Rehab costs investors forget on an old house

A house built before 1960 hides its expensive work behind doors a cosmetic walk never opens. The forgotten rehab costs are the panel, the attic, the foundation, the plumbing you can reach, and the furnace data plate, plus septic, a well, and lead or asbestos when the property has them. Paint and new floors are the visible part. They are the cosmetic tier. They are the wrong first number if those systems are still closed.

The deal score already treats age as a flag, not as a bid. A house over 50 years old gets a structural flag. A house over 75 gets the high one. A house over 30 gets a maintenance flag for the roof, the HVAC, and the water heater. A house over 25 whose listing never mentions updated systems gets a separate flag. A house built before 1960 is already in the over-50 group, and the oldest of them are in the over-75 group. That is a reason to open the list below. It is not a dollar amount, and this page does not turn the flags into a national price.

Systems to open before a cosmetic tier

Walk them in the same order every time so a skipped door is obvious. Write what you saw, or write that you could not open it. A blank line looks the same as a zero when you add the column later. Cosmetic, at $20 per square foot, is paint, flooring, fixtures, and landscaping on a house that is livable but dated. Moderate is $40. Gut renovation is $80. Those are the bases the report starts from. The report also adjusts for age and property type. None of the three bases is a substitute for a system you left shut.

Open the electrical panel. Read the door. A fuse block, cloth-covered conductors, a warm cover, double-tapped breakers, or an open knockout is a line on the scope. So is a panel you could not open because the listing locked it. Old wiring is one of the costs people leave at zero because the lights were on. Lights being on is not a service that can stay. Name what is in the can, or mark the line inspect and price.

Open the attic hatch. Look at the roof deck, the wiring in the bays, and the insulation. Knob-and-tube or cloth wiring in the attic is the same electrical line, seen from above. Pipe wrap, old floor tile stored in the bays, and insulation you do not recognize stay on the lead or asbestos line. You are looking. You are not pulling a sample to save an inspection. Suspect material is inspect and price.

Open the basement or the crawl. That is the foundation. Horizontal cracks, stair-step masonry, a wall that bows, older piers, and standing water are notes, not a nationwide repair price. A slab house does not give you this view. You did not earn a zero by standing on the slab. The line stays inspect and price until someone who can see the footing writes a figure. The scope of work checklist already says a foundation mentioned in a listing might be a hairline crack or a wall that needs piers. This page uses that same rule on a house you walked, not only on a house you read about.

Open the plumbing you can reach without a camera. Under the sinks, at the main shutoff, and at the water heater. Galvanized supply, a mix of materials on one run, and a water heater with no date are lines. A sewer camera is the opening a flashlight cannot do. Until that inspection returns a figure, the drain line is inspect and price. Write the water heater year when the plate is readable. The maintenance flag exists because that plate is often the thing nobody photographed.

Open the furnace or the air-handler door and read the data plate. Write the year, or write that the plate was missing. HVAC is not inside the cosmetic description. A cosmetic project can still carry a zero on HVAC after you opened it and decided the system can stay. The zero has to be a sentence you can defend. A closed closet is not that sentence.

Inspect and price, with no national dollar table

Four items stay inspect and price even after a careful walk, unless a specialist has already handed you a figure for this house. Foundation, when you could not see it or when what you saw needs an engineer. Septic, when the property has a tank rather than city sewer. A well, when the listing says well water or a private well, or when you find a well head. Lead or asbestos wording, and the materials a pre-1960 house often still has in paint, pipe wrap, and tile. The deal score looks for those words. It does not publish a replacement price, and neither does this page.

Septic and a well are not automatic because the year is old. A city house on municipal water and sewer still has the panel, the attic, the foundation, the plumbing you can see, and the furnace to open. Write which utilities you confirmed. A lid in the yard or the word septic on the listing adds the tank and the field as their own line. A well head or the words well water add a water test and the equipment. Those lines do not inherit the cosmetic base.

This page publishes no national dollar table for those four, and it adds no city prices on top of the tier bases. A hairline and a pier job are both “foundation” until the inspection separates them. An abatement number copied from another house is how the offer lies. The honest status is inspect and price. Treat that status as a gate. It is not a zero, and it is not a discount.

What the cosmetic total is allowed to mean

Take a 1,200 square foot house and the published bases only. Cosmetic is 1,200 times $20, which is $24,000. Moderate is 1,200 times $40, which is $48,000. Gut renovation is 1,200 times $80, which is $96,000. Those three totals are the bases the report starts from. The report also adjusts for age and property type. You can check the unadjusted total on the rehab estimator by entering 1200 and choosing the tier. The page multiplies that size by the tier base and shows one number.

$24,000 is the paint, flooring, fixture, and landscaping band for that size. It is not a foundation price, a septic price, a well price, or a lead and asbestos price. If any of those lines is still inspect and price, you do not type $24,000 into the offer as the repair. Switching the same 1,200 square feet to the $48,000 moderate total or the $96,000 gut total does not close the line either. A higher tier is still a per-square-foot base. It still does not name the tank, the well, or the footing.

Use the cosmetic tier in the offer only after every system above is either opened and given a zero you can explain, or given an allowance from this house, or marked inspect and price. While any line is inspect and price, the repair number stays provisional. Say that in writing on the scope: cosmetic everywhere you opened, and these systems unknown. The unknown systems do not inherit $20 per square foot.

When a figure comes back

When the inspection writes a number for this property, add that number into the scope sum and run the offer again. Repairs are subtracted once, in full. The profit reserve does not absorb a sewer line, a tank, or abatement for you. Confirm the new offer on the MAO calculator by raising the repair field and reading the new maximum. This page still will not invent that repair field for you. The figure has to come from the inspection, not from a table of cities.

An unopened system also changes the month count. A sewer camera, a tank visit, an engineer, or a permit can add weeks when no carpenter is painting. Those weeks belong in the hold. Price them from the purchase price on the holding costs guide, not by shaving the cosmetic total until the deal looks friendly. A pre-1960 house with the doors still shut is an incomplete list. The cosmetic tier starts after the list says what each opened system will do.

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