Why You Should Demo Your Houses

I know a lot of investors will NOT agree with me, but if they look closely they will realize that it is probably best to completely demo just about any house you purchase for a hold.  My opinion may be biased because I am ‘THE CONTRACTOR” (said with a deep voice and air quotes), and we want to make the job as easy as possible.  However, I am also “THE INVESTOR” (deep voice) and we want to save as much money as possible.  Please let me explain with a story and please note this happens in one form or another at every job where an investor wants to save money by not demo’ing.

The Savvy Investor Story:

We were working on a duplex that is located in a great neighborhood.  It is a prime location for traveling nurses because it’s close to the University of Penn hospital but close enough to Baltimore Avenue for its eclectic lifestyle.  Perfecto!

Anyhow, the investor is smart, young, hardworking, and shrewd.  He wanted to...let’s say  “modify” most of the upstairs (the downstairs got flooded because the house wasn’t winterized after the tenant left), and maintain the ceilings/walls, and floors.  I looked him directly in his eyes and told him to “demo all of it”.  He refused because he’s shrewd and I explained that it’s going to cost you no matter what you do.

He wanted us to change some of the wiring in the house.  For example the entire kitchen, the entire bathroom, and we had to run a 240 line (for a dryer) and 12/2 line (for a compressor) from one end of the house to the back.  We couldn’t break the ceilings downstairs because he wanted to save that as well as the upstairs ceilings.  

Under normal circumstances our guys would have to fish (pull) the wires from one end of the building through multiple ceiling holes (created by us).  It is very time consuming and would cost a ton (under normal pricing).  But the...dun..dun...dun “Construction Gods” (deep voice), came in and we found a small crawl space above the ceiling to rewire every room.  It was dangerous, dark, hot, tight, and dirty but we (my guys...not my fat ass) crawled on 2x8’s (old joists) from room to room dropping lines/.whips for the rewire.

Boy was he lucky.  He didn’t have to pay above our “Day Rate” (deep voice).  We were able to finish this in less than 40 minutes.  BTW...we were asked to change lines and add more by “The Investor” (deep voice) and I had to ask my guys if they wanted to do it because one almost fell through the ceiling.  They agreed to do it...again (third time up).

So it didn’t cost “The Investor” (deep voice) and it didn’t cost us (our lives).  Weeks later after everything was finished...the “HVAC Guy” (deep voice) realized that the existing duct in the ceiling was NOT insulated.  We don’t do HVAC, so he had to cut holes in 6-8 places to pull the old duct out and install the correct duct.

I don’t know how much it cost “The Investor” (deep voice), but just imagine if we had just demo’d.