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Housing renovation expert travels to make lender owned properties habitable and bring them back onto the market

House Renovation in Columbus, OH
Before	After

After six weeks of arriving in Columbus OH, Irwin Weingarten will depart back to his home. He leaves behind a successful project of rehabilitating four vacant and vandalized single family homes and made them ready for move-in by new tenants. Irwin went to Columbus on behalf of a California lender, who like so many lending institutions, is being forced to take back properties from borrowers who do not continue making their payments or who simply walk away from the properties.

As was the case here, the repossessed properties had been vacant and the local neighborhood “independent scrap entrepreneurs” vandalized the copper plumbing, electrical wiring, bathroom fixtures, and cabinets. Even the new carpeting in one of the properties had been removed. They were kind enough to leave the padding intact. “The thieves, through trial and error most probably, have learned construction techniques very well, knowing exactly where to break the drywall and locate the concealed plumbing that serves the kitchens and bathrooms” says Weingarten. “The most frustrating thing is that they cut and remove the exposed basement wiring and we have to spend a great deal of time to trace the circuits back to the main electric panel”.

Weingarten flew into Columbus with only the addresses of the property and the contact information of the borrower. Within a month and a half period, he surveyed each of the properties to make an initial assessment and proceeded to locate all the necessary contractors and trades people to renovate the homes under his direction. Weingarten’s career as a multi-faceted entrepreneur in the energy and construction fields provided him the varied and most necessary skills to approach these projects even in an unfamiliar location and successfully complete them in a very short period of time.

Depending on the value of the property and the budget available to bring the properties to a “For Sale” or “For Rent” condition, several approaches can be used. By traveling to the properties, Weingarten establishes a presence for the lender that serves as a clear statement to those he might engage to complete the work that there is a pressing interest on the part of the investor or lending institution to bring the property or, in this case, properties back into the market for sale or rental earnestly.

The first step is to get a detailed picture of the status of the properties and generate a complete Scope of Work, thoroughly research the local contractors and compile a list of bidders to complete the work. This promotes competitive pricing among the local vendors and trades people. In many instances another approach is used. Irwin drills down and resources the local community locating experienced hourly laborers who are currently performing rehab work. He then supervises the day-to-day work with a hands-on approach, thereby completing the necessary renovations in the most time efficient and cost effective manner possible. The on site supervision by Weingarten, for the lender, coupled with issuing payments to vendors and trades people only upon progress of the work ensures the lenders that no funds will be lost to trades people should they not complete their portion of the project. In addition, Weingarten sees to it that all work will be completed before final payments are issued, including all “punch list” items.

In the case of vacant and abandoned properties, the local utility companies must also be contacted and brought to the property to re-establish gas, water and electric services.

Weingarten has focused the company’s construction activity to extend these services to banks, property management companies, private lenders and individual investors throughout the United States. He is committed to personally traveling to the properties, remaining there until the work is complete and the properties are rehabilitated to the degree required by the client.

“Many lenders, who may be far removed from their properties, feel they can be easily taken advantage of by local trades people when long distance communication makes supervision very difficult at best if not impossible. I come to the projects with only my clients’, be they lenders’ or investors’, interests guiding me. I provide them with my pair of eyes assessment and an honest method to have the all the work performed”.

After obtaining his engineering degrees at New York University he founded several energy startup technology companies and commercialized them to viable businesses in Los Angeles. He is now pursuing construction rehabilitation project opportunities.

Irwin Weingarten can be reached at his cell (818) 331-8186 or through his email:
i.weingarten.1@alumni.nyu.edu