Newbie from Orange County, CA, and a bit about me

[K B]

Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum, but certainly not to the online community. My names Kelsey, I'm 22 years old and have had an interest in this industry ever since my parents got involved in investment properties. Recently a patient of my father's offered to get him involved in flipping, however it turned out the time involved was too much, instead the offered deferred to me.

The man I am working for owns his own Mortgage company based around Hard Money loans out of Los Angeles, however he also is a General Contractor, owns his own escrow company, and holds a Real Estate License among other things. He really has carved out a niche allowing him to perform almost all functions in-house, creating leads off of every call.

Anyhow the initial plan was to get me started as a Loan Originator, then once I was familiar with that end of things I could grab a property and he would walk me through the process. However a property presented itself that he felt would be perfect, and we are in the process of acquiring it now. Thankfully I have superb credit for my age, and he feels this would be a great opportunity to get going with things.

Right now it is in foreclosure and we are going to do a bail out allowing the owners to still live there while we do upgrades. You'll have to excuse any misuse of terminology, I am still quite fresh. We are paying off a lien, rolling in fees to rehab, investor fees, and also one years worth of mortgage payments. The plan is to allow the sellers to keep their property assuming they can get their finances and credit up to par over the next year. Buying price will be 290k, however the property is valued at closer to 500k.

Today and tomorrow I go to look at it as well as get some much needed face time with my boss to discuss all the ins and outs. I have established an LLC and filed my dba, so that is taken car of. Planned is a meeting with his companies in-house lawyer as well as a good RE CPA.

What I'm now looking for is a some of the common pitfalls associated with this sort of deal. The next two days will be crucial information gathering so I'll know more and can post back with the numbers, but I thought I'd get a feeler post out there. I also have friends in the industry I trust and value to help me through this, but so far all has been on the up and up.

I know this is truly trial by fire, but he has insisted working without a net is the best way to do things. that fits my personality and style, not to mention I am great at self education and actually prefer it more generalized learning via college. I am completely open to all suggestions, at this point I am information hungry, and willing to learn. Anyhow, that's me, that's what I'm doing, and it sure looks like I'm in the right place for it.

-Kelsey