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DIY: How to Make Your Bathroom Tile Stand Out (Video)
December 16, 2014
In this week’s DIY video, Andrew briefly explains how to customize the bathroom shower tile. This will increase the profit on your next flip. Two things sell homes. Bathrooms and Kitchens! So why would you want to skimp on such an important part? Therefore, if you want your bathroom to stand-out, take a moment and watch this video! ...
read moreFlipping Houses: The 8 Phases of Flipping
December 16, 2014
It seems like every time I turn on the television, there’s discussions on cable news. Discussions about how flipping houses is a great way to make quick profits. It’d take me an hour to list all of those reality “flipping houses” shows! Well, they’re right, “flipping” houses is becoming more and more popular as the market improves. Flip deals are readily available which makes for an ideal environment for investors desiring to fix and flip houses. Therefore, this may have something to do with the current television frenzy. Flipping properties will never be easy. It takes a lot of hard work, on-going education and dedication to flip houses and turn a profit. Unlike many of those TV shows and news reports, house flipping, although seemingly simple and cliché, is not as simple as it seems! However, we’re going to do our best to simplify our processes and enable you to learn our secrets to flipping. We’re extremely excited to announce our newest project. The 8 Phases of Flipping! Over the course of the next several months, my team and I will be posting an on-going series that details our 8-phase process to flipping for 6 different Atlanta properties. Want to know the best part? It’s FREE! I am a strong believer in “teaching people to fish” rather than merely “giving them a fish”. Additionally, we are going to provide all cost numbers and even all of the Home Depot SKU’s that we used! This series will show you the 8 different phases to a flip for several of our Atlanta investment properties. You’ll have an opportunity to subscribe to our on-going blog series so that every time a new phase is completed for a specific flip, you’ll receive an email notification. This will allow you to witness the evolving transition from beginning to end. In order to illustrate the steps needed to flip houses, I’ve put together the following checklist for each of the eight phases – which simplifies what is in reality can become a very complicated process. I want to remove some of those complications! The 8 Phases of Flipping: 1. Project overview – basic info, size, location, numbers, how found property, budget, blue prints, permits, surveys 2. Demo – cost, number of dumpsters, time start to finish, crew size, landscape clean-up 3. Rough construction – framing, electrical, HVAC, plumbing 4. Exterior – window, siding, roof, decks/porches 5. Interior – drywall, trim, doors, flooring, paint 6. Kitchen– layout, cabinetry, countertops, backsplash, appliances 7. Bathroom – vanity, countertops, fixtures, tile, floor, shower, accent 8. Finished product – landscape, punch list, cleaning, branding, staging Are you as excited as I am?! To take part in this on-going educational series, please insert your email address on the right side of this page and click “subscribe” in order to subscribe to our blog! ...
read more2014 Midyear Evaluation
December 16, 2014
I’m sure you’ve heard of “Christmas in July,” right? Well, it’s obviously July so I wanted to provide you a “gift” for summer Christmas! Often times we begin the year with fresh perspectives and aggressive goals and dreams for the upcoming twelve months. This article is meant as a consultation to strengthen your business at the years halfway point. There’s no better time than right now to take a step back and reflect on what the first half of 2014 has done for your life and your business. Year-end celebrations or lamentations can be determined by these mid-year adjustments. The traditional year-end appraisal of life and business, followed by the New Year’s resolutions to bring change, is appropriate. But in our culture, one time per year evaluations are not sufficient to keep pace with changing information and technology – so much of which our businesses depend on. Attitudes within the workforce can also go awry in a few short months, making a thorough look at the company paramount to maintaining its health and keeping it in focus. This is a good time of year to do both a personal as well as a professional evaluation relative to the long-term purposes and our first of the year resolutions. Let me start by provoking your thinking with these 10 pithy thought stimulators. 1. Making decisions of resolve is much easier than following through with them. 2. How you finish is much more important than how you started. 3. Long distance runners have a reserve of energy for the end of the race. 4. Your business is not a sprint; it is a marathon. 5. Getting a read on the current times and knowing how to make adjustments mid-stream is ALWAYS the mark of a long-term survivor and a successful winner. 6. Change is the only constant in life. Don’t fixate on what your plan WAS; focus on what must be done NOW! 7. The time between your discovery of what needs to be adjusted and your adjusting it is the time your competition is using to gain an advantage over you. 8. Knowing what to do is not the same as having the will to do it. You must have both. 9. Longer hours, less sleep, and more meetings are rarely a solution; usually the answer is found in better planning, further training, better hiring practices, and a re-commitment to the core values of the company. 10. The time you take to plan your day is usually the best time you can spend on your business. Now that our brains are moving in the right direction for our mid-year eval, allow me to pose the following questions to you: 1. Have you evaluated your staff? Generally there are 3 groups in each staff. The top 20% performers who produce 80% of the business gains. The middle 60% who pull their own weight but have room for improvement. Then the bottom 20% who are riding on the output of the other 80% and are acting as a boat anchor, dragging your business. 2. Have you classified, evaluated, and categorized every employee, including yourself and your top team? 3. Have you considered bringing in an outside consultant to complete a personnel audit so that you can compare your own...
read moreDIY: The Power of Branding – Postcards (Video)
December 16, 2014
In this video, Andrew shows you the advantages of postcards and the importance of “branding”. Ensure that your property stands out from your competition! ...
read moreRehabs Revealed: Hammond Part 2 of 4 – Kitchen
December 16, 2014
7442 Idaho Avenue – Week Two – Kitchen We only made two layout modifications to this kitchen. First, we eliminated some upper cabinets to create more of an open concept and a “bar” feel. Second, we opened up the kitchen wall off the dining room to create a much more open concept between the dining room and the living room. It was a very rare thing for us to actually re-use the old kitchen cabinets, but they cleaned up beautifully! The gorgeous accent tile from Home Depot along with the custom-order granite really pulled all the colors together. From the flooring to the Martha Stewart paint on the cabinetry. Here are some of the SKU’s we used in the kitchen: Cabinets – Unfinished Oak Cabinets (387-246) Cabinets Color – Feather Duster (MSL 251) Cabinet Handles – Liberty Bronze with Copper Highlights Arched Pull (571-820) Backsplash – MS International Venetian Café (1000-012-776) Backsplash Grout – Polyblend #382 Bone 10-lb. Non-Sanded Grout (123-851) Stove – Frigidaire 30-inch, 5.0-cubic feet with Self-Cleaning Convection Oven in Stainless Steel (548-983) Dishwasher – Frigidaire Gallery 24-inch, Front-Control in Stainless Steel (169-416) Microwave – Frigidaire 30-inch, 1.7-cubic feet, Over-the-Range in Stainless Steel with Sensor Cooking (533-524) Refrigerator – Frigidaire Gallery, 26.6-cubic feet, French Door Refrigerator in Stainless Steel (405-432) Granite – Bainbrook (Custom Granite Company) ...
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