All Forum Posts by: Levi Gale

If the space permits I'd love to attend. Glad to see you putting this together, great job.

How do you guys comp homes in hot markets? Do you use more pending comps, and verify the price it’s selling for? Is that too risky, or is that an avenue that makes sense? I know its peak price time and we can expect the prices to drop in the next month or two, but we still have to be competitive at any time. Right?

I closed my second flip in June so I have to say it was a big month for me personally. But in reality I didn't accomplish much else. I found the CPA that I want to work with, found a pretty good electrician, but will probably keep looking for more. I did attend the local REIA meeting for the first time, and plan on going again this month. But mostly I have just been searching for deals. Found one but couldn't lock it up it was decent seller financed deal. Slim pickings right now, but I am noticing I'm not dropping enough offers.

Hey Thomas, are you starting investing in Kansas from scratch, or do you already have something set up there? It would be pretty neat to follow an experienced investor move, and start up in a new place.

I had family running it for me, because I was overseas. I thanked them for the help, and they understand that this isn’t a family business. The plan for the next one is to use a GC to coordinate the rehab, simply because I would hate to have contractors at the wrong place at the wrong time. I am still using all cash and no hard money so I feel that I have a bit more wiggle room to use a GC until I’m more comfortable. I definitely can’t use hard money if I can’t finish a rehab in a timely manner. All I would do is run my holding costs through the roof. So until I get the process perfected I think I will stick to just risking my funds.

I could be wrong but I believe that you deal in higher value homes, and I would imagine yours are a bit more custom. I’m working on building a system that will fit most homes in my target areas. I think I can make the rehab timeline extremely short with a bit more experience, education, and tweaking of course.

Thanks for all the contributions on BP I have definitely learned tons from your posts.

I completely agree, and am working on that now. I'm definately open to recommendations so if anyone here has any please feel free to PM me. It's officially done now need to build my team, but more importantly it's time to find some deals.

As promised here are the results of my second flip.

Purchase price = $67,900
Rehab cost = $38,610
Fixed costs = $16,963 * includes closing costs, taxes, fees, and agent fees
Total invested = $108,575
Sale price = $150,000
Profit = $26,527
ROI = 24.43%

But I have yet to see the final utility bill so knock a few hundred off of that.

This was purchased and rehabbed while I was out of the country, but sold after I returned home to make the move to full time investing. It had multiple offers come in, and we accepted one at 14 DOM; however the buyers father died so they backed out after ten days or so. We received 3 more offers after that (1 not yet qualified though), and accepted one of those offers at 33 DOM. The initial buyer backing out was very painful and caused me to drop price 5k after a few days back on the market. I think that was a mistake but either way it worked out rather well.

Mistakes along the way are mostly all related to the rehabbing process. I did not oversee any part of that process, and now know I need a great team to do the rehabs for me. The rehab took about 3 months to complete, which is something I am already fixing. I am building a team of contractors now, and will almost certainly hire a GC for the next project.

Total time invested was 143 days, and that was the biggest failure in my opinion. But I come out of this one with my head up, and look forward to the next one. I pick up the check tomorrow $135,102.

Originally posted by Steven Hamilton II:

L Gale,

If you have questions on finance don't hesitate to ask. Where in AZ are you located? If you are near the Phoenix/Gilbert Area, I do have a recommendation.

I am one of several accountants on here who are happy to assist with tax and accounting questions here. Don't hesitate to ask basic questions on the board here as you are not the only one with the questions.

Be sure to ask about their interests in real estate. Run if they don't have investments themselves. Also remember that you don't need to have an accountant who is located directly in your area. Many accountants have clients in other states/countries.

-Steven the Tax Guy

Steven,
I'm in the Tempe, Chandler area, and I did go see The Blau Company per your recommendation to another BP'er. Their office is actually just down the street, which is very convenient. I have a few more to visit, but I did like them and will quite possibly use them for at least one item. Pending how the other interviews go I may use them for all of my needs.

Thank you for your contributions on the site, your posts have been helpful in many ways.

Definitely not what I’m trying to do, and I agree with you that there is a problem with trying to do that. I recently had a roofer come do an estimate for me, and try to pitch me for a side job at the same time. I politely said no, thank you.

I appreciate the post Ren Ver, and found it very informative; however I was a bit confused with your CPA statement. Are you saying you picked a CPA without interviewing them? If so then I would have to question your team building ability, simply because nobody in the right mind would add members if they didn't feel they would compliment the rest of the team. I am shopping CPA’s, but not for a lower price. Instead I am seeking one that understands my interests, will be there if I need them, and is willing to give straight forward answers to my questions. And guess what, there are many to choose from I don't need to point my finger in a phone book and say “that’s the one”.

All in all I think I'm going to stick with hiring contractors to avoid the risk for now.

How do you guys go about paying an individual for work performed? For example I know Joe Nobody that does plumbing work, and he does a great job. Can I offer him a side job, if so how do I pay him and account for it all properly? I recently interviewed my first CPA, and they were still selling me and just danced around the questions. I don't blame them though I can understand, but I have two more CPA's to interview before getting a full consultation.

Well May was my first month home in almost 3 years, so naturally I took a 10 day vacation out of state. Most of this month was catching up with people, but I did accept two offers on my latest rehab. Two being the issue though, the first offer had a death in the family and backed out. This latest one is looking good and is set to close in just over two weeks.

I expect June to be filled with networking (just signed up for the AZREIA meeting), and I'm also hoping to make serious progress on building a team. I have set a meeting with a couple CPA’s, and one is thanks to a recommendation from this site. Oh and if any AZ locals have any contractor recommendations please feel free to shoot me a PM.

To sum it all up I accepted an offer, and other than that I just enjoyed finally being home.