New Member

[Mathew Allen]

Hey everyone,

New member here, already learned a lot by just lurking for awhile and figured it'd be a good time to join and try to learn more!

Background:  I'm 35, NYS Real Estate Salesperson, Accounts Payable Specialist at a local power plant (scheduled to decommission in 2018) , and Amateur flipper. With the end of my current full time job in site, I figured it'd be a good time to start the foundation work for a full time career in Real Estate.  When I was 22 I bought 20 Acres of land in rural Tompkins County, NY and GC'd my personal house on it.  I've always been interested in Real Estate as a hobby and my uncle owns a local Real Estate company so I got my license about 5 years ago.  My wife also manages the mortgage underwriting department at a community bank.  Last year we decided we wanted to try our first flip.  The numbers looked like this:

Purchase Price:  $60,000

Rehab:  $40,000

Comps: $150,000

We used the equity in our house to fund the flip and the project was slated for 6 weeks.  We stuck tight to our timeline but went over budget a bit.  We planned on re-finishing cabinets but a trip to Ikea and we ended up with new.  We also added granite countertops.  We listed the house at $165,000 and had over 10 Showings in 2 days.  Then something interesting happed.  Another agent from my office contacted me about my personal house (we had been floating around the idea of selling and building another since our family was growing).  We ended up selling it with 5 acres (keeping 15), but needed a place to stay so we pulled the flip off the market after 2 days and moved into there over the winter as I GC'd the building of our new house on the remaining 15 acres of land.  We relisted the flip and sold it for $156,000.  We made about $31,000 after closing cost and commissions. 

Now that the family and I are getting settled down into the new house, I find myself getting the itch to do another flip or possibly start investing in some rentals so that I can put myself in a good position when my full time job comes to an end in a few years.  Anyway, sorry for the long post!  Thanks for the great articles and information, I look forward to learning more!