Looking for a good system to grow my business!

[Terry Brennan]

I have been investing for almost 10 years. In the beginning I was extremely part time due to lack of funding, intelligence and confidence. Im growing every year but am not where I want to be. I am a full time Realtor, so finding deals, analyzing home values, and getting properties sold are my specialties. The part I struggle with most is analyzing repair cost with enough confidence to close more deals. I am looking for a good  system to put in place that I can duplicate for all future investments. 

[David Faulkner]

Honestly, there is no substitute for experience. If you are doing 90% of the work yourself, you are getting hands on experience that you'll need to estimate and outsource, but that takes time. A few pointers on how to get the most of that experience:

• Break the job down by labor and materials. If you have some hands on experience doing the job, this will help on both. If you do not, have your contractors break down their estimates for you in this way. Often times, a contractor will throw out whatever number they think they can get away with having you pay, but once you break it down to labor and materials you figure out that their bid is the equivalent of them making $200/hr or something crazy like that.
• Keep meticulous records of what jobs actually cost, labor (both hours and dollars) and materials. This "database" of historical prices will help you with estimating future jobs.
• When you hire contractors, be there when they work. Go with them to home depot. Ask questions, but be careful of your tone and not to be a burden on them getting the job done. If you are nice about it, most contractors will be happy to show you all of their tricks of the trade and you'll learn a lot.
• If you submit an offer based on your repair estimates, validate all of these estimates with contractors while you are in your due diligence/inspection period of escrow. If your numbers were off significantly, then you can decide to try to renegotiate the price, eat the difference, or walk from the deal. Once escrow closes, all but one of  these options goes away (you can guess which one remains :) ). Also, by doing this, you can line all of your contractors up and be ready to hit the ground running when you do close.
• Keep healthy budget reserves. The older and worse condition of the house, the higher the unknowns and therefore the higher the reserves. I start at 10% (added to repair estimates) and go up from there. You'll be happy if you don't need them and even happier to have them if you do.
• It is better to lose a deal because your repair estimates are too conservative than it is to win a deal where you under estimated. Both are bad, but the second is far worse.