In this instructional walkthrough, seasoned investor Joe Homs guides a new investor (Speaker B) through a mid‑60s Lake Forest rehab project. He explains his permit‑avoidance strategy, how to evaluate a property’s neighborhood and exterior, and the importance of coordinating demolition waste. The tour covers key inspection items: roofing, landscaping, fencing, and exterior paint. Joe details critical interior systems—copper versus galvanized plumbing, PEX repiping, copper versus aluminum wiring, pressure regulators, double‑pane windows, furnace replacement (used but new to the site), water‑heater decisions (age, tank vs. tankless), and required gas‑line stub. He also mentions drywall, ceiling work, vinyl‑over‑wood flooring, kitchen soft‑close cabinets, and fire‑safety screens. Throughout, he offers practical cost‑saving tips, code‑compliance warnings, and a realistic view of what inspectors will flag, ending with a typical YouTube call‑to‑action.
Chapters
Okay, so this first property we're headed to right over here across the freeway on the other side in Lake Forest, um, you know, typical of what, uh, Ryan buys, kind of hoarder-ish type house. Take a right onto Lake Forest Drive. Yeah, it needed pretty much everything, and you'll see when we get there. He's about 3/4 of the way done. Um, he's— I think he's gonna put the roof on over the weekend. Like I mentioned before, he doesn't get permits. About less than 5% of the stuff that he does, he gets a neighbor complaining to the city, and then they come out and they have to do permits. So he just, you know, does things without permits. He's doing the roof over the weekend because he knows that the inspectors don't work on the weekends.
Okay.
So, and plus they can get it done in a day. Um, everything inside has been removed. It's being replaced. In fact, it's pretty much done at this point. You'll see, uh, all he has really a lot left is the exterior, so the landscaping and the cleanup. It was, uh, It was pretty dirty the other day that I was there. A lot of stuff in the garage from the rehab. They throw everything in the garage, and then once that's done, then they take that to the dump. So they're not running back and forth to the dump. They do 1 or 2 loads. So it's, you know, it's, it's good to coordinate stuff like that because if— I mean, if you're running to the dump every week, that's, that's going to be very expensive to do that. That's, that was his. Okay, so when you're looking at a property, and I'm gonna go over a lot of basic stuff, so when you're looking at a property, I wanna look at the neighborhood to see what else is going on in the neighborhood, make sure things are okay. I mean, you can see the guy over there has his giant RV there. This is an area where, um, This is an area where you can do things like that. Like where I live, you couldn't do that because the HOA would not allow that. But this one doesn't have an HOA, so you're allowed to do stuff like that. So you just look around to make sure that, you know, what you're looking at is, you know, homes that have been rehabbed or in the process of being rehabbed. And that gives you a better idea, you know, what you're going to end up selling this for at the end of the day. So then you, then you focus your attention on the home itself. They've already painted the outside of this, so you want to look at the paint, you want to look at the roofing as well, the fencing, and we'll go all around, and then the landscaping.
Landscaping— Looks like it has already been signed. Never mind.
The landscaping is probably one of the most expensive things that you'll do. So if you have something like this and you're, you know, you're okay with that, which this looks okay, I mean, it's fine, there's nothing wrong with it. May have a couple of loose bricks, you want to address those things to make sure, because I mean, the inspector is going to come on, he's going to tag all that stuff.
So the home, the buyer's home inspector, right?
Right, yeah. So may as well take care of all that stuff before they even come out. So, you know, so look for things like that. And these type of homes, these homes were built in the middle '60s. And when we first started, I wouldn't buy anything less than '55. And the reason is because the plumbing was copper.
Mm-hmm.
And the electrical wiring Was copper. It used to be aluminum.
Aluminum with cloth insulation too.
Correct, and the inspectors don't like any of that stuff.
So that just pops up red dots on their inspection report.
Yeah.
You want to get yellow and green dots on the inspection report.
Yes. So when you go up to a house, and I'll show you, or you can probably see it from here, you look for the water supply going into the house and make sure it's copper and it's not galvanized. Galvanized is not good either. Galvanized is— you're probably going to end up replacing everything if it's galvanized. I think— I don't know if he did it on this one, but the other one we're going to go look at, he replaced all the plumbing that goes to all the vanities and everything. I'll show you over there.
Whatever was sort of this side of the wall that he could see?
Correct. Yeah, he did that because they had a plumbing leak. The plumbing in these homes runs into the cement, and so you can find it and you can dig up the cement and stuff, but what everybody does is just replumb it and they go through the attic and then come back down.
With PEX?
With PEX, correct. Yes, come on in. This, this whole garage was full the other day of trash. Okay, so you have copper coming into the house, uh, and they put a new, um, pressure regulator there, which we get tagged on all the time. So again, we We're trying to be preventative to this guy coming out and saying the pressure's too high. Oh, okay, well, we'll adjust it 'cause that's brand new. So we can adjust it. The other ones, if they've been there, like for this house, if it's been there 40 years, you try to adjust it, it's gonna break. So they just go ahead and just put that stuff in, you know, just again. New windows, so double-pane windows all around. You'll see that as we go in. In, in here, I think they put, uh, did they put a new furnace in here as well? Yeah, yeah.
And a new water heater.
Okay.
Sorry, Joe, these windows were existing when you purchased it?
No.
But they are new?
No, they're new. Yeah, yeah, they should be new. Maybe not, maybe they were in there before, but normally he puts double-pane windows.
Yeah, you want to get rid of the aluminum.
How are you?
Very good. Uh, hello.
New furnace. Now let's talk about the furnace. It's not a new furnace, it's new to this location, but it's used. Okay, but the one that was in here was 40 years ago, so he got a discount on this one that basically looks brand new and it's gonna work. And then he's going to remove this water heater and put a tankless water heater in. Now that's up to you. If you look at the tag here and this is less than 10 years old, then leave it. Okay, if not, then, you know, put a tankless in. Okay, that's— I think he said that's what they're going to do today is put a tankless How old is this one? Like 2020?
No, it's going to be right here.
2017. Yeah, 2017. 2017. So 7 years old. I, I don't— I would have left it, but that's a good, you know, it's like top shelf water heater though. Yeah, I mean, why are you replacing this? Because Ryan told you? Well, it was there, so it was here when I came.
But somebody, somebody reused this anyway.
Yeah, there's a new water heater right there, so they already had bought it. Oh, they did?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
So I'm just replacing it.
Okay, when you replace these water heaters, Where the gas line comes in here, you see that little stub that they put down there? That's required.
Moisture.
Moisture. If you talk to any person that does gas, like from San Diego Gas and Electric or any of the gas companies, they tell you that that's worthless. There's no reason to have that. There's no— there's— that's to collect sediment. There's no sediment in the gas. This just happens to be one of those California rules that they put in that you have to follow. That's all that is. Okay, and so that's one of the first things that the inspector is going to look at. He's going to go, yeah, he needs that. Okay, so remember that. What's on the list? Yeah, he likes to drywall, and I'm sure he'll do that. He'll drywall all of this inside. One of the other places he, he does the ceiling. I don't think he's going to do the ceiling here, but you're good. But, um, you know, he, he— and I'll show you what it looks like drywalled and painted and nice. This is, this is mostly a man area. That's why she's out there.
Oh gosh.
Okay, let's see. They took the, uh, the paper off the flooring. So, uh, vinyl flooring. This is, uh, a little bit higher grade than normal because this is actual wood, but it's vinyl underneath.
Um, yeah, it is a wood, a wood veneer on.
Oh yeah, a veneer of wood. A veneer of wood, yes. Yeah. And then the kitchen The soft-closing doors and drawers. And then this is like literally, literally just a normal kitchen that he does. This is, this is what you'll see on most of them. Break it, you buy it. If there's wood that's burning in there, even though California doesn't like you to burn wood anymore, if it goes out into anything, carpeting or whatever, it could cause a fire. So that's why you have to have this. It's required by law that you have this. Okay, the other thing, you have to have a screen on here. So before he sells it, he has to put a screen on there. You know, they— it's real easy. They sell them at Home Depot. You know, just screen that off. Sometimes it's literally just a screen, or it's the tempered glass that, you know, you can heat up basically. So that's another area of concern that the home inspector is going to come in and they're going to say, oh yeah, you didn't do that, you didn't do that, or you didn't do that. Thanks for watching the video. Make sure you like and subscribe and share this video so that other people can get informed. We'll see you on the next one.
