Many investors—well, many amateur investors—think that when they invest in a rehab property, they can increase their profit margin by doing the actual repair work themselves. It’s a romantic idea, but it does not take long either to realize that this is not a profitable way to do business, or to fail as a rehab investor. Here is why circumventing professional, certified repair on your rehab project inevitably and invariably costs more than it saves.

First of all, if you are someone who is an expert in every field of home and property maintenance and repair, if you are certified in each of those fields and have plenty of experience working in them, then please disregard this article. If you are not one of these people—and let’s face it, you’re not—then read on. In fact, almost no one is an overall repair guru. If it were possible, then we wouldn’t have so many specialists (plumbers, roofers, electricians); if everyone could master all of the trades, then everyone would or they would be out of business. So in fact, no one should be working a rehab project alone.

Since you’re not an expert in all fields, if you try to make repairs, the work you do will almost invariably not meet the standards of quality. One of three things will happen: you will not be able to sell the home for the price you planned (eating into or erasing your profit margin); you will not be able to sell the property at all; or you will have to hire someone anyway to come and fix what you’ve done (which is what you should have done in the first place). There is no winning scenario here, and all result in a loss of money.

Furthermore, committing to repair the property on your own is committing to spend an obscene amount of time on this project. You are no longer an investor, you are an investor, contractor, laborer, inspector, etc. Do you have time in your schedule to take up five or more new jobs? Do you have a day job in addition to your investment career? For some, devoting this much time to one project is impossible; for others, it is simply absurd. Even if the time you spend working on the rehab is "free time", you are clearly depleting a limited supply of free time, which you could otherwise be using to spend with family, friends, or whatever other leisure pastime suits you.

Put it like this: the amount of money you will save by avoiding hiring contractors and labor is far, far exceeded by the amount you will lose in the form of rehiring labor down the road, taking a price cut at the time of sale, or failing to sell while you retain the cost of ownership. What you end up with could be any combination (or all) of those scenarios, and your project will flop. Be frugal, not cheap—that means be smart with your money. Spend it on proper labor, the first time around, and enjoy the benefits down the road.

Please contact us at: Phone: 260-444-4582 or Fax: 800-706-3479 and visit our website :www.InvestmentPropertyMadeEasy.com