Archive for the ‘flipping houses’ Category

Required Roof Maintenance for Fixer Upper Houses

Monday, July 2nd, 2012

One of the jobs associated with operating a fixer upper and rental house business is to keep your rental properties in ship shape!

With the annual approach of summer rains, now is almost the last chance to make rental house roofs water proof before the watery onslaught. As someone who has a sworn aversion for arriving too early to parties, I subscribe to the time-tested philosophy of “better late than never.”

This morning I applied some black roofing cement on some areas on one of my townhouse roofs. I had located some cracks upon my inspection of it about 2 weeks ago.

The first photo shows the area in question, where I had previously applied a small amount of plastic roofing cement, but today I was going to put on some more and cover a broader area.

Before picture

The second photo shows the application of the plastic roofing cement. We apply one layer of cement, then put a white membrane on top of that, followed by a second layer of cement. The membrane allows for more cement to be applied.

Application of roofing cement

Below is the “after” photo. You can see that in addition to the corner, we hit a few other cracks with our roofing cement on the sides of theroof. Later, we’ll come back with white roofing paint to cover the black cement.

Completed repair

A good rental house

My wife and I purchased this 2 bed 2 bath townhouse in 1993 and lived in it for 10 years before moving on to a bigger house (to accomodate our growing family), and turning this property into a rental house in 2003.

Its been one of our best rental houses because it is in a “transition” zone (aka “opportunity zones”) where there is heavy demand for housing, and it is easy to care for because it is compact (1100 sq ft with small front and back yards). The townhouse perfect for single people or small families.

We originally purchased it for $53,000 and we charge $750/month (more if the tenants have pets).

Related Posts

Remove that Garbarge Disposal Now!

Weekly Fixer Upper Roundup of Real Estate Investing and Prosperity Blogs

Saturday, February 16th, 2008


Once again, I present my unbiased, unwarrented, unadulterated and unrelenting list of favorite blog articles from the past week, not necessarily related to the fixer upper house business, but still informative.

Managing Tenants Part Three: Written Criteria for Tenant Selection at biggerpockets.com
When Tenants Pay Late (Part 1 – The Initial Discussion) at twowiseacres.com
From Freakonomics at fsbojane.com/
Flowers and Shrubs and Dust Oh My at rentalsrus.blogspot.com/
Almost…To….The…Finish…Line at flipthyhouse.com/
Health Insurance, Medical Expenses, and Unscrupulous Doctors at moolanomy.com/
Compare Your Rent to Your Neighbors at wealthisgood.blogspot.com/
Frugality: Increasing Your Quality of Life for Less at mrsmicah.com
Suze Orman Gets it Right About Why Our Economy is Faultering at money crashers.com

The Zen of Repairing Properties

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