An Education In Real Estate Investing

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Over the weekend I went to a real estate investment seminar. The seminar was free and didn’t offer much other than hope and dreams to a large crowd looking for a way out. For $999.00 you buy their one way ticket to real estate riches. They use lines like “does Donald Trump invest with his own money” and the room bellows out Nooo! They teach you how to get money with goverment low interest loans and grants.

I’ll bet they can. I’d like to try their program, I’m sure government programs are available. However once you can get the money now what? I wanted to stand up and ask all the dream seekers what they know about rehabbing real estate. That’s what the money is for, rehabbing real estate. Guess what? If you don’t know how to rehab a property you will get hammered.

Rehabs are very difficult and require specialized knowledge. There are many unknowns. First you have the expense of taking the property apart, then you have to put it back together.

Maybe I’ll do a series about rehabs since I’ve been doing them for 20 years. So todays education in real estate investing is about using concrete to improve a property. Actually Metrocrete is all about using concrete, coatings and related products to add value to real estate.

I am not a skilled contractor or a designer so I try to keep it simple. I go for function first than design second. I’m going to run through a few projects I’ve completed at my house that can be applied to any home. These are cost effective value added projects and great for rehabs. Based on information I found online there are over 400,000 homes in pre forclosure in the U.S. and many more to follow. In Connecticut where I live there are 13,000 forclosures anticipated for the remainder of the year. Thats a lot of properties that need to be rehabbed.

You can visit www.metrocrete.tv to view videos showing “how to” methods. Metrocrete.Tv is an online product video library which we will be continually adding to.

Education in Real Estate Investing Rehab Ideas #1

1. Resurfacing Tile – This started as an experiment. My bathrooms were dated and needed to be rehabbed. I figured I’d try and resurface my old 1970’s porcelein tub. The picture is below. Looks good and 2 years later it still looks good. No chips or delamination. Since that worked I resurfaced ceramic tile in another bathroom. I like using Colormaker Floors Sgraffino, it sticks to everything. So in my bath I resurfaced the floor with Sgraffino. Each bucket of Sgraffino covers over 200 square feet and my bath is small, only 25 square feet of floor area. Point is either measure out a small amount or have other projects to do. Cost is about $1.00 per square foot.

I left the floor unfinished for 6 months so I knew that the floor would last. Now my next step was to use a self leveling concrete. I like Mapei M20Plus, I don’t think there is a self leveler that is better for the price. About $28.00 per 50 lb. bag which goes 25 square feet at 1/4 inch thick. I needed only 1 bag which mixes with about 5.5 quarts of a mix of water and Mapei Polymer. Some times you have to add a little more water. I run my finger throught the product to check the flow. When the mix fills in behind my finger I know it’s ready. Then pour it on the floor. I used a gauge rake to set the exact thickness of the self leveler and a smoother to smooth it out. It dried almost perfectly flat and almost blemish free.

The next day I used an acid stain and water based dye to color the floor. The stain I diluted with water 1:1, sprayed on floor and let dry for about an hour. Then i washed off any residue with water and a rag. Next I sprayed a diluted water based khaki colored dye on the floor. I let it sit in puddles for about 15 minutes than evened it out with a rag. I wanted a little mottling, thats why I let the dye sit for 15 minutes. The job would have been simplar if i just sprayed on the dye and evened it out right away. Probably would have looked better. I violated my own law of simplicity. Next day I sealed the floor. Done

Conclusion – Actual product cost was about $50.00 – $60.00. No real construction. Figure 4 days but only about 4 hours of actual work, the rest of time just waiting for application to dry. If this was a 4-10 unit building I could have done 10 bathroom floors in the same amount of time with 1 -2 workers. Think about that. About $1,000.00 to resurface 10 bathroom floors, including labor.

Education in Real Estate Investing #2

2. Resurfacing Bathtubs – As I mentioned in post #1 above I resurfaced a tub in my house. I was going to rip it out if it didn’t work so I thought I’d take a chance. That was 2 years ago. I probably should apply a seal coat which hasn’t been done in 2 years.

Again I used Colormaker Floors Sgraffino with a colorant mixed in. I primed the tub twice with Colormakers polymer then applied 2 coats and a solvent based sealer. It’s a bit trickey and requires patience but goes quickly. The mix is wet like pancake mix and you fight gravity but once it’s on it stays. The way I got it on was by having my mix in a 5 gallon bucket and using a cup and mix and measure bucket to scoop out the mix and pour it on the base of the tub. Then I used a Magic Trowel which I cut down to a small usable size.

It worked. It’s a bit tedious and does make you swet. Make sure you wear a headband to avoid swet marks dripping on surface, the salt makes marks. Probabbly used $50.00 of material and an hour of actual working time. Compare that to the cost of a new tub at $200.00 plus labor, demolition, plumbing, forget it, it doesn’t compare. Again a 10 unit multifamily could have 10 tubs resurfaced in a day. That’s now 10 tubs and 10 floors resurfaced in a week. Pay your workers well and it’s done in a week for under $2,000.00

Education In Real Estate Investing #3

#3. Concrete Countertops – Concrete countertops can be simple or artistic designs depending on the skill and experience of the contractor. Well here’s my Kitchen countertop which I poured in place, 2 inches thick. I used Buddy Rhodes Countertop mix which is user friendly but there are others on the market that reduce labor time like enCounter and SureCrete Design. New molds from companies like Prietech are making unique designs possible that were not available a year ago. To make a countertop like the one pictured figure about $15.00 – $18.00 per square foot for materials. For a 10 unit building plan on about 3 weeks or for a single family plan on about 5-7 days.

The Buddy Rhodes video at Metrocrete TV will teach you the basics. For advanced applications training classes at Boot Camp Training Center in Dallas are well worth the investment.

The purpose of Metrocrete is to be a tool for your education in real estate investing and improving property values. This is going to be a huge growth business again. All the properties being foreclosed on will need to be rehabbed. I guarantee the most succesful will be the ones who are good at rehabbing. There will be new fortunes made.

When you buy a property thats a fixed price, a definate. The cost of your financing is fixed. The 2 unknowns are future value and cost of construction. Cost of construction and materials is the most important. Look around on Metrocrete and you will learn. I get into all kinds of uses for concrete and coatings, not just nice pictures and shallow info. Basements, garages, kitchens and baths, swimming pools and walkways, outdoor kitchens. I try to introduce the products that make it happen. The correct products and application methods make the difference. It doesn’t have to be difficult. What is difficult is doing it wrong.

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