COVERED IN THIS COURSE: Should You Do It Yourself or Hire a Contractor, Checklist for Hiring a Contractor, Contractors, Detailed Proposal, Proposal Form, Detailed Work List, Release of Lien, Situations Where You Can Do Some of the Work Yourself, Act as Your Own Contractor.

Tough Cop Contractor Management Program®

Should you do it yourself or hire a contractor?

So you’ve decided to rehab the property and either retail it or keep it as a rental. 

Well, I can tell you you’ll never get rich doing the work yourself. 

You can make more money with your mind than you ever could, doing your own labor. 

First of all, when you purchased the property you should have factored in the cost of having a professional do all the work. 

If you left out the cost for labor then you didn’t pay attention, and could end up paying more for the work than if you hired the professional because:

• Much higher holding costs. It will take you longer to do it yourself.

• You may do more harm than good by causing damage if you’re not skilled.

• The work may look as if you did it yourself rather than hiring a pro, and this may hurt your resale price.

• Most importantly – you’ll soon grow tired and burned out from doing physical labor and will eventually quit the real estate business.

But maybe you just want to keep more money for yourself…

You have to take a serious look at your personal situation and make the decision. 

Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do I have the necessary skills to complete the job to the point it will look professional?

2. Does my current schedule permit enough time to get the job done? Can I take time off from my current job if needed?

3. Do I have the necessary tools to complete the job? Rehabbing can involve the use of expensive equipment and even if you can rent the tools, you need to know how to use them.

4. Am I ready to be away from my family for an extended period of time? This can cause a strain on family life and works against any motives you may have for real estate investing.

5. Am I in good enough physical condition? Rehab work is hard work, and involves heavy lifting.

I know some of you still won’t listen.  So I suggest you do some of the clean-up and prep work on your first house. Power-wash the house and let the pro paint it.  Rent a dumpster to load all the trash. Tear up the old carpeting. 

This will give you the experience with little risk.  Enough experience to know I’m right.

Besides, doing a project that involves electrical, plumbing, or heating work most often involves permits to be pulled by a pro.  I’ve heard of insurance companies refusing to pay claims because electric or heating was not done by a pro and permits weren’t issued.  Any non-complying work done on a house can jeopardize the sale.

I can tell you from personal experience, and I’ve had as many as four rehab jobs going at once, that it is difficult enough to supervise the work crews. 

Even a contractor has trouble scheduling a job, so how can you, as a beginner, expect to do most of the work yourself and then subcontract out the other work.

This is the hiring and management system I’ve followed for years when it comes to hiring a contractor.  Purchase it, Learn it, Stick with it and you’ll have relatively few problems.