Stop Work Order

We’ve hit a few snags at the fire damaged three family. The next door neighbor isn’t happy about the dust from the demo so she called the cops on our contractor for working on a holiday (memorial day) and then she called the building inspector the next day… apparently she thought we were working without permits. No big deal, the inspector stopped by and everything looks good. Then on Thursday we got an unexpected visit from the Environmental Protection Agency…. seems someone called in an anonymous tip alleging that we were removing the asbestos boilers from the property on our own, instead of hiring the overpriced asbestos abatment companies. We’ve had four abatement guys over to look at the job in the last two weeks…. I’m not sure which one took the liberty of  dropping a dime on us.  I guess it’s their way of insuring they get work, call in the EPA so we don’t even consider removing it ourselves (which we never did).  So the EPA guy says that there is a slight chance that their may be asbestos in the sheetrock we are removing and he gives us a Stop Work order until we get some samples tested. $450 bucks later the samples come back clean and we should be able to start work again on Tuesday. Here’s a look at the progress so far:

    Not too much action on the exterior

   Nice Banner

   This porch is ready to come down on its own!!

  Heres how the third floor looked a week ago

  And the third floor now

   Here’s where the fire burnt through the roof

 

We’ll probably lose four days because of this little hiccup. It wasn’t too bad because it gave our contractor a chance to get back over to Bessemer and do some painting.

 

We bought another house on Wednesday. It’s on Brooks St in Springfield. The good thing is that this one has already been rehabbed by the previous owner, not to our standard… but it’ll do. Heres a look at the house;

    We bought this from a hard money lender out of CT who is also a pretty well known TV star on A&E’s Flip This House .  Theres a few repairs we need to make to this house, nothing major though.  Once thats done we’ll stage it and get it on the market.

One Week at Bessemer

We are one week into construction on Bessemer St. Here is a video update:

Construction for this project should run another seven weeks. So far we have been very happy with our new contractor Jason. We have had some bad experiences with contractors over the last six months… cost us alot of time and money….  There are alot of guys out there right now who are very hungry for work and they will tell you they can do anything, than you give them a project and you soon find out they are in way over there head. Just make sure you are screening them well.

 

I think we bought another house yesterday… we still have to execute contracts but we came to a verbal agreement. I’ll post more details about this one in another post.

Busy Day

Today was a busy day for us.

       I started off the morning by going over to our rehab on Hartford Terrace. Our contractor is just finishing up and he was looking for a final punch list. The Hartford Terrace house is a large 4 bed 1.5 bath colonial that is just over 2,200 square feet. We picked this house up via a short sale. Here are some of the photos I took today.

 

71 Hartford Terr

This is a view of the front. We did all new vinyl siding and replacement windows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Here is the view looking into the kitchen from the dining room. We opened this wall up and added the breakfast bar.

 

 

 

This is the main living room. It is very large and open. This house has alot of great wood work.

This is the full bath located on the second floor. This was a complete gut. We added new tub, tile, vanity, lighting and shower panel.

Shower Panel

 Here is a close up of the Shower Panel. It is a big hit with buyers (especially the women). It is european stlyle complete with rain shower head and body sprays. It looks very “space age”.

 

 

 

The hardwood floors will be refinished at this house on Friday, then it is ready to be cleaned, staged and put on the market!!  I will post some before and after photos when I get a chance.

We are still waiting to close on the Fire Damage Cape. There is a lien on the house that the sellers attorney has yet to clear up.  In the mean time we met one of our plumbers over there today to do a walk through and get his numbers. I will be lining up a whole slew of contractors to take through there over the next couple days, a few of which came from my Craigslist search I posted about yesterday. So far I’ve heard back from four of them… two seem very promising.

We had lunch at the new Golden Corral that just opened up in Springfield… the food is real good. I ate way too much, it’s 11:00 oclock at night and I’m still stuffed from lunch!!!

After lunch it was off to a small REIA Group that meets in Southwick. It was a pretty good turnout and I got a chance to do some good networking.

Now it’s about midnight and I’ve got to get ready for bed…

Searching for New Contractors

I spent this morning searching for new contractors. One of my mentors says that you should always be looking for and prescreening new contractors just like you do motivated sellers. We have two good crews right now working on a couple jobs… but I don’t want to overload them, and with the prospect of two big fire damage jobs coming up… I want to make sure we have some back ups in place.

What I did was search the skill’d trade section of Craigslist for Licensed and Insured contractors. I found seven who have advertised over the past two weeks and sent them an introductory email. Heres how the email went;               

”  My company is looking to expand our network of professional contractors and I saw your ad on Craigslist. We buy, renovate and resell 1-2 properties per month in the greater Springfield area, and need additional reliable and affordable contractors. Job size varies from light cosmetics to full gut rehabs. Our larger projects will require permitting so you must be licenced and insured.  We buy these properties for investment purposes and will not be the end user, therefore affordable pricing and timeliness of job completion are of utmost importance. Also, the ability to work with other tradesmen (plumbers,electricians, HVAC) and orchestrate a job site are key.
 
 
     If this sounds like something you may be interested in please call me or email back as I may have 1-2 projects for you to look at.
 
 
 
       Thanks,
                  Matt Kearney
                  Hampden Homebuyers ”

 

As I get responses I will further prescreen them and have them come out and bid a job or two. I also ask for references and a portfolio/photos of previous jobs.  I have been burnt by a few contractors in the past because I was too lenient in my prescreening process. (Just a side note, If your contractor needs you to provide the work truck and/or tools, they are probably not your right guy).

If any of you readers have good tips for finding contractors feel free to share them in the comments section!

We should have a closing coming up over the next couple days. It will be a nice rehab.

Heres the house:  

Fire Damage Cape