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STEVE: I brought you in because I wanted to ask you about something that’s on the tip of the tongues and minds of a lot of people and that has to do with how are we keeping our maintenance costs so low, so we’ll be discussing that today.
And remember, though, so I get all three points out. One, we’re here to talk about building wealth and passive income streams with real estate, two, we’re talking about team building, and three, we’re talking about having the right map. You cannot forget the point that if you have the wrong map, all your hard work and dedication and commitment and intelligence can possibly do is get you to the wrong place faster than everybody else.
With that said I want to start off by talking about this because on the show—I guess it was Tuesday you were on with me—you made the comment about a little best practice that you use with roofs, and it just struck me as, you know, not many people know that and they don’t think about it.
I don’t think about it because I’ve been out of single-family for so long that’s it not something on the tip of my tongue that I’m getting it out, so I wanted to get you here to do that.
We also have eight tips for dealing with contractors. And I’ve got two special documents that are not part of the listener kit. These two documents—the vendor checklist and the contractor agreement—are not part of the free listener kit. These are for the members only.
These are invaluable tools when dealing with vendors to keep them from ripping you off and to keep you doing the right thing—and that will make more sense because, you know who keeps vendors from ripping you off? You do. There are specific steps that you have got to take to ensure that that happens.
I cannot stand that phrase, “secret,” “new techniques,” and things like that. I want you to be aware as we discuss over and over again there are no secrets and there are no new techniques. So I want a new word for you in your life and it’s called the “best practice.”
What we’re going to be talking about are the best practices for owning real estate like a business. “Why do we have such low maintenance costs?” “Why do we have almost no vacancies?” Because we know the best practices, and what we’re going to do is share those with you.
Let’s start off with this example of the roof and the strategies that we use when we’re replacing roofs. Natalie, tell me briefly what you told me the other day about the 20-year roof versus the 30-year roof — when you use one, when you use the other and so on — ‘cause I want to get the people an introduction that shows them how just a little—and I’ll call it a secret even though it’s just a best practice, but a lot of people would call this some kind of a secret or something. What is this secret?
NATALIE: That’s funny. There is no secret. No, and it’s funny the gentleman that had called me on the roofing who I was talking to, the member, has yet to send me an email, so I want to encourage him to follow through with that email.
No, the thing that I want to say about roofs, they’re obviously very important. When you’re fixing a house, the first thing you fix is the foundation. Make sure you have a good foundation then you fix the roof. So that’s a little tidbit some people—I’ve seen interior houses where they fixed—
STEVE: — with bad roofs and cracked foundation.
NATALIE: — and there’s roof damage and you’ve got rain coming in, so it just really doesn’t make sense at that point. But when you fix the roof, if you’re putting a 20 year on an older house — 20, 30 year—you’re going to have sags in the decking, so between the beam—the support beams there’s going to be a little lull with the 20-year roof. It’s definitely much more visible. 20-year roof in Houston I think they say has a 15-year life.
NATALIE: But it will have the sag so you’ll be able to notice it’s not like a crisp, clean, new-decked house where the roof is perfectly straight. Even though it functions for its purpose of not leaking, the 30-year roof if it’s your own home I suggest putting a 30-year or if you have some extra money and you’re holding it for a little bit longer time frame, put the 30-year roof on.
Typically it’s not that much more, and the 30-year roofs—all the 30-year roofs fared a lot better with the hurricane that came through. But if you need to save money go with 20.
STEVE: Yeah. And the trick though is that what I liked about the thing was you could save a lot of money of replacing decking by going with the 30-year shingle.
STEVE: You’re going to get the same appearance as if you’ve replaced all the decking. Now, we are not taking a short cut here. We’re not talking about decking that needs to be replaced.
NATALIE: Oh, no, no, no.
STEVE: We’re talking about just slightly dipped decking.
NATALIE: Well, I don’t replace—I personally don’t replace the decking. It’s good decking and it’s still a good roof, but I think whenever you first see your investment property and you just spent all this money for a roof, you expect it to be something perfectly straight, flat, like a brand new house, but it’s not that way.
STEVE: But it does come out that way with the 30-year shingle. So that’s a good little “best practice” for when you’ve got those little dips, that 30-year shingle.
STEVE: As you mentioned, it’s really not a substantial difference in price.
