how to get good offer prices, finding good comps, correct repair estimates, and formulas to crunch the numbers.

[Rod Coleman]

I am fairly new but what i have so far in my learning is that u can pretty much find comps anywhere but that doesn't mean there actuate, and as far as estimating in some book and programs they tell u to pick a number, for example what i have learned is that depending apon the shape of the house going from ugly to real ugly to junk 10,000, 20,000, to 25000 and also depending apon the size needing to be in the area of 1000 to 2000 square feet then to take these unreliable number in to this formula ARVx70%-repairs = MAO and back off slightly for profit now like i said i am new so ,but i do know this is complelely dumb for me use do gurus bring your answers and add your knowledge or subtract from this and tell us newbies how to correctly run the numbers and come up with offer that guarantees u money even if u have to flip the deal over to and end user of course that is if it sales lol...

[Jon Holdman]

Experience. If you're new to the business, there's no substitute for getting some contractors to come give you bids for the work. Once you've have bids for some job, such as replacing a hot water heater, you can use that for future work. Others, like a roof, would need to be adjusted based on the size.

For some kinds of work, you can call a contractor and say "I need a roof replaced. Its 30 squares, 3 in 12 pitch, and has two layers on it that need to be torn off. Can you give me a ball park figure."

For things like carpet and paint, you can apply Mike's materials based method. You should be able to do to any carpet store and given them your dimensions and get a quote that's pretty close. For plumbing and electric, figure out the parts cost then add somewhere between 5X and 10X for labor.