Big Transformation in Serra Mesa

Big Transformation in Serra Mesa

San Diego Home Buyer

Getting started on a great house we just purchased in Serra Mesa, San Diego. It’s funny to say I am excited about this I know, the property has seen years of neglect and deferred maintenance but I have a vision and will enjoy creating this old rental house into a really nice home for a new family to enjoy for years to come!

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sell my san diego house

We are throwing a complete remodel at this home. I bought it “as-is” directly from the out-of-state owner and helped him with relocating the long time tenants.

The first thing I did was remove all these nasty juniper trees so we can replace the entire roof with all new sheeting, rafter tails and facia. I take pride in doing things right.

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san diego real estate investing

We are projecting about 5 weeks to do this complete remodel. I do a really good job only using specialized sub contractors for each individual trade, no handyman tile jobs here! Stay tuned and we are always looking to buy houses in San Diego.

Homeowners sell to us and avoid the hassle, expense and uncertainty of listing with a realtor. With hundreds of F.S.B.O. (for sale by owner) transactions under our belt and 15 years experience, we are the most trusted San Diego home buyer.

Flipping Santee in the Rain!

Flipping Santee in the Rain!

We are the original San Diego We Buy Houses Company. Now we are a few weeks into this new Santee remodel. It’s a great 4/2 on a culdesac lot. It had quite a lot of demo including turning the converted garage back to original and various sheds and patio cover additions that were rotten and needed to be removed. We filled up 2 dumpsters on this one the first week. Outside of some minor floorplan changes this is a pretty straight forward project although it did get a new roof as well. We are always looking for more San Diego projects, if you know anyone who wants to sell their fixer-upper San Diego house for cash and as-is, please let us know.

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Despite all the rain delays we still managed to get the roof on and all the termite damaged wood fixed. This is not an Ugly House, just needs mostly a new face lift to be beautiful again. Windows will go in this week and we can start putting the inside back together with complete new kitchen, baths, flooring and paint.

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Painted Lady has a New Hat

Painted Lady has a New Hat

This is the craziest roof I’ve ever done and it didn’t help that my roofer only saw it necessary to bring one helper. The pitch is a very steep 12′ on 10′ so it makes walking on it humanly impossible. Not to mention that there were 3 layers including the original wood cedar shake shingle that needed to be removed before we could even install the new roof decking made this an all consuming  job. It was slow going all week due to the steep pitch, they even had to hand carry the individual shingles up the 32′ ladder as we couldn’t load the bundles anywhere on the roof. It’s always good to pick your roof color to go with what exterior paint colors you’ve got planned, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen rehabbers make this crucial mistake, like a brown roof with a green house. I usually use the Owens Corning 30-Year Estate Grey but this time I went with something new its the Lifetime GAF shingle in the color called Slate. It’s mostly grey but with a hint of blueish green to make it look like slate on an old house. I think its going to tie in nicely with my paint color scheme. The roof on this house is real important to get right because its so visible. I took this opportunity to remake the historic scalloped decorative facia board also on the mini front gable and it came out sweet.

I also picked up my new wood historic style double-hung sashed windows by TM Cobb this week. These windows are so cool I wish I could replace all of them but the budget just doesn’t permit it. I’m putting in 8 new ones that are either unsavable or someone had already replaced with aluminum and refurbishing the rest of the original windows per the historic board guidelines. I cant put them in until I pass framing inspection. The electrician finished up this week so I’m now finally ready to call for rough-in inspections on framing, electrical, plumbing and hvac all at once. I think I’ve got 7 killer historic colors nailed down for the exterior, they are from the Sherman Williams Victorian House color collection. If the Historic Board approves it, I’ll be using a lighter green body, dark green trim, burnt orange accent on the sunburst, plum windows, medium orange for some accents, and light blue for the porch ceiling. There will also be a grey wood front porch to keep it period correct. These are some heavy colors but I think the Lady will hold them well as long as I use the accents sparingly and in the right places.

Window shopping

Window shopping

The roof is all complete and just in time to beat this week’s South Texas rain storm. Final tally after adding up the receipts for my spreadsheet is $3998 for labor and materials, an excellent price for 40 squares of 30-year roof including 23 squares of old roof tear-off. Speaking of finding deals I’ve been doing some window shopping for the past few days in search of the best price for dual pane, white vinyl, low E windows for the Target House. I compared 4 different sources and ended up back with my usual supplier Builders First Source here in San Antonio. Sometimes I cringe at putting vinyl windows in an old historic house but with today’s energy prices it really makes sense.  After having Home Depot quote it and send it to the bid room twice, Lowe’s quote and send it to QSP, I was still able to do better by a few hundred bucks. For 25 windows I am paying $3340.00 with tax. Keep in mind most of these for the old portion of the house are ESW’s (exact size windows) and are made custom to fit inside existing wood casings in order to preserve the historic qualities of the home. There is a Federal tax rebate for 2010 in the amount of $1500.00 if you spend over $5,000 and the new windows have a U factor greater than .40. This changed from last years requirement of .32 but in any case we wont qualify due to our low invoice price and we didn’t see it necessary to pay an extra 20% for the extra U factor just to get the $1500.00 back. Make sure and check with your CPA if you are a rehabber, there is some great energy efficient Obama money out there for grabs.

..we have Roof

..we have Roof

For those of you taking notes, I just completed step #4 in my standard order for major renovations.

Step#1 Demo

Step#2 Level the existing structures’ foundation

Step#3 Frame up new construction portion

Step#4 Put the roof on

As with any renovation the demo always comes first. Next, I always level the existing house’s foundation so I am starting with something straight before I add on. Thirdly, I frame up the new addition and then finally get the roof on so everything inside will now be dry. After the roof I’ll usually move towards getting the siding on which includes doors and windows then I can have my sub contractors come through and rough-in the electrical, plumbing and hvac. I like to have the house secure before new stuff goes in so this is my reasoning. You can see how the roof gable pops up moving backwards through the addition, this compensates for the interior steps keeping the same 9′ ceiling height throughout. 

After my usual price shopping all over town I ended up getting the 30-year roofing material at Lowes for $50/square.  If you are spending alot of money at Lowes or Home Depot have them send your quote to the “bid room.”  They’ll come back with another 10% off everytime. If you bring in a competitors quote they’ll beat it by 10%. In San Antonio if you can speak a little Spanish you can get a roofing laborer to put on a new layer for $20/square if you supply all the materials whereas roofing contractors charge over $160 with materials. I ended up throwing down about $80/square total after including all new flashings, tar paper and drip edges. I used my favorite color Estate Gray by Owens Corning, it goes with everything and looks rich. This isnt bad and less than half of what a homeowner would pay. This roof is 37 squares so the total price is around $4000 which is a great price for a 30-year shingle with all new metal and added ridge vents on a 2200 s.f. house.  Another rain storm caught the guys mid-way Saturday so we’re finishing it up Monday.

Milking the Clock

We had a big week 3 on the Neighbors House project. Monday I passed inspection for my foundation so we ordered materials and went straight into framing the master suite room addition Wednesday. When laying out the floor joists I had the option to grab an extra 15 square feet by not cutting down my 16 footers and additionally we cantilevered the sills out and ended up with extra footage along the rear thus making our addition just over 700 s.f. instead of the planned 620. The framers kicked ass and got it done in a day and a half. I also had the stucco guy do the column bases for the front porch during the week. For the roof I went with my favorite 30-year composite shingle but since there were “Estate Grey” roofs on either side of this house (one being Hat Trick House) I had to choose another color, Driftwood. It’s really bizarre to flip two houses right next door to each other. Not only will I get to use my sales comp but also get the carryover curb appeal. My roofers showed up Friday and really got off to a slow start, it’s really disappointing to see someone intentionally dragging something out. Turns out the workers were being paid a day rate instead of a contract rate. After turning up the heat on my subcontractor he quickly changed their pay scale to per square pricing and they really started working, it was like I was looking at a different crew. These clock milkers had the nerve to ask me to buy lunch for them Saturday, I told them where they could go… to find the closest taco shop. The roof didn’t get finished due to the time lost so they’ll be back Monday to wrap it up. This week I’ll take care of the interior framing and arched openings and then its time to run the sub contractors through there for HVAC, electrical and plumbing to work towards the big milestone of passing rough-in inspections on all 3 of these trades.