Avoid these Stupid Mistakes EVERY New Homeowner Makes

accent walls that's the construction industry is a business I know because I've been a contractor I've been on all sides so today I'm going to break down what noobs do versus what the pros do it's also going to sound a lot like this those cabinets right there those are hell yeah that's like Jimmy Fallon's ill HSR ah look at those white tiles girls let's get our designer and spend $50,000 on a kitchen for our $400,000 house who cares if it's 20% of the value of the house we want that kitchen now let's see what the pro does the pro spends six hundred forty three dollars in materials in the same kitchen and transforms the kitchen guess what your whole foods weedy flakes don't know the difference between a new cabinet made out of maple or some Brazilian hardwood and the original cabinets with some paint on them and neither does your future tenant in fact even if you're living in the house your Christmas Eve dinner guests don't really care what you spend on the kitchen either as long as the beer is cold it's good enough Dad insult to injury the people who spent fifty thousand dollars probably increased the sale value of their house by fifteen thousand dollars and maybe just maybe they'll get two weeks of satisfaction and $40 more in rent on the flip side the person who spent six hundred forty three dollars just increased the value of the house ten thousand dollars and got the same forty dollars in extra rent folks you don't need a math degree to solve this one and if for some reason money is of no object to you you're not interested in learning how to invest and smash that dislike button and get out of here oh and if you're gonna pull that old well in my house I want the best quality card well I have two things to say to you at number one number two thank you for helping stocks like Home Depot Lowe's and Target skyrocket which by the way Home Depot and target are excellent dividend stocks thank you very much now let's go into bathrooms and guess what most people do when they see blue avocado green or even pink tiling they start swinging the hammer they start swinging the hammer because they remember that time they went to Lowe's and thought oh well tubs are only like plus or minus $300 right it's not that expensive to put in a new table and tilings only like a couple bucks a foot let's just smash all this stuff and start over but what makes the difference between a noob and a pro is a noob starts swinging a hammer before they consider all available alternatives the noob might end up cutting a check to a contractor for some new bathroom floor tile wall tile new plumbing fixtures but if they wanted to save money like a pro does and still want to provide a functional bathroom that looks nearly just as good they might consider reglazing that darn blue or avocado green tile in fact here's an example here's a tub and blue bathroom tile set up $700 later this is what the bathroom turned into yes this is literally the same tub and the same blue jack notice the nice bronze trim hardware and the newly glazed white tiles this is a project that was completed in two days rather than in three weeks and I hate to say it but a lot of newbie investors think well I'll tile myself I'll buy this tile saw and then after I use it for two bathrooms because while I only have two bathrooms I'll store it somewhere in the garage oh yeah that's another thing I was really guilty of so one time use product on my Renaud's but I was doing the work myself so is okay and before you know it five years go by and they have a garage that has more tools than contractors warehouse now don't get me wrong I was that newb I am making fun of myself but over ten years of doing this I've started to learn some tricks what about appliances get the scratched ones that's 20% off in my opinion and then a little bit I'll whiteout or magnet oh and you think that 5% every day or that 10% off coupon at Lowe's is really a big deal you haven't even seen the discounts a Lowe's is willing to give you I teach you how to get these discounts in the real estate investing course and the do-it-yourself property management and rental renovations course linked down below by the way not only do these courses have hundreds of lectures teaching you how to make money buying deals cheaper than what you can sell them for I teach you how to save money in rental renovations and maximize the odds of having success in investing in real estate by renting to qualified tenants that you screen using the meet Kevin method by the way something else to know about my courses and for whatever reason you go through the course content and you get stuck in a certain place or you have a unique circumstance you're always welcome to run that by me in our live streams or in our discs or chat and there have been times where people have asked similar questions and I think to myself this calls for me making another lecture to specifically address a unique scenario for example I had the international community asking me what do we do if we don't have 30-year fixed-rate loans that is addressed in the course now backsplashes this is where noobs just ought to stop in fact a substantial amount of people when they pick a backsplash do not consider the basic element of value if something doesn't appeal to 90% of buyers and tenants the upgrade you are doing is actually reducing the value of your property so somebody needs to look at tiling and say will this crazy custom backsplash appeal to 90% of people if the answer is no don't do it the rule of value in real estate is very simple do what 90% of people will like that's it guess what the odds are you really can't mess up and you probably have the odds that 95% of people are going to be happy with him simple subway tile on top of that the pros know you can actually just get away with using the six-inch backsplash that comes with your countertop anyway now what about painting well this is where I have to say most noobs have spent too much time worrying about different colors for different rooms and accent walls the bottom line is unless you're a designer the odds of you mix and matching colors by yourself very well are very low then rather than buying these stupid little samples that barely give you any coverage I bought 10 quarts because I knew as soon as I found this color which I'm about to tell you I wouldn't use another color until trends changed and keep in mind trends tend to change every 10 years so if you're trying to create something timeless it ain't gonna happen and if you're thinking to yourself oh well come on Kevin hardwood floors been timeless yeah I'll be talking about that in just a second hold on anyway then I have my 10 quarts and I paint sections large enough to be sheets of drywall to sample them I then narrow this selection down to two or three different colors then I paint all of these three colors on the same wall to ensure consistent lighting and I select my favorite color which lately my winner has been Edgecombe gray that's a Benjamin Moore color match so we touched on flooring and here's what the noobs are do number one the first type of noob says I gotta have something exotic it's got to sound good when people come into my property and the second noob says oh my gosh how can I possibly just have one type of flooring I need different flooring in the laundry room bathrooms kitchens the main hallway the entry hallway I've got to have four or five different types of flooring so I could really express my design elements well here's what the pro does the pro knows that if there's one type of flooring that works well and it's a scratch resistant and water resistant like this luxury vinyl plank that you can get on a sale at Lowe's for under 2 dollars per square foot then you start asking yourself why am I going to put myself through the misery of selecting other floor installing transition strips and making sure it matches if I can eliminate transitions why not do that but the pro also looks at large houses like this 3000 square foot house and says you know we don't actually have to do all of this flooring we could get away with carpet on the most expensive parts the staircase in the upstairs now I know a lot of people initially react to that and give all my gosh carpet carpets disgusting carpets only disgusting if you make it disgusting now let's just do a quick cost-benefit analysis here's an almost 3,000 square foot property the rent for this property with luxury vinyl plank of downstairs and carpet upstairs is $3,300 to a highly qualified tenant if the entire property were luxury vinyl plank the pro would have had to spend an extra five thousand dollars and they would have done so for an extra $20 in rent it doesn't make sense now remember how earlier I alluded to putting down hardwood floor yeah only a noob tries to put something exotic down to say it's going to be timeless in fact when you look at those hardwood floors those one and a half inch hardwood floors from the 1920s that people are now peeling carpet back on to reveal the beautiful floor that's left over realize that in the 1920s that was the cheapest flooring you can get in the 1950s 60s and 70s people started covering it up with wall-to-wall carpeting you even had an era of shag carpet in the 70s to make sure it was really covered up it wasn't until the 90s and 2000's that people started peeling back to expose the original hardwood floors beneath and then as if that wasn't good enough in the early 2010s people started sustaining these hardwood floors darker because it just wasn't the look they wanted notice designs and trends change creating something timeless is nearly impossible and even if it were possible it's probably not worth the money so guess what the pro does compared to what the noob does here's your cheat sheet the noob looks at things that make of them feel good they pick designs that make them happy and they don't realize that the happiness is going to fade after they go through the headache of dealing with all the extra renovations and then they enjoy their finished products for two weeks before they're used to it and they're over it or they get bitter because their contractor didn't finish something correctly the pro provides quality living safe living clean living at a fraction of the cost without cutting corners you don't have to be a slumlord to be of you just have to have the knowledge to be able to look at something and say wow that chrome Baldwin Lock at Lowe's for $80 is going to get me the same exact rent as this 20-something dollar lock from quick-set now upon hearing that noobs will cringe they'll have this this is utter feeling of waha Thetis that is so that is so unlike me I'm have been brainwashed by America to spend more because of spending more is better and the Pro says right on Kevin I'll see you in the courses down below by the way quick note if you want to join in the public sections of the discord group check the link down below for the discord section there are private channels and public channels and I'm in the public channels often as well see there [Music]

Channel: Meet Kevin

Views: 61,272

Rating: 4.8021507 out of 5

Keywords: noob vs pro, renovation, homeowner, mistakes, expensive, stupid

Id: VPeO1XpNPYo

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 21 2019