AIPIS 38 - Home Improvement Tips with Tom Kraeutler

Welcome to the AIPIS show for accredited income property investment specialists and those who aspire to be. If you're a real estate, mortgage or financial professional, this is the place for you. We'll explore innovative investment analysis, sales, marketing and income generating strategies for the most historically proven wealth creator income property. Learn from the experts as they show you how to build a better business and a better life.

Welcome to the AIPIS show for accredited income property investment specialist and those who desire to be. This is your host, Jason Hartman where we talk about increasing your income, your productivity and just generally having a better life while serving your clients better with America's most historically proven asset class income property. We have a great interview for you today and we will be back with that in less than 60 seconds.

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It's my pleasure to welcome Tom Kreitler to the show. He is president of Money Pit Media and co host of the Money Pit, the nation's largest nationally syndicated home improvement Radio program and home improvement expert, Tom. Welcome. How are you?

Thank you very much for having me. I'm great.

Well, good, good. So you're coming to us today from New York City, correct?

That's correct, yes. I actually just returned from the 2013 National Hardware show, which is an interesting trade show because it's where the manufacturers in the home improvement, hardware and decor industries roll out all of the new products that you'll be seeing on store shelves in the coming months.

Fantastic. Well, yeah, let's talk about some of those new products. You know, we're in a rapidly improving housing market and there are always, Tom, certain prudent, smart improvements that people can do to their properties to increase value and make them more rentable as well. Not just increase value, but, you know, attract tenants to those properties too. What, what are some of these key improvements? And then let's kind of drill down and talk about some of the exciting products. You know, we definitely want to talk about the, the areas of efficiency, energy, water, et cetera. But smart improvements.

Well, I mean, curb appeal is really a good place to start. And it's always been important to make sure that your property looks good from the outside. Now, the traditional way of buying real estate is when the realtor piles you and his or her car and drives you around street to street so that you could do these drive bys of homes and find one that was of interest to you. But curb appeal today has gone beyond the drive by to its more important role as setting the stage for a great photograph taken from curbside, because most folks are serving the Internet to find their homes today. And you want to make sure that in that thumbnail image that comes up on a prospective buyer screen that your place looks good. So curb appeal is still key if you want to attract home buyers.

Yeah, that's the first place to start.

Yeah, first place to start. So what that means. And I spent 20 years as a professional home inspector, so I know what folks are going to be looking for. But what it means is basic cleanup of the exterior. That means scrubbing the sidewalks, scrubbing the side. And you do that, you want to make sure that you get rid of any debris that's lying about the outside of the yard and really throughout the entire house. Getting rid of the as much debris as possible is important because you've got to remember that a prospective home buyer does not want to buy a house that's as crowded as the one that they're probably leaving. So you want to make sure your house is as open as possible. So Making sure you declutter the home painting is a critical improvement. And that includes painting on the outside. Make sure that your home has a fresh coat of paint, if it's a home that's paintable, or at least the trim and painting on the inside. And when it comes to painting on the inside, you want to choose neutral colors. You don't want to choose anything that is too strong because you want to make sure that a respected home buyer can imagine their stuff in your house if it's neutral and they can't.

Right. And when you say home buyer, I just want to mention that's probably completely interchangeable with the word prospective tenant as well, Right?

Well, certainly, yes, exactly. The tenant as well is going to want to have a neutral place to move into. So I aspired a couple of products that are new that could help with some of those projects, which I'll mention to you. One I think is perfect for an investor because when you buy a home, you invariably have to get rid of whatever junk was left behind. Dumpsters are expensive to rent. They can damage your driveway or your yard. There's a product called the Bagster dumpster in a bag that solves that. It's actually a fold up dumpster.

Those are really amazing products, by the way. I've seen some of them advertised from the waste management companies. Now, I don't know which one you're talking about exactly, but pretty amazing stuff here. Go ahead.

Yeah, I actually think they're all the same. I think there's only one size because it's designed to open up to a four foot by eight foot by two and a half foot tall dumpster. It's about the size of the back of a big pickup truck. And you know, if you're into remodeling and you're buying and selling homes all the time, you can pick up, you know, four or five of these things to always have around. Because what you do is you pay for the bagster on the initial purchase, which is $29.95, and then you fill it up. It takes in a whole £3,300. And that's a lot of stuff. I mean, that's full of carpet water heaters and bathtubs and kitchen cabinets and bicycles and whatever junk you got to get rid of. And then you call waste management and they come out and they pick it up with a hook and they take it away and it ends up being 70% less expensive than the cost of that dumpster rental and a whole lot more convenient as well.

Sure, yeah. Yeah, that's great. Good. Well, other items, I mean, definitely. Let's talk about efficiency, energy saving, water saving, any of those products.

Well, when it comes to the green aspects of the home, clean water, clean air, we're seeing a lot of innovation in those spaces. For example, one of the other things that used to have me as a professional home inspector when I looked at properties that were being sold, was you would open up the blower compartment on the furnace, take a look at the blower, and that, of course, is where the filter goes for the most part. And it would just be caked and caked and caked with dirt and dust. You really need to change those filters because your air inside can be even more polluted than the air outside the house. And there's a new filter system out in 3M called the odor reduction filter. It's a filtering product. And what's interesting about this is I've never seen where you've been able to take a filter that pulls out not only pollen and dust, but also scrubs the home of odor. So if you cook fish the night before, you're not going to smell it for three days. And you know, if you're buying a home that's been vacated, they almost invariably have an odd odor to them. And so that can help clean that up. Then you can also clean your water with water filtration systems. You don't just have to use the small inefficient water filtration systems that fit on a faucet cap. There are large whole house systems now. The prices have come way down on them. Fill Freed has one that's a whole house quick change system. You install it at the main, it's under $100, and it filters all of the water in the house. So water you drink with, wash clothes with and so on.

That's amazing. Under $100, those prices have come way down.

Yeah, they certainly have. And actually they designed the products so that they're easier to install and certainly easier to maintain. They'll still need a plumber to help you put this in because you're going to have to cut into your plumbing line. It's not hard to do. You could do it yourself, but you may need a plumber to help you on the installation side. But then the filter change is very simple. You would simply turn off the main water valve and then you unscrew the old Filtreat filter, you screw in a new one, and they last for 12 months. And importantly, they have an indicator that tells you when the filter Needs to be changed. So, yeah, prices have come way down, efficiencies have improved, and gives you the ability to enjoy water that tastes good and is better for your clothes and washing and so on.

Yeah, fantastic. So, water filtration, how about water conservation?

Yeah. You know, when it comes to water conservation, there actually have been some advances in that. And this includes products like hose nozzles. So, for example, when it comes time to hook up the hose, which so many of us are doing this time of year in the spring, and we put on the hose nozzles, they always leak. At least the ones in my house always seem to leak. Doesn't matter how many times you change the washers, they just seem to leak all the time. I saw one that's brand new on the market. It's called the Little Big Shot super nozzle, and it's a solid brass hose nozzle. It fits in the palm of your hands. It's very small, maybe an inch and a half tall. And it's made in the usa. They've designed this from the efficiency perspective so that now it can deliver 40% more force than the average hose nozzle, but use 40% less water at the same time. You can adjust this to shoot a 40 foot stream, or you could dial it back to a very fine spray for like seedlings. And this product has an interesting backstory because it's made in the USA and it's assembled by disabled veterans.

And I assume the technology there is. It's somehow turning it into an air jet. Right. And that's where it gets so much force. That's a very good point.

And that's what's happening with a lot of the efficiency in plumbing fixtures. So in the faucets and in the shower heads, for example, they're figuring out how to use air strategically in those streams so that they're aggressive and they wake you up in the morning or they clean the driveway or whatever the purpose is, but they use less water at the same time.

Yeah. You don't feel like you're getting shortchanged on your water pressure, right?

Exactly. And if you look at a product like a toilet, for example, completely redesign the way that works, because you still flush your valve and the water is let into the toilet and it washes the waste away. But the channel that waste follows now is a wider channel, so you need less pressure to do the job. And it's glazed on the inside, so it's. There's no friction. So you can find toilets now that will flush at a rate of like 1.28 gallons of water.

So very little water versus the traditional is five gallons.

Yeah. Three to five gallons. Yeah.

Right, yeah, yeah. Fantastic. And so for investors, this can save them a lot of money. I mean, if an investor is paying utility bills, which occasionally they are mostly in single family homes, the tenant is paying that stuff. But a lot of apartment investors as well. I'm wondering, you know, have you done any analysis on the payback period for this? I mean, say you own an apartment building or you know, a fourplex where you're, you're the investor, you're paying the utilities and you're just dumping that all into the lease, or you're paying maybe the water and tenants pay their own electric, et cetera. What's the payback time frame on this? I mean, can you get your money back in two years for the increased expenses?

The thing is, the ROI numbers look better and better and better as time goes on. So for example.

With the Watersense certified fixtures and faucets, that's the EPA's program, it's very similar to Energy Star. But if you look for that WaterSense labeling, that WaterSense certification, that means it's a water efficient product, you're going to use 30% less water with that. And the good news is that those fixtures and faucets don't cost more than a traditional fixture or faucet. It's becoming the norm. And that's a key thing that's happening now. Green has become cool, green has become the norm. You have to work pretty hard to find something that's wasteful today in terms of products. And then if you look at other things investors can do to control expenses. If you are paying heat in your building, there's some really interesting new wifi thermostats that are out today where you can program the heat from a remote location. So without standing in front of the thermostat and setting it where you think it should be, you could have a WI FI connection on your smartphone and set the heat wherever you want. So you could set ranges and WI FI thermostats today. Like for example, there's one called Nest that I've used. They have motion detectors in them. So if nobody's in the house, you can set in a way, temperature that leaves the heat down when there's no movement. So with the technology of thermostats today, you can really save a lot of money. I mean, a lot more than you could have with a clock setback, because you can even drop the heat down when you're away.

Yeah, Fantastic. Good ideas there. It's amazing what's happening. We're really moving into the era of the smart home, aren't we?

We are. If you go to a trade show like the Consumer Electronics show, which I've been to a number of times, we saw over the last several years, more and more folks that are working on developing smart home technologies where you have sort of common control systems and so on. I have not yet seen a leader emerge in that. So I'm not ready to jump on board with one particular technology because it usually means you've got to do something to your windows or do something to your doors or do something to your outlets or whatever to kind of make it work with the system. But individually, there's a lot of cool products that work better and better. Let's look at light bulbs. There's a light bulb out now from Crease E R E E that's available at the Home Depot. That's an LED light bulb. Now when these first came out, I remember seeing them being $60, $70 a bulb.

Yeah, the prices are coming down nicely.

Yeah. Well, these are now under $10 for a 40 watt bulb. And I think it was about. I think it was $13 for a 60 watt bulb. And these are 86% more efficient than incandescents. And so not only are they more efficient, the price has come way down. And you're talking about buying a bulb that's going to last you 20 plus years. So if you think about it, your light switch, your lamp is going to probably wear out before the bulb that you put in the lamp.

That's amazing. Wow. Totally amazing. LED is a great technology. It's so much better than the compact fluorescents, which have just a whole array of problems associated with them, including toxic cleanup issues as well.

Yeah, that's right. And this free bulb, also think that's so small they put a coating on the outside of the bulb and so if you drop it, all the glass stays inside of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic. What about color? You mentioned painting in neutral colors and so forth. But what do you think about, you know, maybe one colored accent wall or just. Any more thoughts on color and painting?

I think color is good when it's used strategically and you know, you take a little bit of risk if you're an investor doing this. I know it's boring, but nothing piece white walls and beige carpets if you're trying to sell a house or get somebody to move into it or rent it. But if you own a house, I think Color accent walls are important. Color can be used strategically, and it really does improve the look of the place. And another product that I saw you reminded me when you said color at this past national hardware show is a product called Renew by Leviton. Now, Leviton is famous for manufacturing lights and outlets and switches and things like that. Now, what Renew is, it's a wiring device, and it can be a light or an outlet or a dimmer that is available in 20 different colors. And here's the way it works. You wire it once, then you have a color change kit, which actually for under five bucks can change it from white to blue to black to silver. And if you thought about it, if you had a room that you decorated for your newborn baby, and then that baby becomes a big boy or big girl, you redecorate it again, and then that baby moves out, goes to college, and that room now becomes a home office. You redecorate again. You can change the colors of the lights and the outlets and switches as you go without rewiring. That's the key. In literally 15 seconds, you can pop off the old colors and put on the new ones.

Yeah, very interesting, very interesting. Talk to us a little bit about painting and the high tech sort of painting that's going on nowadays. I mean, there's been real progress there. It's not the same old thing as it used to be.

Well, it's not. And this is another area where green has become the norm. It's hard to find a paint that has VOCs today. And so most of the paint has become much more environmentally friendly. And it's also gotten easier. I always say that what makes a good painter is good painter's tape. Because if you do a good job masking all of the places that you don't want paint to be, your painting job comes out better. So even masking tape is smarter. Today there's a product by Scotchblue that's an exterior painter's tape that has a new feature, and it's called Quick Snap Tear. If you've ever painted and tried to rip a piece of painter's tape, it comes off in sort of this weird 45 degree or less angle. Well, this Quick Snap feature now enables you to get a 90 degree angle at the end of the tape every single time you tear it. So if you got to get in tight to a corner of a window, for example, you can do that. The tapes now are designed so that if you have to go around a curve like a curved window or curved porch railing, something like that they flex and they bend and you can leave them on now for up to a week without leaving a lot of gunk behind when you pull the tape off.

Yeah, that's a fantastic tool. Painter's tape makes the painter, huh? That's a good way to put it. Well, what's going on with the show? Give us a little insight into where the show's at and where it's going and tell us more.

Sure. Well, I mean, the Money Pit has grown steadily over the last several years. We're heard on 330 radio stations around the country and it's fun. Every weekend, my co host, Leslie Soretti and I get to talk to folks from all across the country and up and into Canada. And we answer home improvement questions, we solve do it yourself dilemmas. We give advice to folks that are doing it themselves as well as those that are directing it themselves. Maybe not picking up the hammer, not picking up the saw, but hiring folks that do that sort of work but want to know how to find that right professional or if they are going to be building a deck, should they design it with one layer, one level or two? Or what's the difference between a standard roofing shingle and a dimensional roofing shingle? And we serve sort of their home improvement coaches in coaching them through those sorts of decisions and helping them find the information that they need to make that all important decision.

Yeah. Fantastic. And the website is moneypit.com that's moneypit.com.

And you can listen to the show there. You can also subscribe to the podcast and you can also call us 24. 7. We have a live call screening any time of the day or night at 888 Moneybit.

Fantastic. Well, Tom, any closing advice or thoughts for people?

Well, I'll tell you what, the economy has gotten so much better. There's been a lot of optimism at the trade shows that I've seen that are attended by home building industry professionals. And so I think it's going to be an exciting time to do remodeling work, to do home improvement and building work. And there's more and more information out there. It becomes more difficult sometimes to sort through all of the information. But I say always break it down. Take one project that you can do, you can do successfully and build on it from there and you'll get it done. And if you need help any step of the way, we would love to be able to help you with that process. And you can reach us again@moneybit.com or by, by calling us at 888 Money Pit Excellent.

Well, Tom Kreitler, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you and have a great day.

This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company. All rights reserved. For distribution or publication rights and media interviews. Please visit www.hartmanmedia.com or email media hartmanmedia.com Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own and the host is acting on behalf of Platinum Properties Investor Network, Inc. Exclusively.