Framing in San Antonio goes for about $3.00-3.50 per square foot for new construction if you deal directly with a sub contractor, in case you are wondering we negotiated $2.71 per foot for this project. In a day and a half they got the floor system done and all the walls up, all that’s left for Monday are the ceiling joists, rafters and decking.
The master has a cathedral ceiling and we are also doing a double-sided gas fireplace between the spa tub and master bedroom which are both new for us so its exciting. I’ll get the roofers over as soon as framing is done so we’ll be all “dried in” and then i can get started on the siding myself.
A Major TV production company in Hollywood that does all the good reality shows on TLC Network and HGTV contacted us this week about doing a reality show about house flipping. They found out about us evidently through our YouTube channel and got to my website.
It would be real cool to get our own show but unfortunately they are looking for someone doing a minimum of 10 houses per year, probably so they can film enough episodes. Theres been a real lack of good flip shows on TV lately, we really enjoy Flipping Out because Jeff Lewis does the larger spec deals like us and Property Ladder was always good because Kirsten Kemp the host is great and they also featured such a wide variety of different investors from pro to novice.
As far as the new Flip This House crews, Rudy in LA isn’t really doing it for us and the New Haven crew seems to be more focused now on selling courses online like Montelongo. It’s pretty flattering nonetheless to get approached anyway, maybe there will be a Property Ladder episode in our future?
We are still getting good showings at The Neighbor’s House and I feel the Spring buyers are just now getting out there now that we have great weather. In San Antonio, sales are off 4% year to date when compared to last year and inventories are slowly rising this year by about 100 houses per month.
After a closer MLS search for our general area, its apparent that there are tons more sales that are AO (under contract) or Pending right now so this figure should be improving for March.
Wow, you weren’t kidding about the change in elevation between the exsiting house and the addition. Did you or your architect give any thought to raising the existing house to match the new elevation?
Really enjoy your site and your efforts to reclaim these neat old bungalow houses. In Houston, the trend seems to be to raise the existing bungalows and build zero lot line mcmansions on the footprint.
Hey Chris,
Actually we never even considered raising the front house, it’s already up about 5 feet off the ground at the front and with all these steps up to the porch I couldnt see adding anymore. This lot is really steep so grabbing the 2 foot on the addition seemed to be the easiest way given our budget. I hated to add interior steps but then again thought that anyone who didnt like steps wouldnt buy this house anyway: ) Thanks for the comment!
I can’t get enough of your site and youtube channel!(I follow you on facebook as well). I have to say I wish the T.V. deal had gone through. I miss watching Saturday/Sunday flipping shows. Looking forward to the next post.
BTW I think interior steps are fine 😉
Tom–Even though the TV deal didn’t happen, congrats on being offered! So how many houses do you aim to flip in a year? Do you set a yearly target for flipping a certain number of properties or a only target for profit? Or both?
I dont really set a target for the year but am always looking at stuff and trying to do as good as possible. looking mostly at either big profit, large remodels or quick easy wholesale deals. Staying away from cosmetic fixers. With the medium remodels that most people are doing your contractor will likely make more than you as the investor. Since I act as both, on the large deals I can clean up. My recent success derrives from adding square footage in neighborhoods that get as much as $150/s.f. because I can build for $50/s.f.
man you are defintiely right about rudy in california,he seems to be made up too much man,he just seems to be quite fake just my opionion though,and the new haven guys are going overboard now with wanting to sell more courses than acutally invest,i see they have a new mentoring program now that charges upwards of 15 to 25k…ouch
Hey Stephen,
Thanks for the comments. The New Haven guys are definately doing things right, their course from what I know is top knotch. I just got an email from Than Merrill, now he is claiming he made 10 million bucks in 2009 from interenet marketing and is selling a new course on how to do that with any product, real estate education materials or otherwise. Good luck this year!