Many people that are new to real estate investing think that saving money during the rehab of a property will help increase their profit. Whether the property is a flip or you plan on holding it as a rental property, investing in quality products for your rehab will increase the life of your asset. However, you do not want to put marble floors and gold plated door knobs in your investment properties. There is a happy medium when choosing how much to spend when updating your property.

The duplex I just bought had a leaky shower head. We looked at it and even had a plumber come look at it  because I could not find a solution to the leak. While Tim, the plumber, was fixing the shower I asked him to tighten our toilet as well. When he lifted the toilet we found that the toilet flange was completely rusted out, the subfloor around the toilet had rotted from the shower leak, and the vinyl flooring had been damaged. After finding all of these issues I decided to do the repairs myself. Well, with the help of some family members of course. 

This is how it went:

This was our starting point for the bathroom

Pulling up the vinyl flooring.

After we pulled the vinyl flooring up we cut out the square of subfloor that was rotted, added in two by fours to support the new subfloor, and added a new 3/4 inch piece of plywood for the subfloor .

Once the subfloor was replaced, cement board (hardiebacker) was placed on top of the subfloor for water proofing. Tile adheres to cement board better than plywood as well.

New tile being laid down.

After all the tile was placed we grouted and sealed the tile.

Finished floor with tile baseboards to make the entire floor waterproof!

The entire floor and subfloor fix costed us only $600 after we got a bid for $1500, and the bid was just laying new tile! Not only did we save money, but we put in a floor that should last for a very long time and looks much better! Tile is also much more waterproof than vinyl or wood which will protect against water damage for years to come.