Plumbing 101 for Real Estate Investors [Part one] by Master plumber Mike Quick
Plumbing should always be broken down to basic key words and topics. Legal, sanitary, reliable, durable, serviceable and affordable are  important words. Plumbing 101 for Real Estate Investors will focus on these key words and important details as they relate to short term and long term real estate investments.
Buying and planning to sell quickly (flip) can be much different than planning to rent out or hold for a long term. Unfortunately, frequently, investors that “flip” homes only focus on short term profits and don’t realize how this mistake produces bad long term results. Later, after buyers experience premature plumbing failures and other costly problems, sellers, realtors, renters, investors and others pay for short term strategies.

Premature failures, difficult and expensive to service (fix and maintain) and other problems that result from a short term strategy, can create bad renter-investor and buyer-seller relationships. Often, buyer/investors that do not understand why renters frequently complain or allow the home to fall in disrepair, falsely blame the renter for the premature failures and expensive maintenance costs. After you read this article, you should be better at identifying  realtors and sellers that properly prepare a home for sale.

You can make better decisions after you read this article and learn to understand how to balance risk and reward, based on short or long term planning.
Sanitation is always most import. Reliability and all the other words listed above are important if you plan to live in or continue to own the home for a long time. Often, even poorly made and poorly installed plumbing products will seem okay for about a year. This article is about plumbing-but-unfortunately, problems with premature failure also occur when flooring, roofing, tile and other things are not properly installed. Eventually, all of these topics are connected to sanitation and other risks.
Fancy, risky, fragile and expensive to maintain are words that are not necessarily undesirable in the short term. In the short term, as a home is prepared to sell; fancy features, eye catching features and cosmetics are usually most important. Premature failure and high maintenance costs are things that usually take a year or more to show up.
This article is organized in sections based on long term and short term decisions. There are sections about fixing up, avoiding bad plumbing (investment analysis), identifying good and badly remodeled kitchens and bathrooms and other important details to focus on as you invest in real estate.
Please be aware that poorly designed and/or installed products should always be avoided. It is not recommended that anyone cut corners, hire less than trustworthy workers or play any part of anything that might compromise the trustworthiness or longevity of anything. This article is not focused on how things should be. This article is focused on the real world and how things are.
Often, no one intentionally cuts corners or creates situations that are unsanitary and/or extremely costly to others. Not knowing any better and maybe even failing to do proper research might fall into the honest intent category. In 2017, people often base decisions on oversimplified and misleading things they learn on television or from other types of entertainment. Some-but-not all people that provide less than trustworthy products and services are dishonest.
This article is not about honest and dishonest, intentional or not. This is about the real world and how you can avoid making big mistakes.
Selling a home often requires making decisions that compromise reliability, durability, serviceability and other things. Buyers often desire the latest fancy kitchens, bathrooms and other things that might not be in their best interest long-term. In the real world, sellers have to provide what buyers want.
This last paragraph provides a good explanation of what this article is about. Fixing up to sell is much different than fixing up to rent out and/or hold long-term. Rapidly changing trends like dark to light colored granite countertops and other things do not mater short term-but-are extremely important long-term. Premature failure and the high cost of maintenance doesn’t matter short-term but becomes extremely important long-term.
Whether a person plans to live in a home more than a few years or use the home for rental income, they should focus on details concerning reliability, durability, serviceability, maintenance and try to avoid trendy colors and other things.

Part one of this article is designed to introduce this article. Part two and other parts of this article will focus on details concerning keywords mentioned in part one. Now that I have introduced this topic, I will provide a golden tip.

Focus on details concerning how a realtor’s team can help you properly fix up your home for sale or rent. Trustworthy inspectors, plumbers, electricians, painters and other trades people are hard to find. Whether you seek property management as you continue to live in your home, sell or rent your home or find trustworthy investment property, you can check old listings, references, home inspector’s credentials and other things a realtor has to offer.