By Gary Massari & Ginger Crystal Faith,
Owners of REI Homes – Signature Properties
Whether you are remodeling your home, building a new home, or flipping a home these tips will lower your cost of construction and save you thousands of dollars. We use these same practices in our business to bring our projects in on time and on budget, plus we are building 30 to 40% under current market as compared to other builders– that is huge! Hope they don’t read this blog!
Tip 1…Create a line item budget from your SOW. Compare your bids to your budget. We find that when we take in bids we are always shooting to beat the budget. We also use the budget to drive our bid prices down. It works beautifully! Our first painting bid came in at $35,000 and we could have accepted it, but we didn’t and we shopped around to find a painter who did it at $25,000, that is a $10,000 savings!
Tip 2…We write into our contracts a bonus and penalty should the contractor or subcontractor bring it in early or a penalty if late. We use our daily interest cost or cost of money (if you using your funds) to determine the amount owed. Let us warn you they will always scream and make excuses when late, it is never their fault! So we always remind them, it is their schedule and they were told to add a 10% contingency when it comes to time. This little whip keeps them from taking unnecessary time off or leaving the premise before the day is finished.
Tip 3…Negotiate your contracts to wholesale pricing offering them repeat business, this saves us a ton of money! Here is our exact script we use, “BTW, we are a wholesale business looking for long term relationships, and therefore we need wholesale pricing”. Our goal to add 5 more homes to our existing business in the next 12 months, can you help us? We have seen tile labor bids drop from $22,000 to $12,500, it works beautifully, and we have a loyal vender as a result of using this technique alone.
Tip 4…Shop! Shop! and shop! your vendors! We get 45% contractor discounts with our cabinetmaker, and we not only save a ton of money here, but pass it on to our clients and investors and still get high quality all maple custom made cabinets.
Tip 5…Use porcelain tile and not marble. Use your designer tile for accent tile, like putting in a waterfall design using porcelain tile with marble accent in your shower. We have the most beautiful kitchens and bathrooms with our tile designs, and our homes sell off the map even before final permits are issued.
Tip 6…Look for Appliance Vendors using promotions. Our appliance vendor works with builders and not only offers discounts but promotions. Example Viking and GE Monogram sometimes runs promotions when buying major appliances and will throw in two items like the dishwasher or microwave. We just bought all our appliances using Viking and didn’t have to pay for the dishwasher and microwave, bringing the total savings to $6000.00 – Nice!
Tip 7…Pro-rewards can save thousands! We belong to several Pro-rewards with different companies, like Home Depot, Floor and Décor, etc. When we put our large ticket items out to bid at the pro-desk we literally save 10% to 30% in cost. So sign up and put your large items out to bid, even lumber!
Tip 8…Military Discounts! I am a military veteran and I get a 10% military discount. This really saves us money with buying lighting and bathroom accessories, even shower doors, and fixtures like toilets.
Tip 9…Buy ahead to avoid price increases! In an inflationary market, it is so wise to buy ahead and store your purchases in a Pod you can rent and put on site. This allows you to not only avoid price increases, but also allows you to take advantage of sales!
Tip 10…Pizza or Burrito Friday. When our crew shows up on time and completes the job on time we reward them with Burrito’s and Pizza (they love Mountain Mikes) Fridays. Caution! It may add weight! Also saves time by not having crew wait an hour at the Taco Truck.
About Gary Massari & Ginger Crystal Faith
Gary & Ginger are top real estate investors and educators running a very popular real estate investment club called “Make Money Now” where people connect with deals and financing and have a whole lot of fun. What very few people know is Gary and Ginger are both real estate brokers and builders. They own a highly successful multi-million dollar luxury home construction company in San Francisco Bay Area, and work in partnership with other investors for very high returns from their projects. “One of the greatest rewards is being able to invest personally along with our partners to achieve higher than any market returns”, says Ginger! “We belong to several wine clubs in Napa Valley and enjoy outings with our partners, it is so much fun!”
“We would love to meet you and possibly help you to qualify as one of our investors, it is easier than you think,” Gary! We offer a free Q&A or get to know us sessions. You can make an appointment on our website at https://reifortunes.com anytime!
Every week we put out educational fun information about real estate investing and paying off your mortgage using velocity banking, our goal is to show you how to become financially independent by investing and owning real estate debt free…
Please take a look at our:
Website: https://reifortunes.com/
Blog: https://reifortunes.com/blog/
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFarJmAvzq_NWq4wAK7StCg
Podcast channel: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1757320/episodes
Make an appointment with Gary or Ginger:
https://reifortunes.com/appt/gary/
https://reifortunes.com/appt/ginger/
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