[CiD743]

I was talking to a real estate agent the other about the maintenance he puts into a house prior to selling it. He's paying approx $1.50-2.00/sqft. I guess it depends on the layout of the house ultimately.

Anyway, some friends of mine used to work at Home Depot's paint department and told me that the initial costs would be pretty low.

I was wondering if anyone else has tried this or had any insight.

[Creadiv]

I have a neighbor that is in the painting business, I will have to ask how pricing is set as a standard in the business. I will try to keep update this either saturday or sunday.

[CiD743]

That would be perfect, thank you. To me, and my limited knowledge of the industry, it seems like it would be a good business. If nothing else, maybe a weekend side job; and maybe grow from there.

[LookingforSuccess]

I own a company in Virginia that provides cleaning services to property managers and I know that the painter I see in many of the apartments says he pays his helper to go ahead of him and prep the apartments (tarps and tape) then he sprays the apartment doing 2 apartments a day and he is charging $900 for a 2 bedroom. The next day he returns to paint the trim work while his helper moves ahead to prep his next job. Seems very lucrative to me.

[CiD743]

Apartments are a great idea; didn't even think about that.

After talking to my friend again, I think exterior painting would be good too. I don't think it should be limited to interior. The only difference would be the hieght. And different type of paint. The bigger area would make it easier to spray, only have to avoid windows.

Thanks for the input, keep it coming

[LookingforSuccess]

You could also target contractors building new construction homes, around here generally one contractor will build a whole sub division, usually 100-250 homes in an area. If you can get one that likes your pricing and work you can usually contract the whole sub division and any future builds he has as well.

One other thing about apartments, I don't know where you live but in Virginia, every time a new tenant moves into an apartment, the law states that it must be repainted first. It doesn't matter if the former tenant lived there for just a few months or for a few years. Apartments around colleges tend to rent during the school year then re-rent to new tenants the next year. We have a military base here that also provides a large apartment turn over rate because of deployments and getting re stationed. Each time it is re-rented, it has to be repainted by law. You may find yourself painting the same apartment a few times a year under conditions such as we have here.