All Forum Posts by: Brad Collins

@John Sandoval - here’s the March meetup info. 

FYI @Glenn Gonzalez, @Rachel Miranda, @Travis Tuttle

Hi @Michelle Kline - I wish I had a good answer to this question! I can tell you how we have made progress in this area - learning through trial and error. We put a lot of sweat equity into our primary residence and our first rental property. Biggest lesson I learned was to double my estimates for time and cost!

On our current project, we are paying a contractor (more of handyman) to do almost all of the work. He has been invaluable with helping to plan things out and answer questions! He knows the problems we will run into before we get there. I now understand why you hire a (good) general contractor and am so much more willing to pay those prices. The work gets done in the right order, with the right amount of planning, and so much faster (we work full time day jobs). If it's within the budget, I would try to find someone who can be your GC!

Finding a good contractor is a whole other topic that I don't have much experience with. In the current example, I seemed to have lucked out and found someone on craigslist. I interviewed his references and just had to try and give my best judge of character... until meeting him, I didn't think I could find someone who communicated well... but they are out there!

@Peter Keddis - late notice but there's an event tomorrow at Fiddlein Fish!

For some reason I think these events are difficult to find so I'm tagging everyone I can think of!

@Travis Tuttle; @Rachel Miranda; @Michelle Kline; @Brady Yokely; @Elias Hicks; @Justine M.; @Arn Cenedella; @Leon Perry; @Christian Longacre; @Ryan Howell; @Jaime Tineo; @Alex Ritter; 

Some good points made above. For us, it's been traditional financing on deal 1 & 2. Now we're ready to get creative and itching to do more with less. I think buying your first property the traditional way is fine! Gets your feet wet, but most importantly, you're taking action! After you do this once or twice, you'll have a bit more experience and a lot more interest in doing more with less. Another (hopefully unneeded) bonus: if you royally screw up, the market tanks, and you are forced to sell, you probably won't be underwater on your loan.

Don't consider this advice, just a personal anecdote from a newbie investor in the Triad area (Winston Salem). Good luck!!!

Tagging @Rachel Miranda

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend this month's meet up but looking forward to future events. Last month was a great turn-out!

Adding @Leon Perry for future reference.

FYI: Here's the official meet-up event link if you want to add to your calendar: 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/967329-winston-salem-nc-meetup?highlight_post=5594645&page=1#p5594645