Renovating Investment Properties at Marketplace Homes

We Renovate Investment Properties at Marketplace Homes

Why Renovations Matter

If you buy real estate that’s in less than perfect condition, or if you need to prep a property that you own for sale, renovations are in order. House flippers especially rely on professional home renovation to maximize their profit margins when they sell investments on the housing market.

To efficiently renovate a home, you need a specialized team of experts who can thoroughly evaluate the property and give an honest assessment of renovation costs. Striking the “Goldilocks zone” of cost versus return on investment is crucial for the investors’ bottom line.

It takes experience in the real estate market and practice to achieve this happy medium, so having a team solely dedicated to renovations is a critical part of the asset management cycle.

Whether you are house flipping, fixing up current rentals, hiring a proficient renovations team is a must to get the highest after-repair value (ARV) for your fixer-upper.

How We Renovate Investment Properties: The Process

Fixing a home for sale or rent is a basic need in real estate investing, whether you need to flip a home or maintain a portfolio of rentals. Our dedicated Renovations Team uses industry best practices to maximize your property’s value.

How does the process work? In this resource, we offer a detailed overview of the steps Marketplace Homes takes to ensure your property gets the necessary upgrades to look good to potential buyers.

How We Renovate Investments at Marketplace Homes

Note: The Process Depends on Your Starting Point.

There are two starting points from which we can renovate real estate property for resale or lease. Either you:

• 1: Buy the property and bring it to us to inspect and fix.
• 2: Buy the property with our representation, complete with due diligence/purchase price negotiations, and then remodel it with us.

Either way, we can help get your property to its best possible condition within your renovation budget. The more involved we are with the process, the more we can assist you with getting the best return on your investment.

Everyone from beginners to seasoned institutional investors can utilize the expertise of our renovations team and real estate agents.

1) We combine the home Inspection and general contractor report.

Depending on if you own the home or are in the process of buying one, your options for knowing the property’s defects will be slightly different:

Option 1- You already own the property.

We will send a general contractor (GC) out to the property to assess its functional and cosmetic needs. Please provide the home inspection report so we can fully line item all potential repair needs in combination with our GC’s report.

Option 2- You purchase the property with Marketplace Homes to get more comprehensive service.

During the homebuying process, we can send a GC at the same time as our private home inspector to the property you want to buy.  Therefore, we will get both a home inspection report and contractor’s notes to line item everything wrong with the house.

These needs can be both practical and cosmetic, unlike with just a home inspection that mainly states functional needs. This enables us to negotiate the most seller concessions to knock repair costs off the total price of the home.

The biggest advantage of using us from the start is that you can decide to back out if our GC and Inspector note problems that often result in low ROI, such as foundation problems or excessive water damage.

Company Cam: Your Personal Window to Transparency

When we renovate investment properties, we keep our clients informed. During the process, our general contractor (GC) will send pictures through an app called Company Cam, which presents photographic evidence of all repair needs.

• Note: If you hire us after the fact just for renovations, we can still help, but there may be surprises that the home inspector didn’t notice that can add up to your renovation total.

2) The Renovations Team identifies everything wrong with the house and assigns quotes to each project.

Whether you already own the home or are in the process of buying it, we can present you with a list of everything wrong with your house.

• If you already own the home, we’ll just combine our contractor’s sightings with your existing home inspection report and assign quotes to each project.
• If you’re in the process of buying the home, we’ll collate the contractor’s report with the home inspection report. We will use these figures to negotiate price reductions and seller concessions, hopefully leading to a successful closing.

When you know everything that’s wrong with the house, you can then decide what to do next. You can fix everything, some things, or walk away from the sale. It’s all up to you.

• Note: For maximum benefits, use Marketplace Homes real estate services to buy a property so we can get you the most write-offs during due diligence. Taking money off the home sales price is one of the best ways to make money off a fix and flip, decreasing financial risk and minimizing the impact of holding costs.

3) You decide what to fix and how much to spend.

Now that you own the property, you can check the repairs list and decide what you would like to fix to achieve a desirable ROI. If you have any questions about what projects would make the biggest impact, just ask us. Everything, from functional to cosmetic, is listed, even if it seems small, so you can prioritize exactly what you want to do.

• Hot Tip: Distressed properties like foreclosures, short sales, and pre-foreclosures are more likely to be sold at a discount. These are treasures for home flippers who need to buy low and sell at a higher price. Buying low gives more freedom to choose all the recommended home improvement renovation projects to make your house flipping project the best possible venture.

4) Our trusted contractors will get to work.

When you finalize the list and know how you want to fix, whether it’s on your own or with our expert guidance, our local GCs will start the renovations as soon as possible. They will send progress photos regularly through the Company Cam app to keep you fully informed about what’s happening.

• The Expected Timeline: Marketplace Homes sticks to a $1,000 a day rule of thumb. Essentially, $1,000 of work should be completed each day. Therefore, a $10,000 job should take about 10 days on average.  A $30,000 job should take about a month. The exception is if there are delays in material shipments. If this happens, we will keep you informed. With this timeline, you can estimate how long the flipping process would take.
• Note: the more complicated the projects are, the longer the process to renovate investment properties will take. For example, a house that just needs a fresh coat of paint and flooring will take less time than one that needs a plumber for some underlying issues with pipes. This is why it’s important to pick the right property and walk away from any deal that won’t give you the profit you need.

5) We conduct the final walkthrough.

When the renovations are complete, we get our GCs to send final photos and do a walkthrough with one of our local people or through video chat. If anything is wrong, we will give them another 48 hours to make it right.

Start the Renovations Process with Marketplace Homes Investment Management

By offering the full cycle of needs for today’s real estate investor of any scale, Marketplace Homes’ Property Management streamlines the process of sourcing, fixing, marketing, and selling homes.

Are you interested in renovating your investments with Marketplace Homes? We can fix up your properties and help you find new investment properties. Whether you’re in the business of flipping homes or renting homes out to tenants, we can help you reach your next real estate goal.