We hear of so many property investors looking to cut corners and save money by doing as much of the work themselves as possible. This is great when you have the skills required but if you lack specific skills for specific refurbishment activity then do not attempt to do it yourself. The number of people who have made a complete mess of part of their refurbishment and had to pay over and above to get their work corrected will shock you.
It is a false economy to assume you can do everything yourself - if you can’t do it, get the experts in.
NMB is 100% correct. I would take this line of argument further and state that you shouldn't do this sort of work even if you have the skills.
Time is money, and there are holding costs to deal with during a refurbishment. The slower the project moves the more it will cost you. You will make a lot more money by paying others (professionals) to do the work for you. Over the years I have tracked a host of skilled investors who have tried to disprove this fact, so far not a single one of them has been able to do so.
My good friend Robyn calls these MWA or minimum wage activities. She has bought, refurbished and sold more than 430 houses so far, and she taught me most of what I know about the subject.
Every time I refurbish a house I keep one rule in mind. The rule is simple, if something can be done by an hourly worker, then it should be done by an hourly worker. The reason is simple. You need to leverage your time, and the best way to do that is work on marketing the property while it is being upgraded, combined with the fact that you can have a herd of workers turning over a property much faster if you get out of the way.
To your success
Josh
