Since I last posted, I’ve been pretty busy trying to figure out what I’m going to do with the roof on the Apopka rental.
One of my tenants told me that his brother works with insurance companies repairing homes after hurricanes and other damage. He also has people who work on roofs, so my tenant contacted him and had him take a look at mine.
When I first spoke to him, he saw the photos and videos and told me he would see if he could repair what I had already done. Once he actually went to the property, his opinion completely changed.
The first quote was $22,000.
He told me the roof was too far gone to repair. According to him, the membrane wasn’t sticking anymore, there was water underneath it, and everything I had done needed to be stripped off.
His solution was to install a TPO membrane. He said that was the right way to do the roof and the cheapest option he could offer me.
The price was $22,000.
There is no way in hell I’m paying $22,000 for that roof.
He told me he had lenders who could give me a construction loan to pay for it. The job would be permitted, he’d be comfortable putting his name on it, and I’d have the documentation I needed to show my insurance company that I had a brand-new roof.
That’s great and everything, but I’m still not paying $22,000.
My roof is a little unusual because it’s a flat concrete roof. I’ve learned that a lot of residential roofers don’t even want to work on it. That limits my options, but I’m also not going to accept the first ridiculous quote someone gives me because they tell me I don’t have another choice.
So I told him to hold that thought and went to look at the roof myself.
The roof looked a lot better than they made it sound.
I hadn’t been back up there since before my vacation. The last time I worked on it, I finished what I could and left before everything had completely cured and dried. I really didn’t know what the finished job looked like.
Based on what these guys were telling me, I expected to get up there and see a disaster.
I didn’t.
Honestly, it looked pretty decent.
There are definitely some areas that need to be fixed and a few things I need to finish, but the entire roof wasn’t peeling off like they made it sound.
That’s when I knew I needed more opinions.
I told him there was no way I was paying $22,000. I’d rather sell the house before I put another $22,000 into that roof.
His brother also started telling me how I could write the roof off on my taxes because it’s an investment property. I didn’t appreciate that either. Don’t count my pockets and tell me why I should be okay spending $22,000 because I can supposedly write it off.
He even tried arguing with me that I could write off something like $2 million.
Bro, shut up.
I’m not taking out a loan and putting myself further into debt for a property that already doesn’t make me any money. Even after all of the tenants pay their rent, I’m losing money every month maintaining this house.
Absolutely not.
Then $22,000 suddenly became $7,800.
After I told them I wasn’t doing it, the brother texted me later and said they could repair the roof for $7,800.
Interesting.
We somehow went from the entire roof being beyond repair and needing a $22,000 replacement to being able to repair it for $7,800.
At that point, I became curious about how low I could actually get this price, so I started calling roofers and getting more estimates.
The other roofers gave me a much better understanding of the problem.
One roofer came out and spent some time looking at everything. Another roofer I spoke with over the phone told me basically the same thing.
If a licensed and insured roofing company takes over the project, they’re most likely going to have to remove everything I did. It’s not necessarily because the entire job is bad. It’s because they can’t put their license on top of someone else’s work without knowing exactly what’s underneath it.
They need to get the job permitted, and they don’t want to become liable for work they didn’t do.
That explanation made a lot more sense to me.
The roofer who came out also told me that what I did wasn’t that bad, especially considering I’ve never worked on a roof before. He showed me the areas that need to be fixed, explained what still needs to be completed, and gave me some advice on how to finish it.
He also told me to get an engineer involved. The engineer can inspect everything, tell me what needs to be corrected, and potentially sign off on the work once it’s completed. Then I could get the permit and use that documentation with my insurance company.
Right now, I’m looking at around $10,000.
The roofer also knew someone who runs a construction company, so he called him while we were talking.
The construction company said they could probably finish the project for around $10,000, maybe less. They would also be able to get everything permitted and warranty the work.
Apparently, because they’re a construction company and not strictly a roofing company, their permit gives them more flexibility with what they can do. They may only need to lift a section of what I already installed to verify that everything underneath was done correctly. From there, they could finish the rest of the project.
So right now I have a few options:
- $7,800 from the first guy, although I don’t really trust him after he initially tried selling me a $22,000 roof. He’s also only offering a 90-day warranty.
- Around $10,000 from the construction company, possibly less, with permits and a warranty.
- Another roofer is working on a quote, although he wants to use a coating system and I’m not really interested in going that route.
- One of my old tenants also works with a construction company. They’re making some calls and are supposed to look at the roof and give me another quote.
I’m going to wait until I have all of the numbers before I decide what to do.
Then there’s the insurance.
My insurance premium on this house has now climbed to around $4,000 a year.
I started shopping around because I thought I could find something cheaper. So far, that hasn’t worked out very well. One agent basically told me that if my current company is willing to insure the property for around $4,000, I might be better off staying where I am.
So that’s where I’m at with this house right now.
I’m still trying to finish the roof, get everything properly permitted, lower the insurance premium if I can, and eventually get this property to actually make some money.
For now, I’m waiting on the remaining quotes. Once I have those, I’ll figure out what I’m going to do.