All Forum Posts by: Chris C.

@Glenn Gayet There are many great plumbers but very few own their on business.  Most work for someone else who knows how to obtain financing, find jobs, manage people, etc.  The list continues on endlessly with the responsibilities of running a business as opposed to just being a good plumber.  
The same holds true for a renovation company.  The ability to manage a rehab project does not mean that they could also run a wholesale business to find properties, find investors to fund the deals, and then market the properties after completion.  And then after all those task are mastered all the back office work of taxes, paying vendors, etc.  That is why most people on this board are successful because they can perform these many task until they reach a point to higher specialist and start to leverage other people's time.

@Michael Hassell This is how we run our rehab business with a very standard process.  Local real estate agents know one of our homes as soon as they walk in from the finishes.  The difference is that all of our rehab proceeds go to build a rental portfolio to smooth out the ups and downs in the markets.  That's the theory anyway.

All that being said I am still trying to figure out how to take my local business to the next level much less branch out nationally.

I am also interested in this.  Currently stuck in that spot between my wife and I handling it and hire a project manager.

Consistent deal flow seems to be my limiting factor.

@Kuba F. Yea I have a tremendous amount of time in it.  It auto populates the SOW's and pretty much builds the budget.  Only thing I need now is try and decrease the amount of time it takes me to walk through a property and populate the data.  Generally spend about 2 hours getting all the data in to the sheet.  Kind of clunky trying to enter the data directly into the sheet so trying to figure out a better interface.

That is correct @J Scott as my entire business model is based off your books.  I did not think of that before sharing.  Please message me if I need to remove this for copyright or other reasons.

@Erin Silva I usually do recommend J Scotts book in these situations but was quickly responding.  You will do yourself a huge favor by getting his books and utilizing his information.

Here is the sheet I use to manage all my rehabs. 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1y2wnoHVg-VRfI0QY...

Many debates over LLC's and how much they actually protect you. If I had it to do over I probably would not of put my rentals in an LLC and would cover liablity with insurance. That is just my personal opinion and encourage you to speak with a lawyer, accountant, and insurance agent.

@William E. priorities are spot on.  Don't over think it.

We have had the exact same experience.  NEVER trust a title search from ServiceLink personal.

@Kuba F. I expect I will need better automation at about 1 rehab per month (12 a year).  That is also the same point I would expect to bring on an employee/project manager.

I would need it primarily to handle workflow, material ordering, estimating,etc.  My deal analysis is handled fairly well in Podio so really it would just need to be the nuts and bolts of the rehab.

To clarify my post we use quickbooks for the financials and a spreadsheet for scheduling, materials, scope of works, and project budgeting.

We are doing 8 rehabs a year off a google spreadsheet.  Have thought about apps etc but as mentioned above it doesn't make sense yet.  The next step I might take is using podio but have not figured out exactly how to make it work for all the different aspects of a rehab yet.  We already use podio for a lot of other systems.