All Forum Posts by: Austin Andrews

I would check the MLS. A great residential agent would be Kelly Dagenais at Keller Williams. Feel free to PM me if you'd like her number and email. She is amazing to work with and does a lot of busy in the area. Good luck in house hunting!

I vote St. Louis (Although I am strongly biased). Contractors here are backed up for months, and there is no shortage of construction work needed. There are a great deal of rehabs, as well as new developments, going up everywhere. The suburbs out west, such as Wentzville, are throwing neighborhoods up like theres no tomorrow. 

@Justice Agbaroji what are your needs as far as personal living? If you don’t mind sharing walls, I’d recommend buying a 2-4 unit building and living in one unit while renting out the others.

Shooting you a PM

@Nathan Dehn not a bad area and definitely a great first step. There are some very quiet pockets over there for sure. I do, anything from 2-177 units. Mostly south county and south city, i.e. soulard, tower grove, maplewood, CWE, clayton, but pretty much anywhere. I have some very large listings in North County, and a couple in the Arnold and JeffCo areas. Although most, if not all, are never posted online. Have you been to any of the local meetups?

@Nathan Dehn congrats on the first property, that’s always the hardest step! I work with so many people who started out with a duplex and now own 100s of units, definitely the best way to start! What area is it in?

Pike, I'm shooting you a pm.

@Cody Smith welcome to the world of real estate, and congratulations on becoming debt free! If you go to the events section, Megan holds a monthly BP meetup here in St. Louis. Another great start it to download the "meetup" app on your phone and go to the business section, there are plenty of weekly RE meetups in the area. 

Originally posted by @Scott Moulton:

Originally posted by @Miranda Simon:

Originally posted by @Jay M.:

Originally posted by @Linda S.:

@Miranda Simon

Also-- with contractors and recommendations-- Do NOT be too trusting.  Do NOT pay early- have everything in writing.   Do NOT pay early!

 By saying "do not pay early" I take that to mean do not pay before the job is complete or punched out?  I have been in the construction / design end of this business for a few decades.  While you do not want to pay early as soon as everything is done and punched out and you can verify that everything is complete and correct - pay quickly.  

Especially in this market if a contractor / sub-contractor has 6 jobs going, they're living paycheck to paycheck and all 6 of their employers are calling and screaming at them whose job do you think they'll go to first?  The one who writes the check (upon completion / verification) immediately or the one who you submit a bill to and they put it in their "payroll system" that takes 3 weeks to issue a check? 

Jay, from my experience, I’m personally not paying no contractor before completion of the entire job. 

Now, I have paid some money upfront in the past, which is okay, but paying the full amount? No way. 

Once the job is done, I have no problem paying right then and there via check or card as long as I have an invoice in-hand, right then, saying paid in full.  

I understand your point though. I’m sure you can tell I’ve had a negative experience. No fault to the contractor...I take full responsibility for my stupidity.

I've wondered what the industry standard is for this.  I had a GC spec out a $16k job for me here in St. Louis and really liked him and his company, but when it came time, he wanted 25% ($4k) non-refundable down payment before they would even think about touching the job.  That seemed shady to me so I walked.  He said it was because they wanted to weed out the people that weren't serious but that seems excessive. 

@Scott MoultonI charge 50% down for my services for several reasons. It helps pay for the materials so I'm not extremely tied up with material on hand for clients. I have had several, several, clients refuse to pay. They had no complaints, just figured they could beat the system. This can be settled in small claims court, but when it happens 20 times a year, it becomes extremely expensive. 

Awesome story, I can't wait to see the finished pictures!