Out of the $500,000 we spent rehabbing my latest apartment building (here are some pics), the most important thing we bought cost $300.
What was it? Advice.
We called in a great designer to pick colors for us. It took her 20 minutes of going through paint samples until she hit on the perfect combination of colors to tie together the whole building.
I get so mad when I see a beautiful old building savaged by some handyman who chose a color scheme based on whatever was on-sale at Home Depot. Those buildings call out to me… “Buy me,” they say. Because I know that I can paint them, add a bit of landscaping, remove some horrible window bars, and suddenly what used to be a depressing apartment building turns into a community good tenants would be proud to call home.
Sometimes this business isn’t rocket-science – you just need the right advice.