All Forum Posts by: Colin Merrill

@Colin Jones I just turned 25 and am planning to leave my w2 this year.  Started when I was around your age.  It got way easier to stay motivated after seeing the cashflow come in even if it was small.  31 doors at ~50% ltv and 2 flips held with no mortgage currently and a live in flip.  Getting laid off during the virus and then being brought on gave me a glimpse into how much happier I'd be just running my own show.  I think starting out reading some books like The One Thing and Rich Dad Poor Dad helped a lot. It's also been a game of sorts, how fast can you make so much income or how good of a deal can you buy, etc.  I'll probably either continue adding doors/flips or start or buy a non rei business next, as long as it's still a fun game I'll keep playing.

Looking for some opinions about what you would do if you were in my shoes.  Here's a little bit of info about me:

25 years old with 21 doors, a live in flip, and 2 other flips going with a partner with no debt.  Base income from a 20 hr per week job of 25k per year.  $50k last year from rentals, 67k from flips.  I'm currently burning about $50-55k per year to take care of my family.  My short term goal is to leave my highly stressful inner city Property Management Maintenance job.  My long term goal is to take my net worth from 1-10m as quickly as possible.  I am closing on 4 deals this month, one a hotail, one flip, one 6 family hold, and lastly this deal that I'm not sure what to do with.

The property: 1319 Michigan Ave South Milwaukee Wisconsin

Purchase Price: $14500 + CC of $1000

Rehab: $45000 or less

ARV: $150k

Potential Capital Gain: $82500.00

Rent Potential: $1400-1500

Taxes (assessment $41k) $1200 which after reassessment will most likely be closer to $3000

Tenants will pay all utilities and water bill.

Maintenance/Capex/Self Mgmt: $400

I will have this property paid off free and clear currently and can most likely pull off the rehab without drawing to much from my line of credit. The way I'm thinking is that at my 32% tax bracket flipping this house will be fairly painful tax wise whereas if I put some debt on it and held it for a year then I could 1031 out of it. I can get a bank to lend me 75% of ARV right now for 5.25 on a 5/1 arm on a 25 am.

On the one hand I think about just keeping it paid off and having a nice cashflow source to help me leave my job but I also want to have a significantly higher net worth than where I'm at now and I believe that the way to do that is trading up to larger projects or venturing into a non rei based business with my partner.

What would you do in my shoes?

One year later and that flooring looked mint when I saw it..

Thank you all for the different perspectives.  

@John Warren and @Matthew Baltzell you guys might be right.  I just ran the rough numbers of how much time I spend in managing the properties and it does seem like there could be better uses of time.  The goal at the end of the day is to build a passive income stream.  At one point I wanted to develop the systems to run a property management company or syndication group but in the past year of working in one I have realized that the reality of having "investors/owners" just creates another job, albeit high paying.  

@Ronny Tiburcio I think this might be good for a homeowner or for someone that can't find reasonable contractors but otherwise it would just end up being an additional expense.  This might make sense elsewhere but we regularly can get furnaces installed for $1400-$2000 and water heaters are normally under $1000.00.

@Marcus Auerbach and @Luke Miller This is a fun idea.  How did you guys build this relationship with your interns?  Specifically how did you structure paying them and would you do it that way again?

Hey guys and gals,

I'm looking for some advice for my current "growing pains".  I currently have around 20 units that I own and manage while working a full time job and flipping a few houses.  My rentals net around $3000 per month after setting aside capex funds and taking care of all expenses.  I have some systems in place to take care of daily business but am running into a challenge with my time.  I hired someone very part time to help out with managing our few work orders but they aren't keeping their end of the bargain.  At this point I will probably have to let them go but I'm not sure if I want to hire a dispatcher again or if it should instead be a personal assistant or a handyman.  As you grew and hired your first employees how did you structure their positions and how would you do it now?

Has anyone had any experience with compensating people that operate a direct mail system?  In this circumstance we are looking at having the individual prepare lists from using the local circuit court access website, mail envelopes, and receive and filter calls.  In your experience what is the best way to compensate for this?  Should we also train them to work the deal and offer an incentive for closed sales?

Installed it in a living room in one of the gray hues.  The guy we use for flooring liked it and said it seemed indestructible.  Definitely pricey, the look is top notch though and we realistically think that it will last until it is well out of style.

That all makes sense Edward Hamill, thank you for that extra insight as I think that is one of the most common fears with building a site for repairs.  Do you have any particular plugins that you would recommend from prior experience for either purpose?

Hi BP,

So I've come to the realization that rent collection and getting calls from tenants is taking up way to much of my time that could be better served building the business.  There are services out there such as Cozy and other rent collection services that work just fine for plenty of guys but relying on another company for pipelining the income stream makes me nervous.  Have any of you built websites using wordpress and had any luck with particular plugins?  Specifically for ticket systems that allow tenants to log requests for repairs/upgrades and then a maintenance worker can log in to approve/deny and contact the client/tenant?  Have you found that tenants abuse the ticket system and become a hassle? 

Hi Flippers and Rehabbers, I am trying to figure out what to do with the kitchen cabinets in this flip and am torn between removing faces and just gutting the entire thing.  The internals of the cabinets are in good shape but the doors don't match and look like they were replaced.  This will be for a low/mid flip in the Milwaukee area.  On that note as well does anyone have recommendations for cabinets in the Milwaukee WI area?