I went into business with some friends from college and we now have a pretty successful company.
We are in the business of purchasing older buildings, renovating them, and then putting them back on the market.
We have been doing this for about five years now and it provides a really good income for each of us. I am the one who is responsible for finding, purchasing, and then marketing the properties for resale. Thankfully, my friends are the handy ones who do the bulk of the work. There are times when we need to contract out for a certain job but that doesn’t happen often. At the beginning of a project, we set a budget to ensure that we will make money. Afterall, as much as we like each other, no one wants to lose money. We recently purchased an older storefront downtown and wanted to renovate it into a space that could be used for a diner or restaurant. Everything was going great until the EPA inspector showed up. Do to the age of the building and the HVAC system that was installed, he said that the HVAC system no longer met the current standards for air quality. He informed us that the emissions that came from the system were so high that we would need to replace the entire thing. This expense was definitely not in the budget. Normally, when you purchase real estate, you have an inspector come in and access the structure, appliances, and overall condition. We buy most of the places without this so we can get a better price. This purchase is going to cost way more than we had planned because installing a commercial HVAC system is not cheap.