SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Is It Legit Podcast. Uh Peter and I are going to talk about a subject that's very near and dear to our heart, which is how to avoid a nightmare when uh remodeling your home. Um, we have, you know, our background is obviously in real estate. Uh Peter and I have both spent a lot of time and effort doing projects for ourselves, for other clients, friends, family, and we've learned a lot. So we just want to share some tips. And uh, Peter has some juicy stories about the remodel that he just went through. Uh, it was a massive remodel, so we can get into that. Um, so Peter, what inspired you to take or undertake a remodel of your house?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Yeah, so just for context, I you know, so people know, um, I had a wall in the middle of my living room, which, you know, that was kind of a style back then where things were kind of uh more segmented. And so we thought it would be a no-brainer to remove that wall and open up that space. And the second thing is, you know, we have this uh nice big office in in our uh house, but we don't really have like a secondary living room area, which I know these are like first world problems, but uh we wanted to have a space where kids can really play, and so we actually created that. So we actually added about 500 square feet to our house, and so that was the basics of what we did, but that also entails quite a lot of things because you can't just remodel one thing, right? And that's kind of the the thing. It's like you can't just you know change the trim in one part of the house, you gotta change the trim in the rest of the house. You can't just change, you know, you can't just paint your living room one color, you probably should, you know, be uniform in paint color. So yeah, that's the basic um thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Okay. Um can you describe how you began to plan and budget for the remodel?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah, so again, John gave a little bit of background. We've been doing this for a very long time. Not only are we pre real estate professionals, but we have a lot of properties together. Uh, not only that, we've done actual fixing and flipping. Like we've flipped homes, we've made money. Um, we have quite a lot of experience in this field. And for me, I, you know, I kind of use that experience to apply it to my own remodel. Now, again, just to give you a little bit of background, I was able to finish this remodel in about a month. And I did a full, like almost head-to-toe remodel. And uh I had a budget, uh, I used Google Sheets and I just created categories. And uh, you know, for every single category like electrical plumbing, um, drywall framing, I've I created kind of what needs to be done, and then along with the um how much the price was. And so uh just from my limited uh knowledge, I was able to write down, okay, this is an estimate of how much this is going to be. Before I even started this whole project, I try to like budget out kind of how much this is all going to be. Um, and then what I did was for each and every category, I was I ended up getting a contractor in various fields, like electrical and whatnot, to give me estimates based off what I wanted them to do. And so that's how I was able to get a somewhat accurate uh estimate of how much this remodel was going to cost. Um and so that's kind of how I started. That's kind of how I how I did the uh budgeting part of things.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Okay, so um, and on that topic, there's obviously the simple spreadsheet way to do it. There's also software that you can, you know, buy or you know, templates that you can download. We even have those, right, that we share with people all the time. Um, so please reach out to us if you have any questions about that. You know, learn from our mistakes. Uh, this is a really big one. How did you choose your contractors? And uh, you know, what were some of the past experiences that you used to help help make this decision?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, you know, uh, you and I have a lot of experience with contractors. Uh, the reality is, guys, most contractors, I I I want to be careful the way I say this. Uh, there are a lot of bad contractors out there. There's a lot of contractors who uh will take advantage of you financially. Um, there's a lot of contractors who uh won't do a proper job and just kind of do a quick fix job. We've experienced that with a client where you know the home looked great on the surface, and then we start digging in and we realize wow, he did so many things out of code, so many things improperly. But then again, it had a lipstick on, it had makeup on. And so, you know, with that kind of experience, we've learned to really choose the right people uh for the job. And so we already had people kind of in place, and the person I chose to work with uh was a I mean, he is actually currently a superintendent uh for uh well he was a superintendent for Pulti Homes, now MSR Homes, which is a I think everyone knows Pulti, um, you know, but MSR Homes is a local like luxury builder here, and uh I basically kind of worked with him, use their contractors, uh, and to be honest, I got builder pricing. And so uh I was very fortunate in that I got uh some pretty good deals um with it with this GC.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Yeah, so um, you know, just to kind of expand on that a little bit, you have a combination of contractors and on the other spectrum, there's handymen who do things at a certain hourly price or project-based things like landscaping or painting or trim. I think it also is very important to know what order to hire people in and to make sure that the whole workflow is managed because you're also getting materials that might be, you know, like you got some sort of really cool granite that not everybody might not have. Yeah, we'll talk about that. Yeah, and then you know, uh, like if you get one guy in too early, well now that guy has to be two weeks out, and then the next guy can't come in. But then what if he's sick? I mean, that's what a GC does, a general contractor does, right? And that's what you get paid for it. And you did some of your own GC and you did did a, you know, you did get a really good great deal, which I'm sure you can talk about. But I think there's a there's a lot of uh there's a lot of things going on when you choose somebody, and this is part of the reason why we made a really big push uh to have a VIP club for our clients, um, to where we have all these relationships with contractors and I mean from A to Z, right? Anybody that you could think of in the real estate industry, from accountants to contractors to whoever to landscapers. And we have vetted these guys out so hard, and we've used these guys and we have relationships with them. So if you have anything that might need work, like we're just consulting on a fence project and a yard project, like literally today. We were texting somebody, uh, I'm getting a water heater replaced for one of our clients who just closed. So uh please come to us. We're an open, you know, resource. And um let's move on to how do we so how was your criteria for selecting materials and finishes? What were some of your thoughts there?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's a lot of research, to be honest. I I use a lot of perplexity uh to really research. Perplexity is an AI platform. Um, it's like the Google search of uh this day and age. And it was really helpful for me to understand kind of all the different materials. And so, uh, like for example, okay, what kind of flooring do I get? Well, there's various floorings. There's laminate, there's like LVT, which is a luxury vinyl tile. Well, there's also the LVP, a luxury vinyl plank. Uh, there's also, and there's a difference. There's also hardwood, right? There's engineer hardwood hardwood, or you can go with like a real, more like natural hardwood. Um, and then you know, etc. etc. There's other like there's tile, right? Um, like not just L not luxury tile, but there's like the various types of tile. And so um, there's also countertops, right? Like what kind of countertops do you do? There's you know, what is in right now, you know, what uh is in right now is actually quartz countertops. Well, those weren't really in about 10, was it like 10, 15 years ago, or maybe 20 years ago? Uh granite was the biggest thing that was the luxury uh countertop. Well, now granite is outdated. If you were to go into a home and as a you know uh professional real estate agent, and we were trying to we if we were trying to sell a home with granite, it would just look outdated, right? So there's just so many things that you have to research, and you kind of want to go with the trends. The and and keeping in mind that trends do change, unfortunately, within every what would you say, like 10 years, 10, 15?

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah, I think that's fair. Colors too.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

I mean, there's a lot of things that change. Colors do change. Um, like gray used to be really in, right? And we used to do all of our flips with gray and white. Well, now gray is going out. Now we're getting back into wood tones, and so you really gotta understand the trends. And I mean, knowing that it'll change, um, we we chose to go with a more timeless look. Um, so really it's just a lot of research, and we can expound more on the materials part, but you just gotta do a lot of research on what is in and what it what is out. And if you have a designer friend, uh that would be most ideal.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah, I think uh as a homeowner, as a you know, client, you know, whatever. Um, I think you any time you spend in researching on materials, styles, and finishes, I think it does pay off. Um because you also have control, right? When a contractor tells you something, you have something to maybe ask a follow-up question on or to refute what they're saying or to question what they're saying.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Um, do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, just real quick on that. I I would say so. I think when people think about doing a remodel and hiring a contractor, people believe that, oh, that's it. The contractor's gonna do everything. That's not the case. Uh actually, the contractor looks to you to choose the material, right? It's like, okay, what kind of material, and and that's one thing working with many contractors, they really do defer to you because everybody has their own styles, right? We as real estate agents, like we'll send you the list of properties, but we're not gonna choose the properties for you and then send it to you because we're not everybody has their own style. I know someone who loves the old school tile look. I know someone who loves granite. You know, what's best in terms of resale? It's quartz. But I would say something for people to prepare for is that be prepared to choose the material because that's gonna be on you rather than them.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Yeah, and it might sound a little cliche, but you know, cliches are cliches because they're true. I think you have to start with the end in mind. You know, is this gonna be an enjoyment property? Uh, like one of the, or is it gonna be an investment property with renters, right? Like our our friend Jesse. Um so knowing what the end goal is, and for you, I know you didn't talk about this, but you know, you're a very generous person in terms of you know lending your space out to students or other people that might need it, and that's you know one of the reasons why you made that. You know, 500 square foot is a huge amount of space when you're starting with a 2300 square foot house. Yeah. So um starting with the end in mind, because then your goal and your budget will inevitably clash, and then you have to know what to give up and what not to give up. Yes, you know, I might want LVP um or vinyl Planck, just regular vinyl Planck. If I want longevity and my dog can pee all over it, or I have 10 young children who are gonna you know blow things up anyway. So, again, just pre-planning, getting inspiration, I think is a uh a huge uh thing. Yes. Um, okay, so let's get into uh project management. So let's talk about timeline. You mentioned the month, but would love some more. Is it really a month or is there something before and after? Are we dealing with permits or regulations? I'm sure you can come up with a couple of good stories there. Uh, and then how did you handle living in the house uh during the remodel?

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Yeah, there's a lot there. I think one thing that, especially if you're gonna be doing a larger remodel, like if you're just doing like a kitchen, okay, that's gonna be a different story, right? Again, I got my project done in a month. That's pretty unheard of with how much I did. I mean, you know, I redid everything, right? Like virtually from head to toe. I literally had no ceilings and my walls were gone. Like it was down, I wouldn't say down to the studs, but it was, you know, we just had framing and I could see above my ceiling, and it was crazy. Like I could see through rooms, it was like that. And so uh it wasn't easy. I I know I did it a lot faster, and I definitely did push. And again, that comes from a little bit of experience, but um so kind of the process was first of all, uh, how did I deal with like living in the home, right? That was one of the questions. Sure. Yeah. Um so I didn't live in the home. I okay, so what happened was so another thing people have to consider and they have to put into their budget is living outside of the home. Now, ideally, you could live with friends and family. Now, for anybody of you guys who have kids, it's not as ideal because when you live with friends and families and you have a young child, right? Like I have a young child, they cry, you know, they're needy, they're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's actually very inconvenient for your parents or your friends or family. And so it's just not the most ideal situation. So for us, we um we stay with a friend for a while. I mean, he was so generous that he was like, stay with us as long as you need. Um, but when we just felt bad because you know, they're so generous to us, but like, you know, he would get up at night. This is a you know, different environment. Plus, he was like sick, and we there's just a lot of things that we just wanted to, it just felt very uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Your kid was sick and got up at night. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah. By the way, during this time, like my kid had everything hand but mouth, cold, fever, uh, the fifth disease. I don't know if if you guys have heard of that, but it was just crazy. So we went to an Airbnb. Now, one thing, at least for our area, is that Airbnbs are not as cheap as you may think, especially when you're talking about long-term. And so we stayed in an Airbnb. And if I were to, I mean, we're talking about $400 a night, right? Uh, a cheaper hotel, what would you say like it's $200? Yeah, $250 with fees or whatever. Yeah. But think about that. Like, think about that times 30 days. Let's just say I say that for 30 days. We're talking like $12,000 a month. That's without the taxes, that with without the cleaning fees and all that. And so it's actually quite a significant part of the budget that you have to consider. Um, again, ideally you're with friends and family, but the other thing is you're probably not going to stay um finish in a month like we did, right? Especially if it's a more major remodel. Um, now, if you we okay, so if if it's a partial remodel, we actually did come back to our house for a little bit because we're like, okay, we're gonna save a little bit of money. The problem is that when you have dust and when you have paint smell, when you have like, I mean, we had insulation dust everywhere. It was so bad because we we had open ceilings and just insulation there, it just was not conducive for um a child to live and be healthy. And so we had to go back. We actually went to a hotel afterwards. So that's one thing to to consider. Remember that the the budget for living outside, and that is expensive, especially because you you think okay, let's talk about timelines. You think it's gonna be two weeks, you think it's gonna be a month, the contractor's gonna tell you two weeks, it won't be two weeks. My my thing is like add at least 30% to maybe even a hundred percent to the timeline because things go wrong, things get delayed, contractors don't follow through with what they say they're going to do. I push them very hard, right? My my contractor pushed them even harder. Um, and I I you know my contractor did did a great job. I mean, he's a superintendent for a builder. Think about that, think about the timelines, the financial obligations, um, the kind of money they're dealing with. So you have to really, really push. Uh, so just mind you, the timeline is gonna be a lot longer than you think. Um, and sorry, what was the last question?

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Uh yeah, so it so I know because you did a structural remodel, um maybe some permits or regul uh legal regulations that you have to deal with.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, so uh so the process is you want to get an architect and you want to get a structural engineer, right? That's kind of like the main thing. You want to talk to them about exactly what you want to do, they're gonna create the drawings for you, right? And then you're going to submit to them to the city. So you don't want to make any moves, you don't want to touch a hammer until you submit it to the city. Now, when do you need to do that? If you were to do your roof, do you need to get a permit? No, right? It's like if you were to paint your house, do you need a permit? No. But if you're gonna touch anything structural, like I did, which I removed a very, very low-bearing wall. Um, if you're gonna remove, do anything more major, pour concrete, whatever it is, you do need permits for that. And so I I had so you can schedule your so you can go online to a portal, you schedule, um, you pay for it, right? They first of all, they have to say yes to the the whole project, and then you start working on it, and then you start scheduling inspections for each and everything that was done. So, for example, they're gonna inspect the drywall because they want to make sure the drywall is done properly, they want to make sure the insulation is done properly because you know they're there really. I mean, you have to pay them so they make money, but also they're they're there to protect people from doing things improperly, thus causing a lot of problems for people. And so you kind of got to get inspections through each process. If they have a problem, they're going to say, hey, there's a problem here, uh, which thus creates further delays that has happened where you know we um we, I mean, it was a very minor thing, but uh there's something that we had to do in order for us to get the permit for that particular um phase, call it electrical, right? And so if that does happen, then the contractors can't really like, for example, we can't close up the walls until we have the insulation passed. You know what I mean? So there was just that whole process. Fortunately, I mean, there's some inspectors that are just awful to work with, and a lot of cities are just awful to work with. I was super communicative, I was super open and honest about everything. I wrote everything in email. I try not to talk to them on the phone just so we can get a lot of clarity and expectations. Um and that's I think that's what contributed to me being able to get the permits done. Now, you had a situation recently with the city. What do you want to tell me about some of the permit or any other permit story that you have?

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Yeah, so um and what maybe some some advice. I mean, if this for anybody just listening sounds overwhelming, it's because it is. It's because there's so many moving parts. There's so like we've literally just been talking for you know 10-15 minutes about all the things that are a fraction of what we dealt with, right? So this is where you know we would love to have uh consultations with people to help people we know the right people to get advice from. But having said that, I think what I learned is every permit is different, and every city and jurisdiction is different, and what they'll allow and what they'll not allow. Um, you not only have to think about the first order consequence, but the second and third order consequences, and some of these you just don't know until you somebody says go file a permit. Oh, great, and then you file the permit, and then there's another thing that you need with this permit, or you needed another comment to be resolved on a different thing to get this permit reviewed, and then there's like a delay in the review process, and then you had your you know, for me it was like land development, so laying gravel, for example, before the final inspection was done was a mistake that I made. But there's so many things that were moving in and out of um focus that having a planner, a professional planner working with me did help, but wasn't the complete solution because there's so many little things and nuances that you have to deal with when you deal with the city. Um, I do. Think that just being uh open and humble and asking for help goes a long way too. Yes, because there are people, and just like if you are the kind of person that has a lot of success with customer service, you need to kind of take that. And we did talk about this relational strategy on how to talk to people, how to convince people, negotiate with people, um, you need to take that and apply it to this. And it's hard because you're going through something, your family's displaced, you you have fiberglass dust all over your house, you have dust that your baby's sucking up, right? And coughing and whatever. But in the midst of all that, just being a person and knowing that the other person is uh an asset to you that could help you if you just tell them that you're struggling, a lot of times they'll just help you. Um, but I think that just uh consulting with the right people, having that space in your timeline, like you said, um, I think that's the best you could do.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

So I think that's really good advice. I think one lesson to learn, and this is just in general with communicating with people, customer service reps, or whoever it is, you have to build rapport with people. I think that's such a key factor here because I built rapport with that uh particular inspector. And I was really grateful. I also, I also, you know, I will say, you know, be organized, right? I had Google Sheets, like I had everything listed out in spreadsheets, and I was like, hey, I have my stuff together. I'm not just doing this willy-nilly because you don't want them to have that mental frame about you, right? But one thing I we do even when negotiating deals with the listing agent, if we're on the buyer's side, is we build that rapport immediately. And then coming not as because there's a lot of people who come in from like a bully, like, hey, I need this done, you get this done, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Listen, they have a billion of those people coming at them every single day. And and you know, pride comes before the fall, and they're not gonna want to work with you. But if you come from a humble standpoint, hey, I'm here to learn, you tell me, like, okay, I like be like be my teacher, you know, like be my teacher, help me. Then they're gonna, they're gonna want your success. Like, oh, this guy listened to my advice, hence, I'm going to help him get this through.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah, I mean, I use that exact frame of mind when I was talking to the people, you know, because we we know a lot, honestly. I mean, not to it's not like we're bragging, it's just we've been through so much. You know, we have more than 20 years of experience between us. We've been through a lot of stuff. We've done seven, yeah, yeah. I uh I'm like 15 years in. Does that mean you're 55 years old? 70. Oh, okay. Yeah, um, it's like we've been through what seven flips together, or you know, at least I have. And some of those things. I mean, I literally went to the permit person, and this was like the permit official. You know, this is the one that does it what's called an administrative final after all the building fire, all these people have gone out to your property, and they said, Okay, okay, okay. This is still the one person that can stand in the way of issuing. In my case, it was called a certificate of occupancy, is where you can deem a new home, a new residence livable and like occupiable. And I remember being on the phone with her, and she came on pretty strong. And I was in a place where I needed this done so that a cascade of things would happen, and my buyer would be able to close her loan, and I don't have to pay a four thousand dollar extension fee, whatever, right? That's my problem. And then I remember her coming on very strong, and it's like, and I felt that energy, that energy, right? But at the end of the day, I just said, Look, uh, this is my first time doing this particular thing. Ego suspension. Please, like, I just want to get this done. I don't want to upset anybody. I mean, these are all the words I literally said. Can you please help me? Like, what do I need to do to make you happy? And it might sound like you're talking to your wife almost, but I kind of took that approach. It's like, please help me, and that's a very powerful thing. Um, because we're we're just humans. Um, but I I I just love everything that you're sharing because um I laugh out of experience and pain also. Um, so we talked about kind of the project management, the logistics. If we can jump back into design and aesthetic choices, you did touch on this, but what was kind of the main uh goal in how you set the theme, and what kind of design priorities or must-haves did you uh think was at the top?

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Yeah, so we had, I mean, we you you you want to begin with the end in mind, and we had the end in mind. And I will say, I'm it was very hard uh because we did it so fast. However, we're very happy with the way it turned out. We are happy with how it looks, the aesthetics. I mean, it's just it's us, we feel good about it. Now, how do we get there? Well, well, it's kind of a balance between you want to do what obviously it's like it's your house. And so you want to do what kind of represents you in a certain sense, right? However, you have to also consider the variable of do you want to also get the highest resale value? And so for me, that was a balance between me and my wife. Fortunately, my wife isn't, you know, she's she doesn't have Willy Wonka in mind, right? Where like she wants 14 different colors in our house. And so her her design is actually like pretty clean and and it's pretty trendy, fortunately. Um, however, I think a lot of people have to understand this that, you know, the average person stays in their home for eight to eight years to 10 years. That's the average. And you may say, no, I'm gonna live here forever, but that's typically just not how it goes, right? Circumstances change, et cetera, et cetera. And so I we always encourage as real estate professionals to really consider the resale value. And so what we did was we kind of looked at some of the um we we kind of have it had images. I mean, you go, you go, you have to go into research mode, right? You wanna you wanna plan before you build. And so we looked online, we saw different like themes and the way it looked. I my social feeds were all designed. I mean, seriously, that's like every two to three posts, it was something about uh a house and the design trends and what we really like. So we really got a lot of inspiration from social media, which is kind of the way you you do it now. And then from there, you got to break down okay, I was like messaging people, like people who posted the videos. Hey, what kind of flooring is that? Oh, that's white oak. Oh, that's a really pretty color. Let's look at white oak. Okay, how much is white oak? What kind of uh you know, millimeter, how thick do you want it? How wide do you want the planks? So wide planks are now in. Um, and then you know, what's the quality? Where's the source, etc. etc.? So there's this whole process, but I think just in general, fill your feeds with with design trends and then really find what you like. Uh, and then my biggest suggestion is try to just think about that resale value as much as possible. Because it's important, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Yeah, I I really that's an interesting point you bring up about you know the length of an average uh ownership is we do hear that a lot. It's like we're gonna be here forever, and it's probably because there's so much stress and having to move or move out and move in, or if you're buying your first home, there's just so much involved. Uh, but yes, um, it's typically and it's funny because we get clients who want to list their house after that many years or even less, you know, especially because of the market. So, um, okay, so okay, I like this one. What were some of the unexpected costs or savings? Um, and I really want to uh lean into the savings because I know you got the best rate possible, but that came with certain circumstances. Um can we just start with there?

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Yes, okay. So let's start with the savings. Guys, this is so important. I cannot emphasize this enough. You need to have if you're doing the project yourself, you need to have a contractor friend. Or reach out to your realtor right now and get your contractor friend to buy the material for you because these guys get 40% off at times, they get 40% off uh discounts. If you're buying retail, like we got some stuff from Home Depot, sure, and I paid retail prices, but for the most part, uh like a lot of places give special discounts to contractors. So, for example, uh my painter allows me to use his account to buy paint. We uh it's a 30% off for the material. Materials are expensive, we're in inflation, things are very expensive right now. Um, if you go to the cabinet shop, they gave us a 40% discount just because we used a contractor. Our flooring, uh, our flooring was, I believe it was like 30 to 40 percent of a discount. And so we got a major savings just by having a licensed contractor, and they have to be licensed because they're they're gonna actually check this uh to purchase it for you. Now, what happens? Okay, so one thing that you guys should know is that contractors tend to just they they'll do the job. For example, they do flooring, the flooring costs $20,000, right? They don't really tell you how much the material costs are, they're just okay, this whole package is gonna be $20,000. Well, for you, the flooring could be $10,000. For them, it could be $6,000, but they're gonna charge, they're going to charge you the retail costs. And so one thing that you may want to do is you may want to ask your contractor, hey, how much is the flooring at your cost? And try to negotiate with your contractor. Now, it is pretty normal for them to make somewhat of a margin because that's just something that they do, they transport it, etc. etc. You could also negotiate them on that, and that's what I did. I actually I just told them, hey, I'll give you a flat fee of 500 bucks, and I got several thousand dollars off of my flooring. You see what I'm saying? So, biggest thing is um get con get contractor pricing, uh, and that's how you're gonna get your biggest savings.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Um can I jump in there real quick? Yes. Uh, so I think um for you, that was only possible uh in my mind because of number one, the relationships that you have, right? You don't just go up to a contractor willy-nilly and just be like, hey, give me a discount and give me all your savings. That it just doesn't work like that. Um, so I think knowing who to talk to, working with somebody that you might want to like for us, we've had you know a few contractors that we've grown our business with, right? And they've grown their business also. And that gives us more time with them to be able to ask questions, or they, you know, I had a similar situation with plumbing supplies for my, you know, for my water heater that went out. Um, because we've had all those relationships, maybe we've given them referrals or or whatever. And the second thing is the reason why these bulk pricing is this bulk pricing is possible is because of the relationship that contractor has with those vendors also. Maybe they order 10,000 cabinets from them every year. Maybe you know, you instead of going to Home Depot and asking, uh, like if you're ready to go into a store with the exact color code of paint and how many gallons you need, it saves everybody time and some of that savings can be passed on to you, right? So all of these things are not in a vacuum in my mind. Um, but because of the constant work that we've learned how to do, we've coordinated for people, the relationships that you've built, and I think that's something uh important to um you know remind people of. Um, is there any as we kind of close this off, uh, do you have any uh juicy stories you want to shell, uh uh share about anything good, anything bad, something that might have happened in the middle?

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Yeah, you know, I I will just say, well, first of all, just uh just to say in general, like guys, please write things down and budget and budget it all out and write things down. Seriously, it's just so important, especially even though you're not doing the G Cing, you have to write things down because if you don't, you're gonna you're if you're not really controlling your project, it's going to get out of hand. And it will. Redoing a home is no joke. There's just too many parts and there's so much miscommunication. I don't even like talking on the phone with people anymore. That would be a big suggestion. Like, don't even talk on the phone, have everything in writing because you know how many times I had to go back, like, hey, you said this. Hey, you said you were gonna get this done by this day. Hey, you said it was this price. They've changed prices on me, they've changed dates on me, they've they've tried to change words on me. I'm like, nope, this is what you said, this was what you wrote down, and so um, I'm a big Google Sheet guy. I mean, honestly, just write it down on Google Sheet and make sure everyone's in in alignment. Um, and then I guess kind of closing statements, because we we should kind of um wrap this up, is I would I mean there's been so man, there's just been so much like miscommunication and um you know people not following through with their word. Um, you you really you kind of gotta be very hard on people. And that uh my wife, uh, she was telling me that I mean this was me like thinking I'm being nice. She was telling me that, oh wow, you're really like you're really hard on people, right? And even the contractor, uh my GC was really hard on on them. I heard him, like he was like swearing, and just it was like very, very tough. But and we don't want to like mistreat the the contractors at all, but there are some things where it's just like no, we need to get this done. We said we were gonna get this done. We got to get this done at this time. No, that's not the price that we we talked about. You just raised our prices on us. Um uh no, you got to get a refund here. Why am I responsible for you know getting a refund? You made the mistake, you know what I mean? So there's just a lot of like because I had to transport, like it was like the wrong stereo noses that was ordered. It's like, no, I paid for your services. Why why would I have to transport? I don't I don't even have the car or vehicle to return this stereo nose. So it's just you know, if you haven't project managed before, you kind of you cannot be a nice guy when it comes to this. You have to make sure things are done, or else they're gonna take advantage of you. And the other thing is the biggest leverage, guys, that you guys have is withholding, withholding cash, withholding a withdrawal from the contractors. So until the job is done, and then until the job is done right, because there were so many things that were not done right, the paint was god-awful. Sometimes it was like it was like laughable. Like, what is this? This I I I wanted basically, they painted. I told them, Hey, I want this like nice and flat. I want the, you know, I want it uh uh uh uh textured and everything. They just straight up painted it over and they painted over everything. They didn't even like there was so it was just looked, it looked awful, even though it had fresh new paint. And I was like, nope, that's not happening. We're not we're not uh paying for that. And so of course they want to get paid. They can argue in this and that, but it's like they want to get paid, so they did it properly, and then I paid them. And that's something that everyone has to do. You have to audit the job, make sure that they're doing the job properly, and then you pay them. Uh, and I would say that's one of the biggest leverages that you have.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Yeah, I'm sure we can talk about this all day. Um, I think there's a lot that you know we've given here for people to start considering as you know, we go into a different uh economy as we hear about uh different things, uh, you know, about job cuts like we talked about last time that can maybe inspire people to say, you know what, I let me let me uh take on this project that I've been thinking about for a long time. Yeah, you know, I have a French chain, a French strain that I want to dig because my deck is slowly sinking, right? Like true story. Um, you know, so it's like there's so many things that you can affect the value and the impact of your home. We have to all protect our equity, and some of that is maintenance, some of that is upgrades, and it really takes uh a calculated and note-taking person, which everybody can be, right, for at least that short period of time, to really determine what should and shouldn't happen. And of course, people like your realtor or your contractors or your friends that have been in the industry that can all help. And I know that you know we're always willing to help with that as well. So uh thank you guys for listening, and um yeah, good luck on any projects or remodels that you might have coming up. And I think that's a pretty good way to close it out.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Yeah, and guys, uh, thank you uh again for watching. And please like and subscribe for uh to this video if you've got to this part. Uh, we would really appreciate it. You know, we appreciate all of our viewers, and uh, you know, we appreciate you listening, and it really just helps the channel to hit that uh subscribe button and that like button. So we'll see you guys on the next video, and thank you guys, and now.