All Forum Posts by: Jon Stephens

Thanks Lindsey!  I'm actually already signed up for it!  Very much looking forward to it.

I've started looking at a variety of deals to try and figure out the first step I want to take to get things going.  My ultimate goal is cash flow for financial freedom, so I know my end-game is for sure going to involve rentals, but I've read a lot of advice to start with flips.  

I've got about $175k cash to invest.  I've scoped out a collection of units that will cash flow $2,000/month for about $600k. The BP calculators considered this a pretty strong deal.  My concern is that buying this will leave me too ill-liquid to roll the snowball any further in any reasonable amount of time.  

Would it be better to do flips until I get a bit larger egg?  Would it be better to purchase perhaps lower cash-flowing properties that won't require as much capital in parallel?

For what it's worth, I get that every situation is different and ultimately everybody has to make the decision for themselves... That said, as a newbie looking to surround myself with as much sage advice as I can before I jump!

@Account Closed - I'd love to learn more.  Please send me a direct message.

No worries at all Tony.  As somebody who has long numbered among those "quiet lurkers learning" out there, I absolutely appreciate the value of over-sharing detail!

Thanks for all the great feedback guys!  I'm not trying to race to the bottom because I can't afford it;  On the contrary, I actually have hard capital with no lending required.  I'm a big believer that business transactions should make us both happy.  My greater concern is getting somebody to call me back at all since I'm not bringing them a ton of work.

Sounds from some of the feedback here that my volume won't make a difference in getting dialogues, and I'll just need to get in there and see what the reality is versus my perceived realities and fears.

Thanks for the tips!

Good morning all!

I am eager to get started with trying my hand at some house flips, and one of my concerns surrounds contractors.

How do you get contractors on board in a market where they are struggling to find enough help to complete the existing obligations, material prices are sky-high, and as a starting flipper, I don't have enough volume to be attractive to the contractor.  I've had trouble getting people to come out for personal jobs even knowing I have cash.  Likewise, when I speak to builders, they complain constantly that they are running into issues with their subcontractors, and these are people with long-term relationships that are able to bring higher volumes of work.  I don't know how to compete with that.

Am I jumping at shadows? If not, looking for strategies people currently use that have been helpful.  

Thanks in advance!

Good afternoon everybody!

I've lurked here for a bit here and there, but I've decided to take the plunge and post.  I'm not really sure where to begin and would welcome any sage advice.  I've had a successful corporate career for some time that affords me a pretty good income.  Combine that with my wife's exceptional ability to manage money, and we've built up a decent pool of capital that we'd like to put to work making better than the 10-15% / year we're getting out of traditional investments.  

I've looked into a few things that can be done while continuing in the day job, and the idea of investing in real estate keeps bubbling to the surface.  I love the idea, but don't have a clue where to begin.  Whenever I see success stories, they usually involve boot-strapping, or leveraging somebody you know from somewhere to give you some opportunity that you were able to martial forward to get the snowball rolling.

• We don't really have a network of people (friends and family are all in different states)
• We aren't Real Estate agents
• I don't have any handy-man/rehab skills

This sounds bad to me even as I write it, but all I really have going for me to get started is funding and a sincere interest in learning and growing myself.  When I start running the numbers, money starts slipping away for all the services that I would have to pay for out of pocket, and I start getting lost trying to figure out how it works so well for everybody else.  

So, I've decided to try something different and ask.  Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel from other people's stories, maybe I can start my own here by asking you all directly for advice.  Do I have enough to actually get things going?  If so, where do I even start that takes things past what I might get from a forum or a book you can purchase about how to make money doing flips?

Thanks in advance!  I'm grateful for any thread that will help me get some momentum.