Roof · failingPaint · 8-yr cycleKitchen · 1998
Tue · week 0Site walk · scope signedWalk the property with the investor. Allowances flagged on the contract, not buried. Number signed before any crew arrives.
§ 03.13Investor + flipper · TX + NE Ohio · Operator-to-operator
The bid holds. The schedule hits. The warranty travels.
For real-estate investors and flippers who have lost margin to a contractor whose number moved. Site walk before the price. Change orders signed before the crew touches anything. A workmanship letter the next owner gets at closing. We won't pad the bid with line items the property doesn't need.
One property · 14 weeks
What the closing file actually looks like.
One representative buy-rehab-sell from our investor book. Site walk Tuesday, scope signed Friday, crew on-site Monday — fourteen weeks to listing-ready. Below: what got replaced, what got kept, and what shipped to the listing agent the day we closed it out.
Tue · week 0Site walk · scope signedRoof · replacedMech · sequencedDrywall · staged
Weeks 1 – 12Parallel zonesMechanical, electrical, plumbing run as overlapping zones. Monday PM email lands every week with photos, schedule status, and the open change-order list — same format capital partners read.
Kitchen · in-housePaint · finishedCloseout PDF · sent
Week 14Listing-ready · PDF outPhoto set, scope of work, materials list, permits, inspections, and a workmanship letter rewritten in the next-owner’s name — emailed to the listing agent the day of substantial completion.
Bid discipline · pricing
The number on the contract is the number at closeout.
Surprise billing is what makes a flip lose money on the back end. Every dollar past the original bid is a documented and signed change order, priced before the crew touches it. Four rules below — same on every investor engagement.
B.01
Site walk before the number.
A senior estimator walks the property with you, takes field measurements, and writes scope line by line — drywall feet, electrical points, square feet of paint, flooring transitions. The bid is a contract, not a placeholder.
OutcomeNumber that lands → number that closes
B.02
Change orders signed before the crew touches it.
Material substitution, hidden condition, scope addition — written, priced, and signed in advance. No end-of-job invoice surfaces a number nobody saw coming. Two on a typical 14-week run, both routed through email and signed within 24 hours.
OutcomeNo surprise billing at closeout
B.03
Allowances called out, not buried.
Tile, fixtures, paint, finish hardware — owner-selected items run on transparent per-unit allowances printed on the contract. Spec above the allowance and the math is in front of you that day, not at invoice time.
OutcomeSpec changes are a math problem, not an argument
B.04
Draws tied to milestones, not calendar days.
Rough-in signed off, drywall hung, finishes complete, final punch — that is the draw schedule. Calendar-day draws on a flip become a problem the moment the schedule slips. Milestone draws stay aligned with the work.
OutcomeCash flow tracks the project, not the calendar
Schedule discipline · throughput
Parallel zones compress weeks out of every rehab.
On a 14-week rehab, a sub-heavy GC stacks trades end to end and waits. We run mechanical, electrical, plumbing, drywall, and finishes as overlapping zones — same scope, three weeks of carry off the back. Meter below is the math.
Typical sub-heavy GC
~17 weeks
RA · parallel zones
14 weeks
Δ Saved~ 3 weeksof carry, holding cost, and listing slip on a representative scope.
- Day 0Site walk · scope written, signed, priced60 – 90 min
- Week 1Permits pulled · trades sequenced · materials stagedCritical path locked
- WeeklyPM email · photo report · schedule status · open change ordersMon AM
- MilestonesRough-in · drywall · finish · final punch (jointly signed)On-site
- Listing-readyPhoto set · scope · permits · warranty letter — single PDFPre-listing handoff
Closing file · warranty · resale
One PDF. The next owner gets everything you got.
A workmanship warranty tied to the original payor is a marketing line. The closing file we ship — a single PDF, six chapters — is what makes the resale cleaner. Listed in disclosures, copied into the buyer-side packet, worth real money to the next owner.
Closeout PDF/handoff/closeout-final.pdf
- 01Photo set — every wall, every angle, before and afterJPG · 2400px
- 02Scope of work — line by line, with allowances + change ordersPDF
- 03Materials list — brands, models, finish IDs, source receiptsPDF
- 04Permits + city inspections — pulled and signed in our nameStamped
- 05Workmanship warranty letter — rewritten in next-owner nameTransferable
- 06Manufacturer warranty register — per-product transfer rulesAnnotated
Resale questions, plain English
Does the workmanship warranty survive when I sell?
Yes. The labor warranty transfers with a notification letter to us at closing — we rewrite it in the next owner’s name. No fee.
Manufacturer warranties on the roof or windows?
Manufacturer-by-manufacturer. Some transfer automatically, some require a written transfer within a window after closing, some carry a one-time fee. The closeout PDF lists the rule for each product.
Can the closeout PDF go to the listing agent the same day?
That is what it is built for. Lender-readable, listing-ready, buyer-side packet straight in.
Self-perform vs sub · transparent
What we own. What we sub.
On a flip, every handoff is a delay. Most of the work is in-house — same crews, same project manager, same warranty letter. The two trades we sub are mechanical and flooring, both on standing rate cards so the schedule does not chase a quote.
- Carpentry · trim · framingIn-houseSame crew on every project. Framing, trim, and finish carpentry on the same hands.
- CabinetryIn-houseBuilt and finished in our shop. Six-sided finish, soft-close hardware, scribed on install.
- Drywall · paintIn-houseLead-painter walks every wall before primer. Color-match repaints on partial areas.
- Roofing · siding · windowsIn-houseFull RA crews. Same teams that ship our /services/roofing and /services/remodeling/exterior pages.
- Mechanical · electrical · plumbingSub · standing termsThree vendors per region on standing rate cards. They invoice us, not the investor.
- Flooring · countertopsSub · standing termsSpecialty installers on standing terms. Templated in-shop, installed under our PM.
Note for homeowners. This page is for investors and flippers. If you are a homeowner, the remodeling hub at /services/remodeling is the right entry point — we do not run homeowner conversations through this surface.
§ 12Continue the manual — related to this page
§ 01.08Roofing
Roof replacement
One day on the roof. Twelve lines in writing.
Tear-off, no overlay. Twelve-line written spec on every contract. Balanced ventilation measured before bid. 25-year transferable workmanship warranty. Both states.
Read →
§ 03.06Remodeling
Exterior remodeling
Six trades on one schedule.
Painting, siding, stucco, rotted-wood repair, windows, exterior trim — sequenced under one PM with one phone number. Same scope discipline that ships our pre-listings and investor programs.
Read →
§ 03.01Remodeling
Kitchen remodels
Eleven trades on one schedule.
A ten-week kitchen calendar with a single project manager. Plywood-box cabinetry, six-sided finish, soft-close hardware, integrated appliance spec, stone counter field-templated at week 8.
Read →
§ 04.01Programs
Insurance claims
Your storm. Your scope. Your carrier's check.
Fifteen years on the carrier side. Documented loss, written scope, adjuster meeting on-site. Out-of-pocket: deductible only.
Read →§ 04.02Programs
Pre-listings
One PM, one number, listing-day packet.
A pre-listing partner that owns the whole exterior. Walk-through on the agent's cadence, written scope, listing-day packet (before/after photos, materials, permits, warranty letter) handed off in time for MLS.
Read →§ 06Reach the project-manager desk
Bring the address. We bring the bid that holds.
Phone-first. We will run the site walk, scope the work line by line, and email a contract-ready bid before the end of the week. No upsell, no scope creep — we won't pad the bid with line items the property doesn't need. Operators do not fill long forms — the number above goes to a project manager.
(214) 578-9961