All Forum Posts by: Cornelius Charles

@Ibrahim Ramadan You could also consider house hacking a SFR instead of a small multifamily. One of my coworkers wanted to house hack, but couldn't find any duplexes that made sense, so my wife helped him find a SFR and now he more than covers his mortgage by renting out 3 of the bedrooms.

@Rick Albert

I'll send you a PM with a contractor's information. 

@Tina Bellehumeur

I must admit that i am not really tuned into what Fortune Builders (FB) is teaching now-a-days. Are you sure the commercial really says that?  People in the past have said that FB advertises that they will partner with you and give you funding, but I've never heard them advertise that. I know one of their commercials say they will teach you how to invest using other people's money, but i don't think i've seen/heard them say they will help you pay for your properties.  And if they are doing that now, my guess is their criteria for doing so what be super stringent and it would have to be a GREAT deal for them to finance it. 

@Burke Ericson My guess would be that your observations are too simple. Maybe those properties were overpriced to begin with. That's what we see up here in Ventura County. If you price your home in line with the comps, your house will sell pretty fast. I run a monthly report from the data that my wife pulls from the MLS, and the median price in Ventura County for July was up 1.4% from the previous month and up 3.9% from last year.

@Alexandra King

I just sent you a PM with the link to the ebook. 

Just to clarify, I wasn't referring to those providing comments in this post when i said "take it with a grain of salt."  I was referring to people in other markets who say how easy flipping/wholesaling is and that anyone can do it.

My recommendation is that you have to take what people say who are not in your market with a grain of salt. I'm down the road from you in Ventura County, so I'm going to assume your market is very similar to ours. If that is the case, we still have less than 3 months of inventory and houses still fly off the shelf (if priced correctly). IMHO, there is not much reason for a homeowner to sell at a discount needed for a profitable flip in this market.

That being said, I still agree with Brandon. Our one and only flip that we did, the purchase price was 500K, the rehab was 90K, and we only used 18K of our own money. So yes, it's possible, but I think it's just extremely difficult in this market. I actually focus 90% of my marketing efforts on my wife's realtor business and only 10% on our "fix and flip" marketing. I've also started looking into sandwich leases, which I think might be more viable in this market.

You say that you have a "bigger than life local profile." I personally would use that and turn it into online and social media marketing to advertise yourself as a realtor and try to gain business that way. I just downloaded a free eBook about that very topic. I haven't started reading it yet, so I am hesitant to recommend it, but please shoot me a PM if you would be interested in the link to it.

Cornelius

@Storm S.

Thanks for the invite. I'm actually out of town for my day job.  Whatever you guys are doing, keep it up.   Maybe I can head up there when i get back in town.

@Storm S.

you did 20 flips in SB last year?  How did you find 20 homeowners to sell their homes at a discount in a seller's market?  Or are you flipping just for the commission from buying/selling, and not actually looking to profit on the flip itself?

@Sarkis Gezalyan

I don't think i'm experienced enough to give you a good answer.  I still don't see how anyone is going to find enough inventory in Southern California. My guess is they will find that the money they are making is not going to be worth their while or worth the risk.