Real Estate Rehab and Restoration

At the recent World of Concrete Show in Vegas this company caught my attention. Something Better Company based in Arizona has an interesting line of concrete resurfacing products that will add value to real estate. If you are in the real estate rehab and restoration market you should contact them.

They have various products for resurfacing concrete floors, creating rock formations, water features and countertops. What Really caught my eye was their system for resurfacing cabinets called Cabinet Crete.

I think of all the apartment buildings I’ve rehabbed and all the cabinets I’ve replaced. With this product I would have saved countless thousands. Their methods are a huge solution to economically remodeling all the foreclosed properties that are coming on the market.

Check out their video here from the 2009 World of Concrete. If you are an investor specializing in real estate rehab and restoration this might be your solution.

Flooring Insurance

I ran into this company in Vegas at the World of Concrete. Ram Board. It seems that this product is always needed when it’s needed. No one seems to think about ordering a product like this ahead of time.

It doesn’t matter what kind of flooring is put down in a construction project there will always be contractors doing finish work after a floor is put in. Lighting, painting, signs whatever. Contractors want to do their job and if you don’t protect yours too bad.

If a floor is not protected it will get damaged. It’s going to cost someone and I’ve never seen the client eat a contractors mistake.

Whether you’re the client, general Contractor or sub bookmark this company. Ramboard

Resurfaced Concrete Stairs with Stardek Products

As a property rehabber I have used decorative coatings for years. The reason, every rehab is different and nothing is ever square or level. If you try and knock down walls, rebuild floors or get into big construction you are done, you will lose money. Knowing the products exist is a big start. Check out the Photo below. SureCrete has a cemenntitious product for resurfacing asphalt driveways.

Surecrete Overlay

Rehabbing is an art, a science, a challenge. Start building and your friendly building inspector will be there to ruin your day. No matter how good your cause building inspectors will bring out the evil in you, the hopeless feeling, the feeling of despair.

The solution to keep the building inspector away is using decorative coatings. Decorative coatings are the most economical and functional solution to all the foreclosed property coming to market.

There will be minimal new construction for years. When I was active in New York City real estate I don’t think I saw a crane from 1990-1998. So new construction other than government projects will be dormant for I’ll bet at least 5 years.

The opportunities are going to be in rehabs and adding value to existing properties both residential and commercial. The backbone of our economy is real estate. Real estate profits, whether construction, appraisals, broker, finance is going to be the leader. It’s going to start with rehabs. Those who know how to use concrete and coatings are going to benefit hugely. It’s the only economical and functional solution.

Just take a look at these videos I grabbed off You Tube to get an idea. And you thought concrete was just grey.

Big Opportunities In The Swimming Pool Market

Now that we have a new president maybe the markets will feel a new confidence. With Obama at the helm the liberal press has nothing to complain about.

Despite the gloomy reporting lately there are still plenty of interesting opportunties. In The Wall Street Journal there was an article about new legislation that was passed regarding swimming pool drains. There have been injuries and drownings caused by underwater drains that suck hard enough to prevent people from getting free.

That means that all the approximately 300,000 public pools need to be fixed to comply with the new regulation. That means lots of opportunity for coatings and pool specialists. Contact all the hotels, schools, hospitals to find out their plans. The amount of business could set you up for a few years.

Information is available at National Swimming Pool Foundation.

Residential Foreclosed Properties

I met with a Real Estate Owned (REO) specialist today who focuses on the residential market. His specialty is foreclosed properties. He sees a 36 month window of opportunity. The majority of properties he sells for banks are to real estate investors. The first thing owners neglect before they miss their payments is maintenance. Every bank owned property needs work. In most cases the walkways, patios, pool decks need help. The kitchens, baths garages and basements need work to improve value.

If you are an investor the products manufactured by the companies here area great resource. As a real estate investor I’ve used skim coats, wall plasters and concrete for countertops to rehab properties. The results have been extremely profitable and smoke the competition. Check with brokers in your local area. They will refer new owners and investors to you.

Public Projects

Our new President will be pouring funds into our public infrastructure. Schools, municipal buildings, hospitals are going to be renovated. This is a large opportunity. It might be worth investing in leads from Reed Construction data and other similar services. Reed Construction Data is a database of construction projects. You can sort the data by specialty, geographic area, property type and probably a few more. They provide you with all the contact data you need like project name, architect, general contractor and owner.

First I found the just released Beige Book by The Federal Reserve. Don’t waste your time reading. It’s garbage. Whoever wrote it was likely a low level employee of the Fed who doesn’t have a clue. Pathetic that they would release such trash. All they said was that the markets were weak with nothing to substantiate their report. As if we all didn’t know that the markets were weak.

Better research is the stock price and earning of Home Depot and Lowes. Home depot is down from about $40.00 – $20.00 and Lowes is down from about $35.00 – $20.00. When the trading volume starts to increase and prices start to lift thats a good sign. Another interesting indicator is the price of lumber and copper. Copper is down from $4.00 to $1.00 per pound and lumber from $3.00 a linear foot to $1.70.

Interest rates are down significantly but as usual the Fed is about 12 months late. I mean come on, what were the geniuses at the Fed thinking when they raised the interest rate 17 times in a row. Woops.

Anyway in 1990 I was in the trenches selling, or trying to sell real estate in NYC. There were no buyers, but more importantly there were no sellers. Those who didn’t have to sell didn’t bother trying. Those who had to sell couldn’t. Why? Their properties were worth less than the mortgage. So the market went through a 2 year period while we all sat around waiting for the banks to foreclose. Then buyers started to buy. The first wave of buyers who made money were those who knew construction. They understood how to evaluate a property and how to add value cost effectively. They knew products, design and labor.

History will repeat itself again. First all the properties under water need to go through foreclosure. It would be cheaper and quicker for the Fed and the banks to just let the owners who are in troble off the hook but they won’t.

The markets will be faily slow and inactive for a few years. Those with money and expertise will be the first buyers. Once the foreclosed inventory is out of the way prices will slowly start to rise. Financing will come back into the market. Who will provide financing? It’s hard to say but some very smart finance entrepreneurs will figure it out.

Keep an eye on Home Depot and Lowes stock prices, check their earnings. Watch commodities like copper, lumber, steel. In the short term who will survive? Specialized, quality niche companies of all sizes. Some of the biggest beneficiaries will be small businesses.

However they overlooked the concrete. The walkway leading to the entrance and the steps were bland unattractive concrete. Thats where the clients are getting their first impression. Somehow the owner missed an important part of their education in real estate investing.

I see unattractive concrete everywhere. makes me wonder that either property owners think that people won’t notice or that they don’t know there are solutions for resurfacing walkways, steps and walls.

Boot Camp Training Center based in Dallas Texas provides this education with year round training classes. If you are a real estate investor and plan on taking advatage of foreclosed properties resurfacing in an important area of your education in real estate investing.

I have completed many rehabs of both residential and commercial properties. For each project I used decorative concrete and various stucco coatings which provided function solutions, saved time and added value.

There are a couple of free and inexpensive videos you can watch at www.metrocrete.tv that show the processes.

If you are an investor of existing properties value will be added by purchasing right but more importantly rehabbing at a price that enables you to make a profit. Complete your education in real estate investing by becoming an expert in rehabbing which means knowing how to solve problems, what products to use and how to apply them.

Thanks to Boot Camp Training Center for sponsoring this page

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.