Renovations 101: Estimating Costs, Working with Contractors, & Managing Rehabs

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

How To, Education, Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fixing up a distressed property might be the BEST way to add value, whether you’re looking to flip houses, BRRRR (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat), or charge higher rents. But to avoid losing money, you’ve got to know what you’re doing! Today’s guest is an expert in home renovations, and in this episode, she’ll walk you through the entire process! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! Investor Serena Norris has done over 200 deals (including more than 130 flips) in just TEN years, so she knows a thing or two about home improvements! Today, she will show you how to complete a rehab project, step-by-step. You’ll learn about everything from forming partnerships and analyzing rentals to creating a pricing sheet in a new market, building a scope of work, and effectively managing your contractors. Whether it’s your first time managing construction or you’re looking for systems and processes that will help your jobs run smoothly, you don’t want to miss this renovation masterclass. Serena offers plenty of nuggets that will help you finish your projects on time AND on budget! In This Episode We Cover: Serena’s BEST renovation tips, tricks, and hacks (learned from 130+ flips!) How to manage a home renovation project from start to finish How to divvy up responsibilities in a real estate investing partnership Building your pricing sheet when diving into a new market How to estimate rehab costs and create your own scope of work The two most common mistakes new investors make on rehab projects 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 Grab “The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs” Find an Investor-Friendly Agent in Your Area Real Estate Rookie 488 – How I’m Flipping 12 Houses (at Once!) All While Traveling Serena’s Instagram (00:00) Intro (00:50) Serena’s Portfolio & Partnerships (07:23) Building Your Pricing Sheet (15:55) Creating a Scope of Work (25:24) Working with Contractors (34:08) How to Manage Rehab Projects (43:47) Connect with Serena! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-507 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	Ever wonder what the process is to run a rehab, how to manage contractors?
0:06.0	Well, today we are going to get into it.
0:13.0	My name is Ashley Care, and I'm here with Tony J. Robinson.
0:18.3	This is the Real Estate Rookie Podcast.
0:23.3	And welcome to the podcast where every week,
0:27.5	three times a week we bring you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need to hear to kickstart your investing journey. And today, we are joined by the wonderful Serena Norris.
0:32.6	Thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having me, guys. And we are live in L.A. in the studio here with Serena. So thank you so
0:41.9	much for driving through the L.A. traffic. I know. I'm an L.A. resident again. So I'm up here
0:49.4	here. So, Serena, I think just really quick for the listeners, you've been on the rookie podcast before,
0:53.0	but for those who maybe don't know your story, how many flips do you think you've been
0:58.2	involved in over the last several years? Yeah. So I've been, I've done around like 130, 135 flips
1:06.4	and been a part of definitely a lot more transactions, probably up to 200 transactions. So,
1:12.2	and for the last 10 years, it'll be 10 years in April. And also Burrs, too. You've done rehabs
1:18.1	on rentals also. Yeah. So about probably 30 to 40 percent of those ended up being Burrs.
1:25.3	And so I have about a dozen long-term rentals right now between single family
1:30.8	and commercial retail. And I have one Airbnb short-term slash mid-term. So to make Tony proud.
1:37.0	There you.
1:38.9	So with this partnership, what was your primary role taking on these projects?
1:46.6	Yeah.
1:46.9	So in the beginning, like 10 years ago, I just started assisting with my mentor.
1:51.9	And then after a few years, really took on all the design aspects of it, quality control,
1:56.9	and then helping with systemization.
	...

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