<p>They recorded a Trust Deed to a private hard money lender on 12/21/2012 for $329,309. This means they paid about $6k points and $3,200/month in interest. I don’t have any proof of that, but we will go with that number.</p>
<p>The show stated 3 weeks, they did not list the house for sale until 6/1/2013. That is 7 months after purchasing the house. I will give them a little benefit of the doubt to draw plans and get permit approval - maybe 3-4 weeks before they got started. They had to gut it down to studs and remove the exterior and do a new foundation. They also added about 250sf per the permit records. Still doesn’t explain the 7 months. </p>
<p>It was listed in the MLS for $475,000. They claim they listed it at $450,000 and received an offer immediately for $450,000. What really happened is it went into escrow 6/14/2013 and fell out of escrow 4 days later. Price Drop 6/21 and another price drop 6/25 to $450-469k. Into escrow 7/13 and cancelled again 7/18. It is now pending in escrow as of 8/1/2013. So, they have been sitting on this property since November 2012.</p>
<p>They are using a U Sell type listing agent that just lists in the MLS with a flat fee.</p>
<p>I’m guessing because the episode needed to completed and on the air, they just added the last part where Chief Denny says “And we received an offer at $450,000”. </p>
<p>My best guess is that it was about $75,000 for the work (although I think they get a lot of materials for free from the blatant plugs) plus hard money interest ($6k+$3x10 months) plus carrying costs and purchase/selling costs. Best guess is they made $75,000 on the deal - not bad for a 500sf house! Dang, I passed that one up :)</p>
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You only get to edit the post within a short time of posting it - 5 or 10 minutes. If you have a post you really want to edit for a good reason, like the one I’m thinking of, you should contact a moderator to do it for you. They’re very good about such things I think.</p>