Over at our historical renovation, The Target House, we took care of the new concrete driveway and garage foundation this week. My contractor is charging around $3.00/s.f. for a job like this including demo and haul off, we poured 2000 s.f. The concrete was an important part of this project, the original 1923 driveway width was more suitable for a Model T rather than a soccer mom SUV. Additionally, since our lot is sloped and I excavated such a deep cavity under the room addition for the peir and beam foundation it was imperative to prevent any water from entering the crawl space so the new driveway & curb will divert all rain and roof run off down the driveway. You’ll also notice in the video we are rough sanding the hardwood floors even before we hang drywall. This is a little trick I learned in cases where there are bad stains and smells. Sanding the wood takes the finish off and opens the pores in the wood so it can breathe and dry out. We’ll start bleaching out any stains and then once we are ready to refinish the floors possible do a bit more patching in any areas that still need it. Since my plan on this house is to go light with the floors I wont be able to hide anything with the dark stain. The last thing I want to do is go all dark on my brand new wood floors just to try and hide 4-5 stains up front on the existing portion of the house. We passed framing inspection and the insulation is now hung. Once we pass insulation inspection Monday we’ll be free to finally hang the drywall so I’ve got a delivery for 180 12′ sheets on Monday.
The May San Antonio real estate market stats were released this week and although activity was up nearly 20% the median price dropped almost 4% from last year. I normally don’t put a lot of weight on median prices anyway but there were certainly more less-expensive homes selling due to the buyer bait program. The higher transactions were also obviously a result thereof. After 2 consecutive months of low foreclosure numbers, SA now jumped up by 34% for the July auction and is on track for a record high 2010 number. I think the market will be slowing as Summer settles in, let’s hope home prices don’t continue to slip.
We have now passed all rough-in inspections for the Target House. Tomorrow I’ve called for the next inspection which is for the framing. This inspection is on the whole house permit that the owner or GC pulls. When inspecting framing they look for placement and relationship to all the trades’ fixtures as well as other items like foaming the windows and fire blocking the holes from the electrical wires. Once I pass framing I’ll be free to hang the insulation this week. Only after the City then inspects the insulation job can I hang the drywall. I’ll order it for a late week delivery and we’ll start hanging right after the insulation inspection.
Today I had the whole house sprayed for wood destroying insects (termites). This is the perfect opportunity to spray as the walls are all opened up. I don’t know any other rehabbers doing this, it’s a little more expensive but worth its weight in gold to the future homeowners and the life of this killer old house. The residue stays in the walls for up to 10 years and also kills roaches and other bugs who normally use those highways to enter your house. These old historic homes have tongue and groove wood all over the walls and ceilings so it’s a party if termites get in. I’ve heard of some people sprinkling seven dust in the wall cavities before drywalling but as you can see in the video we soaked everything to the hilt.
New regulations from the City of San Antonio with regards to my mechanical permit tripped me up this week. Turns out there are several new codes that took effect January 1, 2010 which affect new central air conditioning systems in remodels. San Antonio is now requiring a duct blast test to be performed by a third party licensed mechanical contractor. After having my new system installed and inspected for rough-in we had to bring in another contractor to test the duct-work for leaks. Since you would never know if there were any leaks until the system was turned on at the time of final inspection they have come up with this cool way to test your contractors work before you hang the drywall.
A fan is connected to the return air box and all registers are sealed with tape. They then crank up the fan and measure at one of the grills for pressure. The fan measurement vs. its affect on the duct pressure determines efficiency. Any leakage is shown on the computer and would indicate a loose seal somewhere that may need more tape or “pookie.” Before this technology existed we would wait until passing final inspection, turn the a/c on and manually feel around the joints for cool air. Leaks in your ducts cost big bucks on utility bills, especially in hot climates like Texas. If you are remodeling a house its now mandatory to have this test performed, the results are sent to the local power company CPS, and you wont get your electricity turned on without it. If you haven’t checked your system lately it might be worth a trip to the attic, one neighbor to a rehab I did asked for my help last summer. Upon inspecting her system my A/C guy saw that she was losing all the cool air into her attic as the tape from the coil/furnace had come completely unglued. Today we passed the duct blast test as well as rough-in for mechanicals.
It was nice to get in a full week on the project now that the other house sold. I finished up the front porch by making new stairs and replacing the siding skirt where needed. We got a comment from Mike asking what I was going to do about the column base overhanging the porch floor, I’ll just have to live with it as its only over by a few inches and doesn’t strike me as really looking that odd since they overhang the top too. The posts that hold up the porch are existing 6X6’s. Their placement was really far out to the corners so in order form me to have the tapered columns I had to have the bases hang over the floor a bit. If I had gone back with just square posts I don’t think it would look as cool so I’ll live with it. The 16 degree flare on the skirt looks real cool with the 117 siding.
My firebox arrived this week as well so I got to install it. Of course the dimensions I got online for the rough-in framing hole didn’t work out so I had to reconfigure this wall a bit on the fly. It’s a double sided see-thru gas fireplace that I’ve put between the jacuzzi tub in the master bath and the master bedroom. Locally you’d spend $5,000-$8,000 for something like this even at a wholesale builders supply so I was excited to find them online for $1295.00 from Ebay/Discount Fireplace Outlet. With the vent pipe and everything you need, the total including tax and delivery was about $1800.00. It’s easy to put in, once you have the box framed in there’s just one gas line that I’ve got coming in underneath and then the vent through the roof. The unit doesn’t need electrical as there’s an ignitor and low voltage switch that you mount on the wall. This is a real cool feature for what I spent, we’ve designed the whole master suite around it, can’t wait to see it with all the tile around it and the 6′ tub in.
I found a new HVAC guy last week who’s already got started roughing-in my new 5 ton central air/heat system. It’s a horizontal gas furnace of course (electrical is not smart energy) with a A-coil like I always use. Since this house is so long we’ve got a real long supply trunk line with 11 drops and 3 return air grills. Yellow Page retail prices in San Antonio for a total new install like this would run over $2,000/ton, or $10,000. My regular sub-contractor was bidding $6,500.00 for this house which equates to $1,300/ton. Like I’ve mentioned before, it’s common to experience price creep with subs, you always have to keep hammering them or switching because they slowly raise their prices on you. So here’s the good part; my new guy is only charging me $4400.00 complete. That’s only $880.00 per ton my friends! I’ve already turned him on to another investor friend of mine, this guy is hungry for work and I saved over $2k by shopping around and walking away from old faithful. In my business any savings along the way goes straight to the bottome line.
San Antonio Home Sales of single family residences were up 20% in April when compared to the same month in 2009. Great news but undoubtedly this is directly reflective of the Federal Tax Credit that’s now expired. In typical cheerleader fashion, the San Antonio Board of Realtors has come out to predict “these home sale increases should hold through the Summer” although I have different thoughts..especially knowing that mortgage applications are taking a dive in May.
It’s often been said that a buyer decides whether or not they like your house within the first 30 seconds of pulling up in the driveway. What I’m talking about here goes way beyond curb appeal. We are selling house fronts my friends. Not sides, not backs, not baths, not fences and not kitchens although all that has to be dialed in as well. What sets the hook in your buyers lip is what you do up front. All those other items just help you reel them in once inside. I’ve given this advice multiple times to other flippers; you must focus on everything up front and at the door area because as the agent is typically fumbling around with the lockbox to get the keys, your potential buyer has time to really study your work. With this in mind I stayed busy this week rebuilding the missing front porch columns, they are a very important feature of this house and if done correctly can really enhance the homes other characteristics. The big front porch on this house hooked me from the start although it was missing the original historic columns. Instead of rebuilding the style it came with I opted for square tapered historic house columns to tie in with the interior columns in the dining room. The driveway was really narrow before but with my new design I gained about 18” under the Porte Cochere. You know those old Model T’s had no problem rolling through there, but the Soccer Mom SUV would definitely be a tight squeeze. Before building the new columns I had to first jack up the structure to level it and replace the 4X4 supports. The new columns are essentially cosmetic and hollow with all the weight sitting inside on the posts.
My electrician spent 4 days at the house this week as well, for those of you who are regular readers you’ll remember that he is the lead singer in a Judas Priest cover band here in San Antonio called Sad Wings of Destiny. He’s a blast to work with, not only is he a great master electrician it’s cool when he busts out singing to the classic rock we listen to all day. Adam Lambert aint got nuthin’ on my boy Rick. Thursday’s temps got to 100 degrees; in the attic it was an easy 125. I told him if I didn’t hear him singing I’d come up and check on him. It’s serious business working in a Texas attic if you are a contractor as there’s been a lot of accidental deaths, always make sure you are working with a helper in case you pass out. Total cost for complete new electrical including 200 amp service, meter loop, sub panel, 28 recessed can lights and permits: $4200.00. Fixtures not included. Another great price, this job is easily worth 8k retail. We should be calling in for rough-in inspection early next week.
We passed plumbing rough-in and top out inspections this week at Target House and have now got started on the electrical. My electrician is getting a slow start so I am kind of disappointed but its par for the course here in Land of Manana, especially when you are getting great prices. I am going to stay on his ass all week and try for an inspection Friday. On the exterior I am completely done with all the siding and window trims on the new portion of the house and have started working my way forward replacing various sections on the original siding where I moved windows or there was damage. There will be alot of changes once I get up front rebuilding the porch, porte cochere and columns so that’s exciting. On the new back porch ceiling I used authentic 1×4 tongue and groove bead board, sweet!
The San Antonio housing market certainly showed signs of Tax Credit fever while everyone scrambled last week for the handout. I’ve been tracking the Pending sales and as you can see they rose by about 100 houses for each week in April all the way up until the cut off of Friday. It will be interesting to see 2 things from here, if the Pending sale growth continues and how many pendings actually close and turn into solds. The San Antonio Spring buying season typically is just now heating up, we’ll see how bad the tax credit affected future demand shortly. There are currently 11,455 homes for sale, down from 11,697 last weekend.
