New Haven Flip

[Jason Arcuri]

Hello everyone,

I'm not a highly active member but I try to pop on and help out where I can and gain great info where I can too.  I recently just sold a flip that my business partner and I did in the Westville location of New Haven.  I don't know how long the pictures will be up but you can check it out on zillow if you're interested 116 Kohary Dr.

This is only the second flip I've done/been part of. The first, I ran the whole project and actually did a lot of work myself. This one I did the complete opposite.

I took more of a backseat roll and my partner ran the project.  I would check up on it and follow up to see how everything is going.  We took on a general contractor that is young and just starting out.  I love working with younger contractors because they usually are more aggressive and more active.  Well, this one did not work out that way.  He ended up charging us the prices of a high end remodeling company and was a pain.  Lesson learned, good bye.  We gave a new plumber a try and when inspections came around, there were numerous things done wrong.  On top of that he single handedly set us back a month to two.  Lesson  learned, good bye.  

On the good side, my electrician is phenomenal.  I've been using him for years and he's never failed me.  We had some things the inspector wanted fixed and he made sure that he squeezed us in on off hours.  We ended up having a mold issue and we found a great mold remediation guy who did it at a fraction of the cost of everyone else who came out to look at it.  He even sent a piece out for testing afterwards to show us he did what he said he was going to do.  We also had the water supply for the heater burst 2 days before closing.  He let us use his fan and dehumidifier.  Lesson learned, Hello.  

Overall, the whole thing took over a year from purchase to sold.  That's just horrible.  However, I'm a real estate agent and this is just a side thing.  The same goes for my business partner.  I know where we can save money now and I know where we still need to find more guys.  We are on our second flip together already and just hit the 2 month mark with probably only a week or two to go before it's ready to be on the market.  Can you say night and day? We also went way over budget on the first and are looking to be coming right in on budget at the moment on this one.  

I'm writing this to show that every experience in real estate is a learning experience.  There is no way every deal is going to go perfect and sometimes you get burned.  There is amazing information on here but until you get your hands dirty, you really won't know what is going on.  Things look great on tv and on paper, but tv's fake and paper is theory.  Start small where the loss (if there is a loss) will be minimal.  Figure out who you are working with and don't be afraid to ditch them and go onto the next guy.  When you find someone who is good, don't ever burn them.  I know we all want to make the most, but I'll take a few thousand less to keep myself surrounded by the right people.  When the **** hits the fan, those people are the ones that bail you out.  The house is in my name and I'm the real estate agent that listed it.  My business partner is also an agent at another firm.  I made sure that he got 50% of my commission because it's the right thing to do.