New to Nashville TN market, trying for first flip. Please advise

[Jordan A Bradley]

Hello fellow Investors,

I am a full time professional who works in the entertainment industry looking to start flipping houses on the side. I have a career I travel for regularly. I really want to break into flipping houses so I can start making arrangements for my mom who will be nearing retirement age soon. As well as build my wealth and eventually get away from traveling for most of the year. I have an LLC set up in the state of TN. I am in the process of saving my starting capital.

I have some pretty basic questions I’m hoping some of you can help me with.

First being strategies and resources on running comps. So far I've been using Zillow but I hear it's not as accurate as other sources that are available. I am not an agent or broker so I don't have access to MLS.

Second question, I see lots of bandit signs out there from wholesalers in the Nashville area. I imagine that they are a good resource for finding properties that would be good for flipping. Considering I travel for a living and I can only afford to do a single flip at a time starting out should I also employ bandit signs, check with probate offices and other strategies to find distressed properties as well?

Third if my intention is to flip should I also add a clause to my contracts that allows for assignment just as a back up?

Fourth, time for me is precious I spend the majority of my time traveling for work. I know that I have a lot of work ahead of me to make this work with my schedule. Any time saving strategies or tips for dealing with contractors while out of town or state.

I know this is a lot of questions but I figured I would get some of these out of the way first.

I am looking forward to your opinions and advice.

Thank you so much in advance.

[Luka Milicevic]

@Jordan A Bradley

Welcome to the forums! 

I'll give you a run down of the market and answer your questions.

Firstly, understand that you are entering one of the most if not THE MOST competitive flipping market in the entire country. Everyone and their mom is looking for flips right now which means wholesalers are selling their deals at basically full market price.

1-You should probably find an agent that can run comps for you and have them list the property once you are done with a deal. Zillow and those sites aren't going to give you reliable comps at all. 

2-Basically to find a deal, an actual deal in this market you need to do your own marketing and deal finding. You won't find a deal from a wholesaler. The only folks that can afford to buy from wholesalers right now are the ones that have their own contractors and buy roofing shingles by the truckload. (IE: Their renovation costs are half of what yours would be). The investors I talk to are running at about $10k in advertising for 1 deal. A few years ago it was about $1k of advertising to find a deal. If you're going to do bandit signs you need to put over a hundred of them out there. A few bandit signs is wasting your time. I've attended auctions and if you want a guaranteed way to lose money, buy a house at an auction in this market. Send letters, do door knocking and do a lot of it.

3-Not really necessary, but you could if you wanted to. You can always double close. (Check with a lawyer on your contract as this is not legal advice).

4-There are no tips for dealing with contractors. If you don't stay on them non stop work will not get done. I just witnessed an out of state investor do a flip here and it went as bad as it could have. 

I'm not at all trying to be discouraging, but you need to come in knowing that the market is ruthless at the moment. The TV shows are just that, TV shows. 

Let me know if you have any other questions.