storm damage? We’ll take it!

• 

During the middle of our renovation on Sunset, we fell victim to some major storm damage. Hail damage to be exact. We called the insurance company who sent a claims adjuster out the next day. He looked at the roof and the siding damage. He concluded that there was in fact hail damage and that we would need to get a few quotes on repairing the damages. Danny and I immediately thought, if we need repairs to the siding and roof, why not see how much extra it would be to convert the carport into a garage?!

State Farm was only going to cover damage on two sides of the house and the new shingles. We asked to include in the estimate the other two sides of the 6 inch aluminum siding and to convert the carport to a garage. If we are looking at receiving a claim payment to replace part of the siding, it made sense to replace all sides and look into doing repairs we were wanting to do anyways.

After getting quotes for the siding and shingle replacement, the insurance company then depreciates the shingles and the siding based on certain facts like how old the items are. Once we knew what the insurance payout was going to be we could make an educated decision on whether it made sense to invest the extra money to have the siding and garage added. The estimate of repairs was around $18,000-$24,000, and $6,700 would be our cost to add the additional repairs. We decided to do some of the garage conversion work ourselves to keep the cost down to the original $6700. Danny installed a new garage door, an entrance door to the back yard and drywall inside of the garage.

Here are a couple of main points we considered when making the decision to “piggyback” on an insurance claim:

How much are we going to pay out of pocket for the additional repairs? If your payout doesn’t even come close to covering the cost of a complete replacement, you may want to consider just going with a new paint job just to freshen the house up a bit.

You will want to understand how much you will need to pay out to complete the replacement project. Talk with your contractor and get a good understanding of what is being covered on their quote and try to look for anything that may have been miscommunicated or overlooked.

How much can we expect to sell the property for? Simply put, how much do you expect the property will be worth when you are ready to sell. Realtors are a good resource to use here. Especially if you are expecting to sell soon. They will always be looking for a new house to list on the market and are usually more than happy to give you some advice on the market in your area. Return on investment is important. If you put in too much during renovations, you may end up on the losing end, making extra repairs a moot point.

Lets’ talk numbers for a minute here. We purchased Sunset for $42,000. We put in $13,000 in renovations (kitchen, bathroom, floors, paint, blinds, front and back doors, garage door, landscape, etc.) We’re all in this far at $55,000.

The out of pocket cost to us to finish out the remaining two sides and converting the carport to a garage was around $6,700. For us, this additional cost to walk away with all new siding, new shingles, and putting in a finished garage, it was worth it!!

We were at $61,700 all in and ended up selling our house after 4 years for $84,000. That was a $22,000 profit and no capital gain’s tax since we were in the house at least 2 years! Also keep in mind, most renovations were completed by us and we cash flowed the repairs, so when selling, we ended up receiving a check for over $40,000!!

Another way we were able to make a little more money on this deal was that Danny is a licensed Realtor with FC Tucker Emge Realtors and was able to list the house himself. This was one of his first sales and when this house hit the market it was hot. We ended up with multiple buyers bidding for this property and we sold this house in less than a week!!

• 

Thank you to everyone who are currently following our blog and our journey! Make sure to sign up via email to receive notices every time we post:)