All Forum Posts by: Chris Kay

@Jake Baker Thanks, that's helpful! Okay that seems like good news for making a BRRRR work in my market since I was looking to spend something like 45-75 on rehabs for these smaller sized homes.

Unfortunately I feel like a new roof is going to be pretty standard on the things I'm looking at so it might just have to get done on a regular basis. Almost nobody in the Upper Peninsula has air conditioning though so maybe can save money on just doing a new furnace and not a full HVAC, we'll see.      

Now I gotta get linked up with a good contractor and see what they have to say. 

Looking to get into the BRRRR game and trying to estimate how much renovations will cost for an average distressed 2-3 bedroom home roughly 1200 square feet or less. I still need to link up with a contractor and talk this out, but I'm wondering if anyone had examples where they put around $50k into a home and what the results were.

I keep hearing that costs of labor and supplies are rising (when aren't they?) so I'm wondering if around $50k is reasonable to get a smaller single family home up to speed where it looks something like what you'd see on HGTV.   

I understand that starting condition and location will play a factor here, but just wondering what your experience has been. I'm in Michigan if that matters for specifics. 

Edit: I don't plan on doing any of the work myself aside from the most basic of things. I'd rather stay out of the way and let professionals do their thing.  

@Guillermo Perez I'm looking to get into my first BRRRR soon. How did you go about finding your contractor? My lender and realtor don't seem to know who I should contact so I'm on the hunt in my area of Michigan.

@Preston Dean right, right, that's very true about the commission! Okay thanks for the advice, I'll see if I can get in contact with someone local from Keller Williams. 

The UP is a pretty far away place though for most people so we don't have representation for a lot of things you'd normally find in most places. We don't even have Chick-fil-A which is a tragedy.

@Mike Dymski thanks for the advice! Okay I'll reach out to some realtors and see what they say. I already talked to one who helped me find my current single family home and she said she could help me find a multifam. I just recently came up with the idea to BRRRR too so I'll see what she says about finding these significantly cheaper properties.

@Drew Sygit Yeah I think what I'm going to do at first is what @Michael Paling recommends and try to manage myself in a multifam that I house hack so at least I'll be on site. Hopefully I don't screw anything up too badly while I learn. 

I'll definitely grab Turner's book and hopefully when issues arise it can just be used as a playbook for how to respond. I really hope I get to a point where I have so many rentals that I don't want to manage anymore, that's the dream! 

@Charles P. Thanks for the advice! So in finding a realtor you were able to find one that could help find something I'm looking for, distressed properties to BRRRR? I think I'm just not understanding what sort of realtor would be willing to help do something like this because I assume most realtors are used to finding you a move-in ready primary home and that's really what they know, and that the price needs to be a certain level to get a worthwhile commission. I just feel like if I ask most realtors to find me properties less than $20k they're not going to see the value in using their time to do that.

@Preston Dean So those searches aren't giving me anything for my area, probably because the Upper Peninsula of Michigan isn't exactly Hollywood or South Florida. Probably too why I can apparently still find fixer-uppers for less than 50k lol. 

I'll admit I don't really understand why an agent would want to help me find such cheap properties so I'm not exactly sure how to begin finding an investment agent like this. I can see if you're BRRRR'ing 3 times a year, and maybe I'll get to that eventually, but starting out I feel stupid asking an agent to help me find properties for $10-20k, like why would they want to do that if the commission is so low?

But with wanting to start by managing my own properties, it seems like I need to find an agent who does this type of work who can then get me in contact with a contractor and lender. Maybe by finding a lender first though, because that seems like it'd be an easier approach for me to do in asking about the refinance, I can find the other two. That might be a better way to go. 

@Michael Smythe That would likely be a good way to go. My only reservation in starting with a PM is that since I'm just starting out I think I want to try managing my own properties at first, at the very least to learn how to do it. While I'm looking to BRRRR I'm also going to try house hacking a multifam so would be on site to manage. If that's my plan it probably wouldn't be good to start with contacting a PM right?

@Tim Ryan nope not a contractor so definitely need to find a good one. I'm not quite sure how to go about finding one but I guess start asking around and see what names come up.