I have a buddy who buys a lot of wholesale deals from us, and a couple months back, he made a major screw up which is going to cost him some big bucks. So, specifically, this lesson is for those doing infill projects, but still applies to those doing rehabs. Alright, what are we talking about exactly? Asbestos.
Asbestos is something one deals with on the front end. Before a house can be knocked down, the asbestos must be removed. So, long story short, our wholesale buyer was going to do a knock down the old house had asbestos siding around the outside. Now, there is a certain asbestos siding that can be removed without as special abatement. You can go in there yourself and clean it up. The EPA says it is okay, so you can go in there with a mask and get it done. My buddy decided he was going to clean up this type of asbestos himself, but only after he had knocked the house down. Never mind hiring an excavation company to clean up the mess, he wanted to do the entire teardown and asbestos cleanup himself.
Well, bad idea. The asbestos clean up wasn’t possible as it had broken into little pieces and the neighbors figured out what was going on. The EPA arrived, shut the project down, and he is now footing a $2,000-a-day bill for their cleaning up the asbestos. Not mention the hard money he borrowed with the project, it’s turning out to cost him a bundle of $30,000.
The lesson here is this: the entire hassle could have been avoided if he had thought a little more about what he was doing. So, deal with this simple stuff on the front end, and the rest of the project will run smoother. You don’t want a $30,000 mess costing you everything!
