All Forum Posts by: Chris C.

Hi Johnathan,

Feel free to reach out.  My wife and I have flipped close to a hundred homes in the area, own a real estate brokerage, have 25 rentals, manage properties, and are now financing others for their real estate endeavors.  Would love to chat and see how we can work together.

Chris Creasman

I have a business and personal line of credit with Wells Fargo.  When I first started out and had to manage cashflow much more closely than I do now I would use those line of credits to smooth things.

@Russell Vincent Conner I have been investing west of Greenville for about 15 years.  Welcome to BiggerPockets and feel free to reach out anytime.

 Agreed.  That was my mistake in assuming only reselling properties in my post.  

The considerations you mentioned do carry much more importance in a rehab and hold strategy.

 Generally, when speaking of location with real estate investors and professionals, they are referencing the type of locations in their investing area.  You are correct in that I only buy in my area of expertise. However, within that area, location takes a back seat to price.  In the general definition of location, used by most real estate professionals, it will always take a secondary position to price.  If you want to apply the definition of location on a national scale, then of course I believe most investors stick to their areas of expertise.  Even if they have expertise of various areas around the country, they stick to those areas.

I believe we can all agree for this conversation, and I believe the intent of the original post, is that location references the type of location within someone's area of expertise.

@Account Closed Considering this is the Rehabbing and Flipping forum it is already a job.  If you are actively rehabbing and flipping properties, it is a job.  Even if you do it like I do, primarily relying on contractors for the work, you are still finding properties, analyzing deals, managing materials, managing contractors, handling negotiations, and selling the property.  (My wife is our agent)  My wife, son, and myself all work full time to flip 10-12 homes a year.  The money we make off of flipping is then used to make the decisions you mention.  If we get a deal we pursue no matter what our thought are on "cash flow", "appreciation", "tax write offs", "estate planning" , "generational wealth".  We need to profit to make those decisions.

@Scott E. I have bought, rehabbed, and sold properties with all the issues you mention.  If you buy right then it makes up for the rest.  You got a D or F property in the Upstate of South Carolina please forward that lead to me.  I have flipped everything from singlewides to lake homes and have actually made my highest margins on flipping mobile homes.

Obviously my vote is price is king.  Location only matters if you can get it at the right price.  You do not by a class A area for to high a price and you don't buy a class F property for to high a price. Common denominator.  Price.

Look into a RETS Connector.  http://www.retsconnector.com/

I used this and created my own application to pull into Podio.com but it creates a csv file.  We own a real estate brokerage so we have access to the feeds but you may be able to work out a deal with an agent in your area.

I rehab/flip 8-10 homes a year and purchase about 5 rentals a year.  Feel free to contact me.

Thanks

Chris

I own multiple LLC's that hold several SF rentals in each. I recently acquired a commercial policy that covers all my rentals across the different LLC's. How does this affect the ability to pierce the corporate veil? The commercial policy is in my name.

@Joe Splitrock My interest rates on the loans I would be paying off are 8%.

While I know this is not what you meant about the tax write off, you have hit on a bit of a pet peeve of mine.  There are many good reasons for leveraging.  However I have never been able to justify paying a bank $4800 for $960 back from the government.  If anyone needs a tax write off then please send me a check and I will return 30% of it with an invoice for the rest. ;)  I do understand the point you are making though on calculating the true cost of the loan.

I couldn't agree more with your third paragraph and this is one of the biggest negatives for me.  Not planning on divorce or bankruptcy but nice to have that pile of diversified cash sitting there.

@Randy E. Your comments are one of the biggest positives for me while I am considering this.  The momentum I would gain going full time in real estate could give me the opportunities to far surpass anything my 401K would do.  I am still relatively young at 44 so still have plenty of time to build my future full retirement.  The suggestion on an emergency fund is a great one and my wife and I have maintained a 6 month cash emergency fund for about 15 years now. We have slowly been growing it in preparation of leaving W2 job next year.

@Michael Jones Great story and I appreciate you being brave enough to come on here and post it.  As Michael said and I would like to go on the record here.  I would not encourage anyone who does not have significant holdings and/or experience in real estate to even consider cashing out a retirement account to START an investing career.  We are having this discussion to see if there is a smart time to cash in a retirement account. I believe for most people it would be a bad decision and possibly very stupid.  Some here believe it is always stupid but I appreciate everyone, so far, respectfully sharing their opinion.

@David Dachtera  I agree with you 100%.  I however have a short term cash flow need that requires planning not based on maximum return in the short term but releasing my maximum potential for the long term.  I do however also believe there needs to be a certain amount of idle equity as an insurance policy against changing market conditions.  i.e. 2008

I would also like to say that I plan on leaving my job next year with or without cashing in my retirement accounts.  Cashing in the retirement accounts only became a consideration now that I am being forced to make a decision about my companies pension.