All Forum Posts by: Darin M.

A Beautiful Job.  It will help my wife on our next flip style wise while looking at me, you can do that right?  "Sure with a bit of head scratching and a call to our carpenter."  

And yes we don't have to post all numbers here since sometimes future buyers find our postings.....  Can I tell you about a story about losing a prospective couple who had plenty of time on their hands to surf the web and see if they could find me?   They did not understand what I had written out in a post about a cast iron pipe and walked away thinking that the entire house still had cast iron pipes underneath and it had all failed.  

Check your profile "googleability" levels (yes I just made that up) and set them to members only folks if you live in a small town.   

Great work again @Account Closed

I just wanted to take the quick moment to say Thank you to Everyone who has posted in this thread sharing their knowledge and thoughts, it has given me more to think about as I chase the next flip property (and a couple more topics to go research).

Cheers,

Darin  

Greetings Mike,

if you want PM and I will forward you one of my brothers info who has looked deeply into the food commissary business but with a slightly different angle, food trucks in the Chicago area.  If nothing you guys might have a good talk about restaurant life, He has been a professional chef for 20 years and helped get the new food truck laws passed in Chicago.

Cheers,

Darin

I apologize for the delay in the reporting as honestly, I have been catching up on many neglected things since.

After putting the house on the market and selling it in a week after a short bidding war between several buyer the house is gone on to its new owners as of the end of April and we made about a 9% profit. 

The overall build experience has been described to me as my masters program in remodeling.  We touched almost every part of this house, from the windows, the plumbing, electrical and way too many termite studs.  Now when I look at my own house as my better half asks, "Can we change that?"  the answer is sure let me call Jim.  The best lesson from the entire process is that this is not a individual sport.  You need a team to do this.  You may have to fire the first team you hire to get the partners right, but that is okay since most of us do not marry the first girl we kiss.

Some of the other first time lessons:

• Have back up funds available if you do NOT need them cause you might.
• Hire professionals - they will save you money in the long run.
• Get someone to watch over your shoulder so you do not make their same mistakes.
• You are not a framer (okay that is actually just me).
• DO NOT STOP WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER SOMETHING UGLY
• Remember this is fun!

I want to say thanks to everyone on BP who lent their advice in this process!  I do appreciate it and I do look forward to more sharing of ideas cause well, the next house is coming up!

Cheers,

Daerin

This sounds like a great idea.  I am in.  

Cheers,

Darin

 Yes Rani, it is complete.   finally...  Once the contract closes and the profit is in the bank I will do a complete review of the ugly house that should have been bulldozed but we turned into the belle of the village.  Until then I am saying nada (it is just one of the many lessons learned during this project).  But she is beautiful.  

I have a very similar house that I have been dealing with here for the past three months and for what you are describing you could easily be 50K in to bring it to livable.  I will be in close to $65k when I am finally done with this current project

The best way to describe mine is a brand new house wrapped in the partial shell of a 1950's home.

Brand new:

Roof

Insulation

HVAC

Plumbing - internal and external

Electrical

windows

master bath 

flooring

tile

kitchen

porch

re - Framing due to termites

Pay attention to the numbers.

is it your birthday?

Did you do something you are deserving of a reward?

"it's a good investment"

Haven't you earned it?

I should probably stop now since you are walking to the counter with it.  Sorry I have a bad habit of helping others spend money.

Oh and the HD price is $100 than amazon.

Already in the shopping cart!  

Okay a quick update:

Plumbing  - One less top out to replace and air test and we should be done.  By 9 am tomorrow.

Lesson: Be very careful with a knife and copper Pex fittings.  If you even knick them you will have to drive into the nearest major city to buy another one (which means three just in case you screw up again).

Electrical - Should be wrapped up on friday - This was a complete redo after finding most of the "Junctions" were fininshed in Duct tape on two strand wire

Lesson - Climb through the attic during inspection trying to find the mummified squirrel.  You will learn an amazing amount of things to the property

Doors are all up - Just hire the right guy from the start.

Drywall is done! - Did not even attempt this one my self and it looks great

Lesson: Don't even think you can be as good as the guys who do this on a regular basis.  I already knew this one from my past.

Light fixtures are going in - 

Lesson: -Only the ones that do not have glass on them cause I know I will break them otherwise doing something dumb.

Kitchen and master bath Cabinets will be at the house on friday (after it stops raining)

Lesson - have pros install them

Floors will be ordered on Friday and installer is set and ready to go

Lesson - no way in hell am I doing this.

Paint is going up this week.

Just got an infusion of funding to finish this beast.  Remember Cash flow is king.

Making progress.  One step at a time...

Darin