How I Spent My $36K Home Renovation Budget for the Highest Rents

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

How To, Education, Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Home renovations can substantially increase your equity and cash flow on a rental property, but when doing one, there are two key things you need to pay attention to: budgets and timelines. Today, rookie real estate investor Rene Hosman is back to teach you how to do both after just finishing a three-month, $36,000 rental renovation where she turned an outdated apartment into a cash-flowing condo! Rene was able to rehab the entire unit (two bedrooms, one bathroom) with a budget of around $30,000, and although she may have gone slightly over, her returns look nothing less than phenomenal. How did she do everything—new floors, electrical, bathroom, AND furnishings—with such a reasonable budget? If you’re ready to renovate your home or rental property, take her tips. Rene goes through every aspect of the project: the good (renting it out right after finishing) and the bad (a BIG flood in the master bedroom), plus everything in between. She’ll share what she chose to DIY, what was smarter to hire out, and how she paid for it all. We also get the final numbers of the renovation—what the property appraised for AND how much it’s renting for now! In This Episode We Cover: How to stay on budget and on timeline when doing your next home renovation Unexpected costs that led to thousands of more dollars in renovation expenses Whether you should buy the materials or let your workers buy them instead (cost-saving tip!) Furnishing your rental property for cheap and where Rene finds low-cost, quality furniture How to negotiate with your bank so you can get a LOWER interest rate when you refinance How much cash flow Rene will make off of this small (but mighty) medium-term rental And So Much More! Links from the Show Ashley's BiggerPockets Profile Tony's BiggerPokckets Profile Join BiggerPockets for FREE Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group Real Estate Rookie YouTube BiggerPockets Forums $1,000,000/Year with 22 Rentals by Focusing on This Ultra-Profitable Niche w/Jesse Vasquez Maximize Your Real Estate Investing with a Self-Directed IRA Join BiggerPockets Momentum 2025 to Supercharge Your Investing This Year Grab Your Copy of “The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs” Find Investor-Friendly Lenders How to Do Your FIRST House Flip in 2024: Budgets, Renovations, and Loans w/Rene Hosman Connect with Rene (00:00) Intro (01:07) Property Renovation Progress (03:35) How to Hit Your Renovation Timeline (06:56) Staying On-Budget (11:38) Unexpected Costs... (19:29) Building Your Renovation Budget (21:18) Paying for Materials and Rehab Expenses (30:42) Furnishing the Property (32:18) Refinancing and Rent Numbers (40:12) Connect with Rene! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-510 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, rookies. Normally investors who come on the podcast share their personal journey of real estate
0:05.3	investing, but it's usually after they've experienced their highs and lows, which is totally
0:11.0	incredible value, but what if we learn together in real time? Today we're bringing on Renee
0:17.1	Hausman, the community manager and rookie real estate investor here at Bigger Pockets.
0:23.2	This is part two.
0:24.7	We had Renee on to talk about how she acquired this unit.
0:27.8	So if you want to check that out, that's episode 477.
0:31.7	But today we're going to hear how the renovations are going if they finished on time and if she went over budget. All of this is
0:39.2	valuable if you are looking to do your first flip or maybe even your next flip in 2025.
0:48.8	This is the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. I'm Ashley Care and I'm here with Tony J. Robinson. And welcome to the podcast where
0:56.4	every week, three times a week, we bring you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need to hear
1:01.8	to kickstart your investing journey. So welcome back to the Rookie podcast, Renee Hosman.
1:06.9	Thanks for having me. Okay, so Renee, we kind of left off last time with you talking about how you acquired this deal.
1:15.2	But why don't you just give us a quick rundown real quick of your overall portfolio in case
1:20.5	someone hasn't listened to that episode and then catch us up on this deal.
1:24.1	Yeah, absolutely.
1:25.2	So this is a property across the hall from my very first
1:29.3	property that I bought to live in that I was doing a house hack in. It's a two-bedroom, one-bath condo.
1:35.1	It's the exact same layout as my other investment properties because they're all in the same
1:39.2	building, and so they all have the same footprint, which is pretty nice.
1:46.2	And yeah, I got this one.
1:54.9	It was on the market, on the public market on the MLS being sold through a, like a probate court situation because the previous owner had passed away.
	...

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