Hello BP! Newbies from Nashville/ Middle Tennessee!

[Christa Fly]

Well, it would appear that the general consensus of the BP populous says that I need to stop by here and introduce myself…so, hello there!

I’ll try to keep this as condensed as possible but to explain who I am and my experiences up til now will require a little reading…here goes!

“Me” is actually defined as a 3-member team.

• I am the researcher/analyzer/number cruncher/laborer.
• My fiancée, Tim, although not an actual GC, will play that role as he has been in the building trade (residential and commercial) for almost 30 years.
• Bryan, our realtor, who’s a very successful realtor in the Middle Tennessee area for going on 9 years, who, himself, has successfully flipped two residential properties on his own.

This is our journey thus far:

We (Tim and I) relocated to the Nashville area in 2012 for employment reasons. Tim is a phenomenal builder/craftsman and it has always been his dream to rehab and resell (flip). He is, and has been for many years now, a builder for large, architectural millwork companies (Tim has every tool, saw, etc. imaginable). I’m in the healthcare industry but have been more than ready to make a change due to, in my opinion, a decline in the quality of healthcare thanks to budget cuts and pencil-pushing bureaucrats. I started out full-time but made the decision to go part time last fall.

We met Bryan through our own home buying process. I purposely stayed in touch with him after the purchase because I knew that he’d be a huge resource in determining good areas from the bad. At that point we were really just trying to save, save, save so that we could eventually move forward with our first rehab. Although we weren’t ready financially, I spent close to a year reading and researching the actual flip process and not what the “Gurus” would have you believe. Two publications that I really got a lot from were “Flip” by Rick Vilani and of course, J Scott’s, “The Book on Flipping Houses”.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving of 2013: I had a friend come visit form Florida. He had just sold his house in the Florida Keys and had banked quite a bit of change from his equity in the property. After seeing all of the improvements that Tim had done on our own home, along with looking at Tim’s portfolio, he said he wanted to invest with us (he would spend up to $75K cash).

From December 2013- August 2014, we lost four properties (all REOs from the MLS) through the bidding process. One property, the bank accepted our offer, I dropped off the earnest money check to the seller's agent, got a call three days later saying that our contract was a no-go because the bank was going with another offer! What???

In December 2014, our Tampa investor’s bank account had a substantial amount removed by the IRS from back taxes owed on a business he had in Key West that closed back in 2004. Needless to say, our ability to move forward came to a halt.

Bryan phoned me afterwards to let me know that even though our Tampa friend was out, he wanted to invest with us as soon as he's able. He and his wife are buying a new home (in the construction phase now) and putting their current home on the MLS on March 1st. As soon as his home sells, his debt to income ratio will level to a point that will allow him to secure an investor’s loan.

Important tidbit: Tim and I did apply for our own loan to see if we could swing a flip by ourselves and we didn’t qualify. That’s another story all together.

We own a property in Cordova,TN that we are getting ready to put on the MLS in two weeks. It was our primary residence until we had to move to Nashville…it has since been used as a rental. We are hopeful that once it sells, timing-wise will work with Bryan's timeline of events to hopefully move us all in the direction that we want to go.

REIN- I have been to a few of the meetings and have even paid for attendance to a couple of seminars. I will be attending a few of the local branch lunches in the very near future to network with local hard money lenders in the event that something happens and Bryan is unable to invest.

Right now we have a dynamic team…it’s just a matter of getting the finances to move forward with our first property. It will happen.

So BP...that’s my crazy long intro! We are super stoked to be here and look forward to everything that BP has to offer…cheers!

Christa