When you think about rehabbing a project, one of the things that may come to your mind is HGTV. Of course, you have watched tons of HGTV shows and they show you how they are doing demo and encountering an issue here and there, but is that really what happens when “YOU DO IT”.

Uuuuhhh yes and no. Yes demo and issues happen when doing doing a renovation, but what those tv shows don’t show you is how it all starts. I’m going to break down my experience as a newbie real estate investor and explain the process I went through.

After the paperwork was signed and I officially owned the property. I followed these steps.

Step 1. I got a home inspection. Why, because as stated in a previous blog (https://shereadyllc.com/2020/07/19/quit-claim-deed-rental-keeping-it-in-the-family/), the home hadn’t been lived in for years and I needed to get a full view of what I was going to be dealing with.

Step 2. Put together a list of questions for the contractor. I included, things like are you insured, licensed, do you work on weekends, etc.

Step 3. Meet with contractors to do a walk-through of the property and get quotes and references.

Step 4. Sign the contract of the contractor and pay a deposit

I failed to follow steps 2 and 3 more thoroughly. In step 2, because of the rural area, the rehab was in, I found that lot of contractors were actually handy men. Some of them were not even registered with the state as an official business. In step 3, and this one may have saved me thousands of dollars, I didn’t call and check references of work they had done previously. I was impatient and it cost more money.

Looking back, I definitely realized that my process needs refinement, but now that the property is rented, I’m happy that I have lessons learned so that I can apply them moving forward.

In my interview with Coach Carson, we discussed my successes and losses with contractors. Please click on the link below for more details.