HWDI: We renovated 2 out-of-state units, would we do it again?

This episode is all about How We Did It, when we renovated 2 out of state units in Idaho, traveling to the units twice, for 4 days each.

We are discussing the condition of the units (one was in bad shape and one not so bad) and the work performed by ourselves and those we hired.  As we did not have a team in Idaho, we also talked about how we quickly were able to put one together.

For the first time, we painted kitchen cabinets, using Beyond Paint Products. So, listen to the process we followed and how they turned out. In addition to the kitchen cabinets, we or those we hired painted these units, installed new lighting, replaced old and dirty plugs and switches with decora style ones, replaced the old yucky carpet with LVP, and replaced Formica kitchen countertops with Quartz counters we purchased for a steal.

Communication, organization, and time management were all key elements to pulling this renovation off and we are here to share how it all worked out!

LINKS

👉Porc-A-Fix: Fix Chipped Porcelain Sinks and Tubs

👉UV Flashlight Black Light for Finding Pet Urine During Inspections, 2 Pack

👉 Stainless Steel Kitchen Drop In Sink, 16 gauge, 33X22

👉 Brushed Nickel Pull Down Kitchen Faucet with Sprayer

👉 Black Semi Flush Mount Ceiling Light Drum Shade

👉 Cabinet Bumpers, Pyramid Painting Stands, TouchUp Cups

👉 Master Lock Portable Key Lock Box Ideal for Landlords 

👉 Course Waitlist: From Marketing to Move In, Place Your Ideal Tenant
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Transcript

Stacie: 0:00

So, for this How We Did It episode, we're going to be talking about our out of state rentals back in Idaho. And for those of you who may not know, we own a fourplex just outside of Boise, Idaho. And last month, we had two units go vacant at the same time. So, we wanted to come on here and discuss each of the vacant units and what condition they were in, our travel plans from California to Idaho, what renovations that we did to each unit, uh, how we added contractors and suppliers to our Idaho based team to get it all done. And, what we bought, what we spent, and would we do it again?

0:48

Welcome to your landlord resource podcast many moons ago. When I started as a landlord, I was as green as it gets. I may have had my real estate license, but I lack confidence in the hands on experience needed when it came to dealing with tenants, leases, maintenance, and bookkeeping. After many failed attempts, fast forward to today. Kevin and I have doubled our doors and created an organized, professionally operated rental property business. Want to go from overwhelmed to confident? If you're an ambitious landlord or maybe one in the making, join us as we provide strategies and teach actionable steps to help you reach your goals and the lifestyle you desire. All while building a streamlined and profitable rental property business. This is Your Landlord Resource podcast.

Stacie: 1:37

Hello there, landlords. Thanks so much for listening to the Your Landlord Resource Podcast. I'm your host, Stacie Casella and I'm here with my co host, who's also my husband, and my business partner, Kevin Kilroy.

Kevin: 1:51

Hey, I like that introduction. Hey there everybody, we appreciate you all tuning in today. So for most of our episodes, we generally have a script. I mean, might be a loose one that we kind of follow because much of what we discuss is educational and there are details we do not want to miss telling you about. Today we are doing more of a how we did it episode and the format will be somewhat more freeform. So, please excuse the extra ums and ahs that we might insert as we formulate what we want to say.

Stacie: 2:26

Yeah. This should be fun. So, for this How We Did It episode, we're going to be talking about our out of state rentals back in Idaho. And for those of you who may not know, we own a fourplex just outside of Boise, Idaho. And last month, we had two units go vacant at the same time. So, we wanted to come on here and discuss each of the vacant units and what condition they were in, our travel plans from California to Idaho, what renovations that we did to each unit, uh, how we added contractors and suppliers to our Idaho based team to get it all done. And, what we bought, what we spent, and would we do it again?

Kevin: 3:13

Okay, so stay tuned for that. All right, so let's start with the leases ending October 31st. We had two separate leases end at the same time, which is actually very poor planning on our part. That put us into a position where any updates would have had to be completed in November, and with any luck, placed back on the market around Thanksgiving. And there's a couple problems with that. One, we do our best to not have leases end after September because it's known that fewer people move during the winter months, and even more so, less people move during the holiday season. Now the second issue is that Idaho has four seasons. November is kind of the last month before cold icy weather moves in and contractors are extremely busy finishing up outdoor jobs, and again for residential jobs, people want their work done before the holidays hit so there's a rush of work to be completed. Now, in hindsight when those tenants renewed their last lease, we should have asked the property manager to extend those leases without increases until February or March of 2025. Then we would have gotten notices of non renewal just before springtime and would have been able to do our renovations and lease them much easier. I think at this point we will be listing one of the units in mid December. And the other one, probably not till January.

Stacie: 4:45

Yeah, which for us is a big no no. Uh, we always say, if you can swing it, rent your units any time March through September. And, if you have a lease end, like a month to month one that ends during October through February, when you sign your new lease with the new tenant, a lot of times what we do is we'll offer to extend that lease with no rent increases, you know, like out an additional three to five months. This saves you from having to deal with a vacancy over the holidays or the winter months when people tend to move less often. And the issue with that is one, your applicant pool is lower and you have fewer high quality applicants to choose from. Another reason is that because it takes longer to rent, the market rents can be lower. Now, all of this depends on where your units are located. And here in most parts of California, the weather is less of an issue. But we absolutely see lower rental rates during those winter months. Okay, so that was the reason behind us turning units in November. Kev, why don't you go over the first trip that we took out and we planned to go out for.

Kevin: 5:58

All right. Okay, so the timing. The first trip was November 18th to the 21st. So we wanted to give time for inspections and a painter to complete work before we went in. And this trip was actually more relaxed and was not a hardcore work week. We had dinners planned, uh, meet the girlfriend's parents, and we had a property that we were looking at and they would only allow us to walk through with an accepted offer in place. So the timing on that was very important. It was still available, so we made an offer on it about a week before we flew out. Now the best part about this property was its location. It was a sixplex that was only two blocks from the Idaho State Capitol and one block from the main hospital in Boise. And also right, the capital is right downtown, a lot of nice restaurants, uh, bars, activity, great location. Very similar to our property in Sacramento. They called it a sixplex, but it was a Victorian that had been made into Uh, let's see, well basically a duplex with a very small, like 150 square foot studio that had a hot plate, not even a full kitchen. I mean the other two units were really nice size. Now in the back over the garages, there were three more units. The place needed a lot of work and honestly we were having trouble getting the lender to lend on it. We even went the route of private lending but there were some issues with the zoning classification versus what was really there. So, we spent a couple of hours over two days evaluating it and in the end decided it was best just to move on. Alright, now to our own units. Both needed to be painted. Which we were able to start about a week after the tenants moved out. Now the person we used for our painter was one of our old tenants from Chico. It was a friend of kid number two who we know and love he was out of work right now, and he used to paint for summer jobs, so we offered him the work. Now the property manager had a painter but their cost was about 40 percent more than what we were able to negotiate with our guy. I mean right there it saved us about$2000 bucks. We used to use Kelly Moore paint and we love their color called hush gray, which is a very light gray color that almost looks white but just has enough color in it not to be too bright. Now, Kelly Moore closed down, what, a couple months ago. But Sherwin Williams had the formula and was able to match the color, so we were good to go there. Now, our Sacramento painter has an account with Sherwin Williams, so we were able to order under his name and get his discount, which, once again, helped quite a bit. For the trim in the doors, we used the standard Swiss coffee, which looks really nice next to the light gray walls.

Stacie: 9:04

Hey, now let me tell you that the color of choice for the complex where our fourplex is located is Navajo white. Now I'm not sure if it's just the property manager or they just match the original paint color from before, but the color has a lot of yellow in it and it's kind of a bit dark. The hush gray that we use is more modern and it really brightens up the space. So that's why we changed the color in the entire unit. And I will say that when the property manager has their painter go in to paint the units, they paint everything the same color. So the walls are the same color as the doors, as the trim, as the baseboard. Everything is Navajo white. And we kind of like to have a little distinction. So we did our walls hush gray and we did the baseboards, the trim and the doors, Swiss coffee. Okay. So unit three, which is a two bedroom, two bath unit was slated to be completed with the painting upon our arrival. And one thing that we like to do to our units during turnovers is do some updates where it's needed. And in this unit, the previous owners had already installed luxury vinyl plank floors. Uh, they'd already painted the cabinets in the kitchen and in the bathrooms and installed new counters also in the kitchen and bathrooms. They had replaced the old white appliances with stainless steel ones. So this, this unit was already in great shape. But we decided we wanted to change out the light fixtures from those old, single light bulb 60 watt light booby flush mounts, to more modern ones that had like a nice matte black finish and they were LED. What's nice about that is each of these fixtures had a switch to select the light color and you could choose warm white, cool white, or daylight. So it was kind of nice in the hallways, we selected a warmer white and then we did more of a cool white in the bedrooms or vice versa. I can't remember what we did, but we were able to change it around. We found these light fixtures at Home Depot. Um, they're about 20 bucks each, which we thought was a great buy. And we put them in the bedrooms, and in the hallway, and the entranceway. And then we found a larger sized one for the main kitchen part. Uh, we took out the old bath bars that just had those round light bulbs in it. Uh, you know, you used to be able to get them for like five bucks. And we put in nicer brushed nickel finish ones that had glass shades. We also did a hanging one in the dining area as well. So, nine fixtures cost us around$250. Much brighter lights, updated to a more modern style, and I have experience in electrical, and I was able to hang all the lights myself, so there was no cost for that. And this change makes a huge difference. Now, one thing that we did that was not really necessary, but it's one thing that we really like to do, was to replace all of those round plugs and the toggle switches with decora style ones. And those are the rocker, more squared off or rectangular style switches and plugs. The old ones were ivory and they were very dirty. So we replaced them with white to go with the new Swiss coffee white colored trim and doors. And oh my gosh, what a difference. I mean, adding those was another$250 and you don't really think about it, but it really does add up fast. Now, we lucked out because in this unit, the previous tenant had a dog. It was an ESA. That dog was kenneled when she was not at home. And during inspections, no evidence of urine was found in the unit. And we'll tell you how we know that in a little bit. The carpets were in great shape, so we had them stretched and professionally cleaned. And the cleaner included an enzyme treatment and they do that with all their cleanings just in case a pet had been in there. Not only for urine, but also for pet dander. Now the bathrooms both have fiberglass inserts for the shower and then for the bathtubs. The shower was fine, but the bathtub had several small holes in it. And we think it was from the tenant washing her dog in there. It was a big dog. And we think maybe the claws had broke off that non skid bumps on the floor of the tub. Anyway, the property manager had Miracle Method come out and give a bid. Now, let me say this, that at first we were skeptical about having them bid to do the work. Their bid was something like$785 to refinish the entire tub, which to us was a lot but not as much as we would have expected. And I don't know if we've mentioned this before but we in Sacramento had called Miracle Method out once to fix a chip in a ceramic sink and they wanted about the same amount which was insane. For about$20 bucks we bought this stuff called Porc-A-Fix and we fixed the hole ourselves. Now I'll link it in the show notes and you can check it out. That stuff's awesome. I think we even did a video on it on the process and how easy it was. But anyway, when the property manager said that they call Miracle Method, I kind of cringed because I thought maybe it might be outrageous. And you know what? They came in and on their own, refinished the old beige or off white colored tub and all the surrounding walls in white. And oh my gosh you guys it looks amazing with all our new paint.

Kevin: 14:39

You know, that was one thing. I was really really pleased with too. I mean it made a huge difference.

Stacie: 14:45

It did

Kevin: 14:47

So we were out there about four days working, but really only two full days in that unit. We also had to do some planning for the other vacant unit that pretty much had to be completely redone. Not completely, but we were able to get in there and meet subs to get ideas on what we could do in the timeline we had. Now, as I said, we were in Idaho this time for four days. And we actually did not have plans to return, but after seeing the downstair unit in person and figuring out what we wanted to do for renovations, we booked another trip to go back there the week after Thanksgiving to work on that unit. And if you're a landlord that is more hands on and want to try to save money by doing some work yourself, always plan for more time than you think you'll need. I mean, we planned for four days on the first trip and could have easily used five. And as luck would have it, our return flight home was severely delayed and we ended up flying home like 12 hours later than planned. We really needed that extra time. The second trip out, we planned four days again and had to extend it to five, but we got everything done. So I want to take a minute now to talk about developing our new team out in Idaho. And as you know, we have a complete team here in California. But out there, we haven't really had to do much more than simple repairs that the PM usually handles, so we had to work a little to find people who we could depend on. And we got those people from our Realtor and even from our property manager. Our Realtor is a general contractor and flips houses, which actually is what he primarily does now over real estate. We just happened to get lucky because his sources do great work and because of the volume of work he has, he gets them at a lower price and we were lucky because for the most part, they extended their prices to us. So that was really nice.

Stacie: 16:53

Yeah, I'm going to jump in here and say that our property manager has all the contacts that we needed to, but they were at a much higher price. Because we're more hands on and we were able to get in there and meet the subs and get our own bids to evaluate which ones had the better cost and availability. It really worked to our advantage.

Kevin: 17:13

Yeah, that made a huge difference. But our flooring guy, who in the downstairs unit is installing the LVP floors in the kitchen, living room, laundry area, hall closets, and baths, he's also installing all the carpets in the bedrooms and bed closets. He came from our Realtor, as did our electrician. Now the plumber was from our property manager. And our son and his friend have a side business installing countertops. Now appliances, we ended up using the property manager contact because they will install the appliances for us, so that's a huge plus. And their prices were just a tad lower than R. C. Willey who we generally like to use. Now materials we purchased and handled on our own. Our floor guy sent us out to his supplier, and that turned out to be a huge help because not only do they do floors, they also had countertops as well. So when we did our walkthrough on the previous trip, we had not planned to do as many renovations to this unit. Just new paint new floors new lighting new plug switches and plates. But when we got in there, we noticed that the Formica kitchen counters were raised all around next raised all around and where the stove sits. Likely from the heat, but it looked awful. I mean, could we have had them repaired? You know, probably. But we figured if we were spending a small fortune on new floors and new appliances, we decided if we could paint the cabinets that were actually in really good shape, we could stomach replacing the countertops too. We decided to go with a white quartz that had little specks of gray and a very light kind of brownish colors in it. I think it's called iced white and here's where we scored big time. So we're looking at the quartz that they had and they brought us over to these giant slabs and they told us the price and we kind of looked at them like for the entire thing. And then he told us the story. I guess this developer wanted 400 slabs. So the company said, okay, they'd order a hundred at a time. So the developer came, took 40 the first time, so the company ordered the next a hundred. After that, the developer only took 20, and then a week later it was down to 10, and then that was the last he saw of them. So when we were there, they still had I don't know about 110 of these slabs left that they really wanted to get rid of and they were selling them just above cost. I mean the jumbo slab cost us$647 out the door. And a jumbo slab so that meant we were able to get the backsplash out of it, too. Then of course we still had to pay to fabricate it and our son and his friend installed it all. So we got really lucky with that one. So for anyone looking for a great deal on quartz jumbo slabs, go see Rick at Cost Less Floors in Boise, Idaho. They'll really treat you right. So all the floors, carpet and counters were picked out and paid for before we left to go back home. So it was nice to have it all set.

Stacie: 20:32

All right. So let's talk about the downstairs unit, unit two, which I use the word trashed a lot, but not really in the sense of like holes in the walls or anything like that. The man had lived in this unit for like nine years. Uh, he had a little dog who apparently never was let out to go potty. And even though they have a patio that has open grass right behind their unit. I have no idea what happened. I mentioned before that both units were inspected by a professional company and they use a black light to test for urine. And upstairs they had a dog too. Not one spot of urine. Downstairs though, urine everywhere. All the carpets had horrible stains. The baseboards in the hallway had to be tossed because the dog had peed so much on them that they were all swollen. The floor guy came over and pulled out all the flooring and the baseboard before we had the guy start painting. And the floors under the carpet, the subfloor was particle board and was a mess with huge spots of urine all over bedrooms, hallway, living room, everywhere. Now I will say, we have a black light that we use for our inspections. We picked up a two pack, real cheap ones on Amazon, and we'll link them in the show notes. We wanted to test those walls and all the stuff around, and you guys, it was nasty. We had to pay the hardwood floor guy to roll a special lacquer over all the floors to seal them off. And where it's not foolproof, it will reduce the chance of another dog coming in there and trying to mark their spot over this other dog's spot.

Kevin: 22:10

So we'll keep our fingers crossed and hope it works.

Stacie: 22:13

Yeah.

Kevin: 22:14

So once that was done, the guy got in there to paint while we were back home getting ready to host Thanksgiving at our house. The Monday after Thanksgiving, we were back on a plane and ready to jump into Unit 2.

Stacie: 22:29

Yeah, but the weekend before we left, I went online to Home Depot, Lowe's, and Amazon and ordered everything that we needed to complete that unit. I had already purchased the plugs, the switches, and plates when I bought those for Unit 3 upstairs, so I was all set there. And we Amazon'd a new stainless steel sink with a killer deal on that one. Uh, the kitchen faucet that we use in all our units, another great deal. I think it's like$39 for a brushed nickel one that has a removable head with a sprayer. And it sits up real tall and it's just, it looks really fancy. It looks like one of those expensive ones from Kohler, which by the way, Costco has for like$179 bucks. We also ordered a light fixture that we needed for the dining room area. Home Depot and Lowe's were either out of stock or too expensive on that one. We ordered replacement cabinet bumpers because we had to remove the old ones to paint those cabinets. And touch up cups to leave extra paint in the units for the new tenants in case they marked up the walls when they moved in. And we'll link all of this stuff in the show notes if you want to check it out. At Home Depot, we pre ordered all the flush mount light fixtures and some paint supplies that we needed that the price was better than it was at Lowe's. And at Lowe's, we ordered the paint for the cabinets and some supplies that we needed for that. Kev, why don't you quickly tell them all about the cabinet paint.

Kevin: 23:58

Okay. It's called Beyond Paint and it's claim to fame is that it's an all in one paint. There's no need to sand or prime before applying. You just clean the cabinets with Simple Green, let dry and roll it on. And I'll talk more about the application process in a minute. First, we removed the doors from the bases and put them on these painting triangles we also found on Amazon. And these were awesome and they worked great. They're these little triangles that you place, you know, four or five down and then lay the cabinet door on top and they keep the doors securely elevated so you can use the roller on the sides. We had our son's six foot folding table and his saw horses with plywood on top that we used to place the doors on to paint.

Stacie: 24:48

And i'll link those painting triangles in the show notes, too I forgot about those. And those helped when you painted the baseboards, too.

Kevin: 24:55

Oh, yeah 100 percent. I mean, those little plastic triangles were a lifesaver I never knew I needed. So, we watched a bunch of videos on YouTube of people using this BEYOND PAINT, and it seemed simple enough to do. Overall, it was pretty easy. Whether or not it's durable enough for tenants, we won't know for a while. So, Monday when we arrived midday, we ran around to all the places and picked up our supplies and got to the unit I don't know around two or three o'clock. We wanted to do all the prep that day so we could get there early on Tuesday and get a couple of coats on before the guys showed up to install the new countertops. And to be honest, the place was a mess. I mean there were tools and supplies stacks of baseboards, uh, appliances all in an area we needed to work in. So in true Stacie fashion we had to clean the unit up before we could even prep to paint.

Stacie: 25:54

Hey, man I mean, it's like when you're cooking and you know, there's a french term and it's called mas en place, which is where you have all the ingredients and your supplies that you need in front of you before you prep. Then as you prep you clean and you put away what you don't need so that the space is always neat and tidy. And you know, I cannot work in a mess. So we moved the appliances to the back patio. Kevin took the doors off the fridge so the kids in the complex wouldn't try to play in there. We stacked all the baseboards neatly against an outside wall. We cleaned up all the piles of paint cans and garbage bags that were strewn all over the place. And I swept up to get as much of the dust and screws and crap, so that when we walked around those nice freshly painted cabinets, we wouldn't kick up dust on them.

Kevin: 26:41

Right. So after all of that, I take all the doors off and tape the hinge screws to the inside of each cabinet bases so we don't lose them. I labeled the doors too so we know which door goes back on which base. We clean the bases and the doors with Simple Green and tape off the walls and inside the bases to protect those areas from any paint that we might accidentally hit with brushes or rollers. Now, you may not think this takes long, but prep work takes longer than we had planned for. I mean, that's always the case. We worked about three hours, and then stopped to run over to our son's house to have Stacie's turkey soup for dinner with him and his girlfriend. We stayed for a couple hours to visit, and then we headed back to the unit to finish up. Which, that time only took a couple hours. We were all set to come back and jump right into painting the next day. Okay, now I will talk about Beyond Paint and how it works. Alright, first you guys, this stuff is pretty expensive. Uh, one quart, I believe, costs around$45 at Lowe's. And you can buy it online directly from the manufacturer and where they had an amazing black Friday sale going on, we didn't discover the product in time to allow for shipping. So we had to buy it at the store, which I believe in the Boise area was only sold at Lowe's. Now this paint comes in set colors, so you can't have the paint store or the paint department add colors to a base, you know, like you would with a traditional paint. So we chose bright white for the upper cabinets and pewter for the lower ones. They had those in stock and we were fine with it because it's the same color combo the previous owners painted the remodeled unit upstairs. We started with the upper cabinets for two reasons. One, we had to use the ladder right up against the lowers and we were afraid we were going to ding them. So we worked from the top down. We also had countertops installed later that day and with guys and tools, we were sure we were going to ding the lower ones. So we waited until they were done to tackle those bases. Now it says that one quart of beyond paint will cover 200 square feet of surface for two coats. So we only bought one bottle of each color. It actually worked out fine. Though it got close. So let's get to the application process. Beyond Paint, and we are not sponsored by these folks, so this is true and honest review. Beyond Paint is a self leveling paint, which means if you brush it on, it goes on too thin and you will see those brush strokes. You must use a small three, eight inch nap roller. You can use a two and a half inch angled brush to get the corners. But again, you can't brush it. It must be applied in a stippled method, which basically means you have to dab or tap it on repeatedly. They say to do this so it gets thick enough to coat to self level itself. And it looks awful when you first do it. And you think, Oh my God, what did I do? but it does level itself out. So for all those corners, we stippled the cut ins and then use the roller to do all the flat surfaces and sides. One thing to note is that this stuff is thick. I mean, it's maybe the consistency of Greek yogurt. And when you pour it into your tray, it comes out kind of in globs. So the first door I did, I think I put it on a little too thick and was really worried with all the bumps, it would look like a kind of a textured finish. But eventually it did level out and it was fine. For the rest of the doors, we decided to go with lighter coats and do more coats so it would not dry textured. Now, because we were tight on time, we only did two coats to the uppers thinking they would get less wear and tear than the lowers where we did three coats. And that was a mistake. The lowers done in a medium gray pewter color came out beautifully with three coats. And I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but the cabinets were medium oak cabinets and they did have a wood grain to it. The uppers done in bright white and only two coats did not look as finished as the gray lowers did. Maybe because it was a light color on a darker wood. Maybe because white just needs more coats. But in hindsight, we should have done three coats on all the surfaces. We also had enough paint in one quart to cover the base with two coats and the doors with three coats.

Stacie: 31:27

And one thing you guys that I kind of want to say also is that this paint goes on a matte finish. It doesn't have any sheen to it at all, which is one thing that we kind of would have appreciated, I believe that they do have some sort of a coating that you can purchase and do after the fact. But, you know, obviously we were short on time. We did not do that. We probably, if we did this again, would do that. Another thing that we would probably change is we would probably go through the process of sanding the doors down and applying a colored primer or a white primer for white and or tinting a primer to the gray colors so that if for some reason this paint chips off, the primer is still going to be there and it won't be as noticeable. It's not going to chip all the way down to the bare wood. And, also you guys, this job is not for the faint of heart. We sat down like once or twice a day when we had to run errands, otherwise we were on our feet for 14 or 16 hours and sometimes longer. And one thing I want to say is that Lowe's has these beige paint roller pans that are made for those four inch thin rollers that we used. It costs like a buck fifty nine a piece. If you can't find something like that, one thing that Kevin uses all the time to paint for touch ups is plastic trays that come with prepared food. So, like at Costco, maybe you buy pre cooked meals like the Kevin's brand or something like that. The black plastic trays that they say you can empty your pre cooked meal into and warm in the microwave, we don't like to warm foods in plastic trays, so we use our ceramic dishes or we'll warm them in a pot on the stove. And we always have those trays left over, which is fine to recycle, but Kev found that they work really perfectly for painting. Anyway, so we brought a couple of those back with us to use and for me, they were great when I was painting those bases.

Kevin: 33:29

Alright, so we're about to wrap things up for this episode, but I wanted to close with some pointers. First off, communication with your team is of utmost importance. I know we say it all the time. But especially with your property manager, so they know what's going on, who is authorized to be at the property, and to understand a timeline of when the units will be ready to list. Next is your contractors and your subs. Hopefully they text, which most do, because then you can take photos of what you want to replace or questions you might have, and they can let you know without having to schedule an in person meeting to answer your questions. But make sure you are getting accurate timelines for each to do their job so you can plan accordingly. The last thing you want is subs trying to work around each other and getting in each other's way. We use a lockbox to have a unit key on site at all times so that anyone who needs to go in for a quick measurement or drop off materials like the floor guy did with the baseboards, so that we could paint them in advance of installation. We will link the one we use in the show notes, which has light up numbers and works really well when you have to access or return the keys in the dark. And finally when it comes to payment, some subs like to use Venmo, some will send a Quickbooks invoice that you can pay online. Very few prefer a check or will invoice you and wait two weeks for payment unless you have an established account with them.

Stacie: 35:06

Yeah, that texting was a godsend for us. And when the painter was there I used an old photo that I had to mark it up on my phone where we wanted the open concept kitchen and living room to have semi gloss or flat paint to show him where to change it over. Same with the floor guy. When we were all done I sent him a photo of the baseboards saying hey these are all ready for you. And with a few other subs who will go in later, like our property manager's handyman, who's going to install the knobs and the pulls on the painted cabinets, I have a photo ready to send them where those knobs and pulls are located in the closet. You see, when you're coordinating all this stuff from out of state, texting and photos are so helpful to save time. And I just saw that you can create a text in advance and send it later. So like, when I'm on a plane or it's late at night, I can get it done and then, I think it's on iPhones, you can click that little plus sign next to the message and tap send later and choose your date and time. And of course, email works too, but many younger subs are not checking those as often and you might need to wait for a response. So, the one thing that I want to talk about is, would we do this again, or would we just hire people to go in and do all this work? Was it worth it for us to take essentially two full work weeks out of our schedule to fly to Idaho and do all this work? Kev, what do you think? Was it worth it for you?

Kevin: 36:39

I, I think it was for all the work we did. I mean, it was tough, but we saved some money.

Stacie: 36:46

We absolutely saved money. We busted our butts, you guys. I mean, we were sore. We were tired. We were crabby.

Kevin: 36:53

I also think though, that we've learned what we can farm out and what we can do ourselves. And maybe there might be an adjustment that way a little bit.

Stacie: 37:01

Yeah, I agree. I agree. So that's.

Kevin: 37:04

Oh, one more thing that I learned. We should uh, let the complex know when we're working there late at night.

Stacie: 37:11

Oh my god.

Kevin: 37:12

Because Um, I think the latest we left and it was like midnight or so. Yeah, we walk out. We had a boot on our car and luckily the people that put the boot on answered the phone was out there in 20 minutes. We told them we were the owners and they couldn't have been nicer. They removed the boot from the wheel.

Stacie: 37:35

And they didn't charge us the$150 fee.

Kevin: 37:37

No, they, they were very nice people. And we got back to the hotel by I think one o'clock.

Stacie: 37:44

1 a. m. Yeah. But the one thing that was nice about that too, was. Hey, we know that the security people are doing their jobs at night watching all the cars in the unit. So that was good Um, do we want to discuss how much this cost us?

Kevin: 38:00

Not right now. I'm still getting over it.

Stacie: 38:04

Let's just say it was probably at least double what we had had planned but, here's the point, you guys. We went in there and we did these renovations because we don't know how long we're going to hold on to this complex, this fourplex. And when we go to sell it, our thought process is not necessarily that we're hoping to get a ton more rent because we know that's not necessarily going to happen. Right. We're kind of competing with our own self. There's 25 four plexes in this whole complex of apartments that individual owners like us have. And it's tough to get a whole lot more rent out of it. However, when we go to sell these units in the future, we're hoping that they will sell quickly because they're already renovated and up to date and ready to go for whoever is ready to step in.

Kevin: 38:56

Yeah, 100%. And another reason why it went a little bit up, we just thought we were going to do new flooring and and doing the LVP was really a no brainer, but then when we looked at the countertops, how bad a shape they were in, and we were doing that, it just made sense to add a few more things like the appliances on top of it. So bottom line now, two of the four units are renovated and look great.

Stacie: 39:25

Yeah, they do. I mean, we didn't do the bathrooms. Those we still have left to do, but those would be super easy fixes. Now, the floors are getting done in the bathrooms, but all we have to do now would just be vanities or paint the vanities. We could do that and then put new countertops. All right, you guys, that's our show for today. We hope you enjoyed this how we did it episode, about renovating an out of state unit by putting in our own time and leveraging it by using subs and contractors as best we could. Would you do us a favor and leave us a kind review of the podcast so that other landlords can understand the benefits of listening to it? If you want to hear more, follow or subscribe to the podcast so each week the episodes are downloaded right to your favorite podcast platform. And we'd love to stay in contact with you. If you have a question or you want to suggest a subject for our podcast, you can text us at 650 489 4447, or you can email us at Stacie@ YourLandlordResource. com. That's Stacie with an I E, or Kevin@ YourLandlordResource. com. And all these links will be in the show notes as well. Also in the show notes, you will find links to all the downloads that we offer. Ways to sign up for a free newsletter. And as we mentioned before, we have a wait list for our upcoming course on placing your ideal tenant. There's also links to our private Facebook group, that's just for landlords and our social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, where we share informative and detailed tips and tricks for landlords. So, go check those out. I think that's about it. Thanks again. And until next time, you've got this landlords.