All Forum Posts by: Dustin P.

It will be the title company which will handle both title insurance and escrow, no attorneys required

The bid actually doesn't look that bad to me. Material cost is almost always going to be lower than labor cost, you'd probably be all into the project for $35k-$40k? Not an amazingly good deal, but could be worse.

Does he have references that can assure you he was on time, quick and did the job right?

Subbing it out yourself will be more cost effective, but then more time intensive, so you need to look at the opportunity cost of subbing it out vs. using a GC

Some contractors bad some numbers vs. others. Like maybe their painting price will be super low because maybe that's where they started and that's where they have the most connections, and maybe their cabinet prices will be high, or vice versa

@Russell Brazil Made a great point in that the listing agent is doing their job to get the seller the best price. You have to make your realtor work you just as hard on the buyer's side

If I was the buyer's agent I would have pried and figured out where that other offer was coming in at and obtained as much information as possible. You'd be surprised how much info listing agents will give up (Not all of them, but a lot of them). Maybe if you came up to 83k would 3k in earnest money and a shorter inspection period with a 4 hour response time you would have got it, who knows? Typically I'm very aggressive with offers, especially on earnest money and response time

I just got a deal under contract this week from doing something similar. The deal price dropped from 180k to 142k. I went and walked the house within 30 minutes of it hitting the hot sheet and had the offer to them within the hour, 125k. Over the course of the next day they had a bunch of other offers all between the 120k and 132k mark and I called the agent and said where do I need to be to get this done? Highest offer they said was 132k. We came up to 132.5k (Still worked there), shortened inspection period to 48 hours and upped earnest money to $5k, and put a 2 hour response time on it. Offer was accepted. Found a couple things to renegotiate on and ended up at 130k. 

@Oscar Miguel Feel free to send me a DM. I get a lot of flip properties each month, although I will say that $125k mark is rare right now. Sub $250k is definitely doable though

People are doing new builds in Arcadia / Arcadia Lite. The ones I've spoken to want to typically buy the land for 1/4 of the ARV they are shooting for. So if they are going for a 1.2M exit they want the lot for 300k. Some may pay slightly more. But it only makes sense in areas where you can get $300+ per square foot

@Joe P. Thank you for sharing your story! And congratulations on your first investment. I'm willing to bet that now that a lot of the issues are fixed that you will show cash flow this next year. Plus the rent increase doesn't hurt!

You can use free seminars to network with people beforehand and gets numbers, that's the best use

Hey @Daniel Kim welcome!

People are still buying and holding right now, you just don't really have a ton of cash flow. You can cover your PITI and your repairs/capex/vacancy/PM but not a whole lot left over. However, people are raising rents each year and appreciation has been solid

Fixing/flipping is much more popular right now

Great information Greg!

I wanted to ask what your process is for expired listings? Do you have searches set up to kick you an e-mail once a listing is 6 months expired and it meets a certain criteria? Are you calling the old listing agent or skip tracking direct to seller? 

As long as you are not over leveraged you are fine. Rents in good areas will go up during a down turn. Just keep buying deals that make sense