A Letter to Peter Spann

G

grubar30

Dear Peter Spann,

My name is George Grubetic and I’m a reno-holic.

I’m on my 2nd reno in my short investing career….a reno that’s becoming more overwhelming and hard yakka than building the pyramids….its tough, its grimy, its slow and its hard, and there seems to be more dust flying around than a corn field about to be hit by a hurricane…my question is – how did you ever manage to renovate 50 properties?!?….actually, I believe it was close to the 100 mark…whichever, it’s simply unfathomable…..actually, I’d like to share this very defining moment today where I caught myself cutting away a piece of piece of villaboard – disillusioned, tired, slightly pekish and with more flies buzzing around my head than a 3 day old half-eaten McHappy Meal – and I thought to myself, “Spanny, he did 50 of these things?”….”Oh Lord” I thought…..I couldn’t comprehend it….you know, that number is insane….your insane…your a machine for heavens sake….a robot…your not from this earth…..what’s wrong with you?….I don’t just understand..….50 plumbing issues….50 “oh sh*t, I’ve run out of sand paper again”….50 fifty dodgy tradies…50 “now where did I leave that tool”….50 “oh boy, now why did I unplug the toilet so early?” episodes…… 50 times 50 times a million times a billion…awww god, ever the Rubik's Cube was easier to understand than this……

I bought your first two books Peter…yes I did…. and I read every single page…digested every word….hung off every syllable like some scholar who just discovered the dead sea scrolls..…but in all of it, I never got a sense of what it was like for you personally to renovate those properties…how difficult or straining it was..…you never took me into the trenches with you…I never felt exposed to the real nitty gritty…put simply, you never took me into the heart of the beast!…..come on dude, I beg you to share those moments now like you never share anything in your life….I’m struggling here man….this reno’s killing me….the paint’s peeling…the plumbing’s coming back up….the walls are moving in for heavens sake…..share your past moments of despair and frustration…share them so I know how bad it can get before it gets better….I know, it’s a sick thing to ask….but I’m becoming sick….I’m losing my mind….the way I’m going, I fear they’ll find me lifeless on the bottom of a half-tiled concrete floor, a flat-head screw driver in one hand and crumpled Bunning’s receipt in the other…

Save me before its too late…


George “1-8000-000 Lost-In-A-Reno HelpLine” Grubar
 
ya poor buggar....
I would love to answer how Peter did 50+ renos BUT l am not going to be so cruel to you at this early stage of dust dirt and dunnies l will leave that for Mr Spann himself.
I hope all QLD SS members take pity on you and come over and give you a hand.;) I would but Perth is a bit too far away and l get such a sore bum on that long flight.:D
cheers yadreamin
 
Hehehe, I know how you feel. Been there, done that & I know I'll be there again in the not too distant future.

Get a grip. It's not that bad.:p :D
 
hmm - my understanding has always been that Peter stepped back into a management role as soon as he could, so he didn't have to do the manual labour.

Sensible approach too - we did five hands-on renos at a sprint a few years ago, and have done more in the last few years, but as recreation only. When we didn't feel like doing the hands-on work we brought people in.

Cheers,

Aceyducey
 
i think ac hit it right. as soon as he could, peter probably delegated.

the thing i got from his books were that, asides from the first few, his reno's were purely cosmetic - paint, kitchen cupboards, carpet - which are not overly hard compared to replumbing and cutting out walls etc. correct me folks if i'm wrong on this.

but - and this is a big but - you probably have to do a few hard ones to truely respect what you are trying to achieve, and get the seed money for the easier projects.

hang in there - there is an enormous sense of satisfaction when you bring a dump back to better than it's former glory. i miss that.
 
Working smarter not harder

Hi George
It seems to me that you are stressing big time over your reno. I also get the impression that you have spent considerable time on the project. Renos should be fun. It's more about having a problem and working out a solution, and then balancing time against cost.

I am in the midst of a reno at the moment. I purchased a house 14 days ago and have an estimated 5 days to completion of the renovations. This has involved the bathroom, kitchen, restoration of patterned plaster ceilings, painting, windows, plumbing, electrical, a new deck on the back and landscaping. The new tenant is very happy. I don't do any of the physical work myself. However, I have a system in place and a great team of tradies that never let me down.

Peter Spann is the first person I ever saw speak about property. What an inspiration! He is going to be a guest speaker at the Reno Kings next workshop in October.

My weakness used to be that I wanted everything to look like a Mona Lisa. This attitude cost me time and money. I now use the Reno Kings strategy which means that I know how to spend my time and money wisely to gain equity, increased rents and happy tenants.

Good luck with your project
Judi
 
Oh my aching back!

Ha, this is funny!
(At least I hope you were tongue in cheek???)
To tell you the truth it has been so long since I have actually hands on done a reno I can’t actually remember the pain and suffering involved. Although I do remember how many sore backs I got from painting.
People’s comments are right…
Really in terms of actually physically doing the work I probably did about 3 properties before starting to get tradies to do some of the work.
I quickly realised that any amount I saved by doing it myself rather then engaging cheap but reliable tradies quickly disappeared in holding costs and opportunity cost (what I could earn by focusing on whatever work I was doing at the time). So as soon as I could afford it I “outsourced” the labour component of the work, then after a time I also “outsourced” the management of the projects too.
Eventually I had a team of tradies working pretty much non-stop on my projects so all I did was to buy the property and call in my manager.
I had a standard approach to everything I did – same tiles, same paint colours, same kitchen cupboards, same taps, same light fittings – everything was identical and bought in “bulk” at end-sales, warehouses, scratch and dent, receivership auctions etc (think I still have boxes of tiles somewhere!), so all I had to do was give the manager the address of the new property and the keys and hey presto, 3 weeks later it was done exactly the way I wanted it.
As you know by doing this I ended up with millions of dollars in profits, equity and over 130 individual titles in 17 different structures.
I now have 29 properties in 1 structure so I have done quite a bit of consolidation in the last 5 years to diversify into gold, shares, international funds, commercial property and commercial property trusts and absolute return funds. I also applied some of those funds to my business and it has boomed with adequate capital and good people in place because of those funds.
I can understand how you might think you are going crazy from time to time – maybe it helped that I was a psychologist – but really I just kept my goals in mind and my head down.
So really all I can say is “hang in there” and “good luck”. If you have great goals and what you are doing is helping you get closer then it is all worthwhile in the end.
 
Grubes, I reckon get on the blower and get some tradies in there and be done with that nightmare!

RJ
 
Thanks for the replies guys....it's not really that bad - I just wanted to make people have a laugh.


George "time to step back and outsource" Grubar


PS...solid reply Peter - that's one going straight to the favourites folder
 
Peter Spann said:
Oh and by the way - with your writing style who knows - you could write a book and make a packet out of that! :D
Click to expand...

That's what Les and I said when we read it Grube. Gave us a good laugh to start the day, but also reminded us of the good old days before we could afford the tradies.

One of our reno'd kitchens was shown on TV as part of our interview once, and no-one noticed the 3 tiles missing from the splashback. You see, neither of us had a clue about tiling, so I just camouflaged it by painting the hole in white to match the white tiles. :D
 
Best Intentions

I can relate to what Peter is getting at!

We bought our first PPOR in original 70's condition with original wood kitchen, wallpaper on every wall and shag pile carpet.

Our intention was to do the wallpaper stripping and painting and let the professionals do the rest.

However after many weeks of nights and weekends we were only making what could be described as some progress.

In the mean time we had gotten married and I still recall the feeling of relief waking up one Saturday morning when we decided to get a painter in to finish it. We went and had a well deserved sleep in. The work was finished within three days of a painter being selected.

So what started out as a hands-on reno quickly turned into a fully outsourced reno. We have done 4 more since then and have used the same team every time.

Regards
A
 
Hey George

I just read your letter to PS and I cried with laughter. With a sense of humour like yours I'm sure you will go a long way.

Simon and I could really relate to your post. Been there, done that, with renovating too many times. But hang in there - it does get easier. We started out like you, doing the hard yards. Now we have more time and money things are much easier but we look back with fond memories over those first few renos. Without those experiences we probably wouldn't fully appreciate what we now have.

Stick with it

Good luck
Julie
Audentes fortuna juvat
Fortune favours the bold
 
Finishing work at 7am getting 3 hrs sleep then up to paint the house,rip up carpets, cut down and then dig up palm and pine tree's, put in reticulation, lawn andmake "many" trips to the tips etc etc..then back to the other house for a shower, shave and shampoo then off to work again was *more* than fun and the good old days..It was character building :D

Glad its over and also glad I was so busy at work with the latest one we had to get someone else to paint, rip up the slate etc (though I did spend a night until 4am then off to work at 830 am as I had to get up all the cork tiles before the carpet guys came in that morning at 8am).

I'm happy to have a wait awhile before we undertake the next reno
 
We renovated 4 houses in the first 4 years of our marriage. We got to take school holidays off so that helped time wise. I remember watching my son and his mate (a neighbour's son) paint some lattice - I'm sure there was more paint on the ground underneath when they had finished than there was on the lattice. Another time a bunch of us painted a roof in August in Canberra. It began to snow and I suggested to Simon that we quit for the day but he wanted to persevere. When we finished our neighbour made us hot chocolate. In the weeks that followed the paint peeled off and fell like snow flakes into our neighbours lawns.
For all the dumb stuff we've done, we've had so much fun and still made lots of money. Making money should be fun and I reckon George's original post deserves a kudos coz it made me laugh and reminded me of our humble beginnings.

Julie
 
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