Construction Management classes before doing a fix/flip

[Carl Devitt]

   In the interest of being more educated in dealing with contractors I'm considering taking construction management classes at a local college in the spring 2015 semester.  Has anyone gone this route before getting into the fix and flip cycle?  Maybe some of you have much deeper pockets than me but with kids in college I can't really afford to lose  thousands of dollars in the future and reclassify it as my education in rehabbing.  

[Grant Smith]

As someone with an Construction and Engineering Management Degree as well, I agree with Dave and Brad. With your concern on planning, Maybe look at available courses or tutorials on some project software.( In school it was Microsoft Project), most commercial builders will use Primavera, and online objects for residential like builderTREND and Foundation. You can also look up the formulas to understand the math behind the program.

Estimating, is probably best done through experience with walk through's with contractors and looking at their task list and estimate for each job. Most contractors will do free estimates on jobs and there's nothing wrong with getting many different estimates on your first couple projects to insure you A. Get a good price B. Understand what each one is looking for and finds. C. Great a small data base of estimates to run through some analysis to get a general idea of an average cost for each job so when you get more experience you can cut back on the contractor bid's and run your own quick estimate with a spreadsheet using your avg cost.

Same with Evaluating