All Forum Posts by: Chris Marshall

Marvin Hernandez Russell Brunson is good even though he isn’t about real estate particularly but his stuff on marketing is great. Tim Ferris of course (4 hour work week) and Mike Michalowicz (profit first). My book collection isn’t that big so I listen to these books and pretty much everything Grant Cardone has put out also rich dad poor dad.

Thank you everyone and I do have a wife, no kids yet. Although I haven’t invested in the real estate portion yet I do feel as though my general contracting company will be a huge advantage once I can get the funding for a flip. I’ll have all the connections to other contractors, I’ll have the managing skills to actually get the project done. And other benefits. It is incredibly scary to be out on my own (my wife also owns her own business). But if you can find a way to start a business to help you with a bigger dream or goal later down the road I say you go for it! “If your not scared your not doing anything big enough” - Grant Cardone.

I quit my job back in March of 2017 and here is why. My goal for real estate investing was pretty much like everyone else’s. Financial freedom. I also didn’t want to work for an employer. It was killing my soul. Banks at the time wouldn’t lend to me for at least another year and I was having difficulty understanding how to actually get private money. I decided if it would take at least a year before I could afford to do my own flip why not start my own business being a general contractor and renovating other people’s homes for them so I could learn. I had been in construction for many years but never a general contractor and most of things I had no clue how to do. But I knew I wanted to do flips. Recently I just finished up my first renovation on a customers basement. It was a 1000sqft apartment (for their elderly mother) in a basement in a very nice house worth at least a million dollars and I was very fortunate that they allowed me to be the general on the job and that they gave me a chance. It all worked out well and although it wasn’t my own real estate I am very happy that I am on my journey. I have one bank that will finally look at lending to me once this years taxes are completed for my business but until then I am starting yet another renovation. This time a full gut job on an older home. Without bigger pockets I’m sure I’d still be sitting at a desk selling insurance just dreaming about owning my own business. I still don’t own any rentals and haven’t done a flip but I’m closer than I was in the beginning of this year and I’ve been working for my self this whole time. It’s been very nice. So thank you bigger pockets. I know I am not on here very often and I don’t post often but you still inspire me and keep me motivated to keep pushing.

So far the banks won't look at us because we both ( my wife and I) each started our own businesses earlier this year and they all require at least 1 year taxes since we are self employed now. I haven't been able to find a way around this yet. I would look more into hard money but I'm not sure how to run the numbers with using hard money. I've been figuring the loan pay back with a HELOC because we don't have a large amount of cash but we do have about 60% equity in our house. We can take out about 60k right now and stay under the 80% LTV on our house. So I've been figuring payments on the HELOC. I'm only looking at properties that I can purchase and renovate for 60k. I know that is a limiting factor as well since it's hard to make 10-15% profit off of a 60k flip. Any more thoughts on this? Or am I just better off waiting till December, file taxes and then in January go to the bank for a HELOC?

Thank you all for the information, I did try to cancel my membership but unfortunately they told me I had only 36 hours from the time I purchased it to cancel my membership so I am out $997 but that's part of paying for my education right? I do feel like I lost that money but it has at least made me learn about tax liens and I will pursue purchasing them in my local area. Thank you again for the information and if anyone has any tips on how to research more about tax liens or sources of information or books I'd like to hear about those as well.

Welcome chris, I'm a little south of St. Louis, in farmington mo!

I didn't think of whole scaling the property. I've never done it. I understand it in concept but have never looked into it.

When I use the bigger pockets tool to find hard money lenders in Missouri none show up. Has anyone on here used a hard money lender from Missouri that they would recommend? And if not, how can I make sure one that I call up off of a google search is a trust worthy lender?

So now that I have the property under contract what should I do. I have the contingency "based on finance" but I'd like to keep the property if I can find a way to make it work.

I need money advice, here's the situation. The banker my family uses and the one we used to get some money out of the equity in our house when we first were gifted it, told me we were pre approved for a loan to do a fix and flip in their lending area using the 60% equity remaining in our house. He knew full well that we both had just started our own companies earlier this year. And that we were looking to do fix and flips. He told us this wouldn't be a problem and that we were still pre approved for the loan. So we went out and earlier this week we found a property we liked put an offer on it and put it under contract. When we got our banker the information he wanted to finish up the loan (two months of bank statements and business books showing income) he tells us that they won't lend to us because they want at least one year taxes now. This banker is the Vice President of the bank he works at and he lied to us. Now we have a property under contract and don't have financing. If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear it. I looked up hard money lenders in my area and there don't appear to be any. I'd like to use someone local that I could drive to and talk to in person but if there is anyone that the bigger pockets community trusts I'll use them at this point but then again I didn't run the numbers accounting for hard money since I was pre approved for conventional financing. Any ways if anyone has any ideas I'd love some input. Thank you