All Forum Posts by: Dave Gallogly

Hi Dan,

I can understand the reason why you might want to install a totally new window and I am with you if the one you have is really bad. Depending on where the house is and rental prices in a given area, I might or might not put the money into the house.

where is the how and what is the ARV?

If you are still in the need of the window, IM me and I can get you some local contacts to either buy a window to install yourself, or to have someone come out to install it for you.

Dave

St Paul, Mn

We have been rehabbing for 5 years now doing 8 to 10 deals a year.Through the years we have placed signs out front, had an open house two weeks before the property was completed and had our listing agent place a coming soon sign in the front yard.What we found was the guy next door wanted to come over and the see the property, people called the number on the sign wanting to mow the lawn for $, and phone calls about trash not in dumpster.

The idea was great and we thought that a jump start would get people thinking about the property.What we have landed on now is the just focus hard or providing a great product and go through the steps that need to done to sell the property.

On our rental side, we have marketed the rental before it was rehabbed and was able to get a renter before it was completed.

We have only duplex and triplexes and found that we wanted to have our own machines within the units.  Buying new ones were just to expensive, so we went to direction of buying good used ones for $600 per pair.  We found a couple of companies on Craigslist that would supply these for us.  The companies told us that some larger higher end buildings would swap our their machines every couple of years for new units.  We picked up the units and was supplied a warranty from the company we purchased them from.

Good Luck

Dave

As a newer investor you want to think through your rehab, do market research on comps to know the sell side in a flip, and also let your emotions settle down.

The problem with this approach is a seasoned investor will have a good property under contract while you are waiting.Years of experience gives the seasoned investor the opportunity to walk through the house developing a plan in their head and know the numbers of what the rehab will cost within 10% of the actual rehab cost. There is a good chance the investor knows the comps in an area because they have done market search in past or have sold multiple properties in an area. They can make decisions fast and submit the offer within an hour.

So you are in a hard spot, you need to grow in your knowledge, and during that process you are going to miss out on many deals. There will always deals to be had, just keep learning and being persistent in your search.

Good Luck,

Dave

We live and work (flip) in the metro area of Minneapolis MN.Over 70% of the homes we work on are from the 1910’s to 1950’s.Many of our homes have outstanding woodwork, original tiled bathrooms, and hardwood floors that just need to be brought back to life.For us, we have to remember that these houses are not ones we are living in, but are doing for resale.With this mindset, we might make a definite different decision on what we do with the house compared to if it was our personal house. Our houses that we work on are not restoration projects, but more of a bringing the original flavor back to life with some updated points.

For an example, last year we worked on an amazing home with a smaller footprint (720 sq ft) but had three stories.The Craftsmanship of the word work was outstanding; just a little rough at places and 90% of it was painted.If this was our own home, we might have stripped the paint, revealed the oak, and refinished all the woodwork, making it drop dead gorgeous (We love natural wood). After thinking it through from a profit vs. what we liked, we went ahead and prepped the woodwork and enameled it.The house still has much of its original style, while still profitable. On the sale of the home, the new homeowner told me how much they loved the dove white painted woodwork.

When we have looked at homes that begged for a true renovation, but we could not get the numbers to work.

Did your friend (RE agent) work the short sale for the people wanting the sell the house?  If so I would just have an open conversation with them about your bringing a buyer and you get your half of the commission. 

2) There are tenants in the house. Whose responsibility is to ask them to move out?

We had a short sale where there were Tenants living in the home.  We thought on our end that the tenants would be out be the time of closing, we did our finial walk through and the tenants were still in the house.  We called our realtor and said that we would not take the house with tenants in it and walked away from the deal.  Two months later we got a letter from a lawyer stating that we breached the contract and was being taken to court for the moving cost of the tenants, holding cost, and some kind of pain and suffering.  When I got the letter I was taken back by it.  Then we read our purchase agreement, which stated that the seller would provid the property to us free of (I forget the wordage something like encumberments). A lawyer read our PA and sent a letter to the seller stating that we were not obligated becasue of the wordage.  It is always good to have a strong PA that takes everything into consideration. 

I agree with Dell. To add to his point, build a relationship with those buyers where you know what they are looking for in a property and margins on the deal.  There is nothing worst then bringing a deal two four differant qualified flippers who say it was not a deal to start with.  a few (up to 10) solid Relationships is the key.

Hi Linda, Peter nailed it.  You have already taken the biggest step that most never get around to doing, buying your first deal.  Contracts.

Dave

When just starting out Financing can be hard. I have been luck to net work with people who cashed out their 401k and went the self directed IRA route. My company then got a loan from their IRA to flip houses. Keep reading everything that you can on BP and network with people, good ideas for you will filter to the top.

Dave