All right, so I'm going to talk about how to rehab a building or unit. The first thing you want to look at in rehabbing is for one, how much money you have, and then what needs to be done for safety, necessity and cosmetics.

So, when you're looking at that, first things first, you absolutely have to get things done for safety reasons. That might be handrails, stairs, tripping hazards, smoke detector/carbon monoxide detectors that need to be upgraded. Appliances, looking at stoves and ovens, making sure that they are all in good shape.

Once those are done, you want to look at the exterior first, and then work your way in. So, if you've got money to spend on landscaping, painting, power washing, those are all really good things to do first. And the reason for that is when you're coming into, maybe an apartment building, you want to be giving value outside in, so that way when you raise rents for people, they can see you are already doing things to elevate the property. And that way you also won't have to displace any renters at the same time.

Then when a renter does decide to leave, or you decide to renovate a unit or a home, you want to look at getting rid of things that are worn out like, carpets, countertops that have gouges in them, appliances that are broken or at the end of their life, and then get those things done immediately. Then from there, if you have time and money, you want to look at upgrades. Things like light fixtures are huge, doorknobs and door handles are a great way to spend a little bit of money and make such a huge pop. Look for things like brushed nickel, you can get away from the gold or bronze finish.


And then also if you can do things for appliances, look at stainless steel, they actually make fairly inexpensive stainless steel ovens and refrigerators. You can probably get both of them for around 1200 dollars. While you're at it, for the kitchen, if you can upgrade to a stone countertop, that would be awesome, even if it's just isles of stone, so that way it's a little bit more [inaudible 00:02:34]. That is going to cost at least a couple thousand dollars, whereas just a regular laminate is going to cost maybe around four or five hundred dollars just to laminate something.

Then when you do that, hopefully, you've made all these big upgrades to the kitchen, bathroom and living areas. Hopefully, you have painted not just a white, maybe an off white, such as a light gray or light brown color. Hopefully, with all that being done, you can elevate the rent anywhere from 50 to 200 dollars a month, depending on the area and other units around you. With that, hopefully, the value of the property has increased quite a bit as well.

Just to recap, what you want to do is work outside in, look at how much money you have, and do the most basic stuff, and then elevate to the cosmetics afterward. Things that are great impact are fixtures, and bathrooms are going to go a long way for the money. Hopefully, that gives you some good ideas as to how to renovate a property.