Quote for Renovation

As we touched upon in the last section, you should always get a quote for renovations if work is needed on the home you are planning to purchase and flip. That means talking to general contractors, plumbers, electricians, painters and professional cleaners. The best option is if you can get referrals from people you know who have worked with these individuals in the past and were happy with the their work. This will also give you the opportunity to see it all for yourself by visiting their homes to check out the workmanship.

You can also use a professional quote as leverage to bring down the seller’s asking price. For instance is they want $350,000 for their home and the contractors quotes $30,000 worth of renovations you can use this quote as a way to bring down the asking price. It’s hard for the seller to argue with a professional quote.

Never stick with one quote –get several and compare them. A good contractor should offer you a range of materials to work with from cheap and affordable to the high-end luxury stuff. If your plan is to fix and flip the home then you probably won’t need to spend on the premium materials, as this is likely to seriously reduce your profit margin. Stick with what’s affordable but looks good and will hold up against the test of time.

Renovators and contracts often try to quote cheap and make themselves look attractive knowing that the budge they are setting is not realistic. To counter this make sure they will be willing to put in the contract that they won’t go over 5-10% of the original quote while promising to complete the job. If not you may find yourself having to spend thousands just trying to get the renovations complete so that you can flip the house.