ARV and Home Improvement along with introduction!

[Ankush Ratwani]

Hey everyone,

Had a couple of newbie questions and wanted to introduce myself. I started my REI journey during the middle of last year after stumbling into it from personal finance podcasts such as ChooseFI, and after listening to some of the biggerpockets podcasts which spun me into the amazing world of real estate and how it can help me reach financial independence. I have listened to many podcasts along with read several books and started browsing the forums everyday. After reading David Green's book on Long Distance investing, I think I will need to do out of state investing as my current , and possible future market (Washington DC and Denver), are overpriced and not conducive to cash flowing properties. I have been looking in the midwest and found a market I want to start in (Minnesota) , also reaching out to a BP member who is in the area who introduced me to a good property manager. 

I am currently saving up 20% for a conventional loan (as it may not be possible to owner occupy) and my biggest concerns at this point (along with all the other newbie concerns) is that one of my recognizable weakness is home improvement. I plan to buy a property under market value if possible and then use BRRRR in a SFH, or multi family if possible (duplex, triplex). While I have a passion to learn everything I can about rehabbing a property, I am starting from the ground up and was wondering if you guys had any good ways that you started. My main concern, as this will be out of state, is to not get ripped off by contractors and understand what needs to be rehabbed in order to improve the value and how to even estimate ARV accurately. I have read J Scotts introduction to estimating ARV and understand you need to look at comps and use the method where you compare similar properties. I also know that a team effort is vital in this as the property manager I have found has a good idea into estimating ARV, knows contractors and does BRRRR himself. I have a year or so before I have the 20% saved and wanted to start learning about what goes into home improvement such as the price differences between countertops, flooring, etc.

Any advice or resources you guys have would be great. Glad to be apart of this group. 

[Armin Nazarinia]

Welcome to BP Kush!! I would start going to some of your local REI meetups. We have some out here and I've been to a few with contractors there so you can ask questions to them and I believe they provide honest answers since you're not bidding anything with them yet. Getting 2-3 bids is important because you'll want to see what the cost is based on the location. Lastly have everything in writing so the scope of work is agreed upon for both you and the contractor. Keep up the research and in one year you'll be killing it!