All Forum Posts by: Drew Whitehead

My wife is almost done with her online classes through Stringham. They are local and I know at least a half dozen other realtors that went through that school. They are online video lectures or you could go and attend live courses, its up to how you want to do it.

With market prices being so high, I've shifted my focus from rental properties to flips for the time being. I can buy houses low enough that I can make up the margins in flipping and selling but I can't make those same numbers make sense for rentals. I tend to have a higher expectation of return on my rentals and I don't want to break even or even have a small percentage of return. 

I'm closing on two flips next week and one of the ones that I am selling turned out fantastic. I didn't even have to list it on the MLS so I was able to save $40k in realtor commissions. That being said, before taxes I am netting $180k on one house. The next one should be roughly $120k and so on. The margins are there if you do it right and with my architect background I am able to bring unique and custom design to these houses that buyers have expressed as a 'breath of fresh air from the traditional flips'.

That is what I am seeing at least. My 2 cents...

It is true that a good contractor can get from A to B but you would still need to produce drawings to get through the permit process. You still need a structural engineer to stamp the drawings and provide the calcs to the city. Most contractors either aren't willing to draw up the plans, or they will hire their own drafter to do it plus their markup. 

If drawing plans is new for you, it would probably be easier and cheaper to just hire an architect or house designer to draw up the permit drawings. Depending on the jurisdiction, the requirements for permit can be extensive and will exhaust all your time before you can even start any kind of construction. 

I am local and have years of experience in commercial and residential design and construction in most of the jurisdictions in the valley. If you have any specific questions or help let me know.

I have almost unlimited capital right now and with my architect background I hope to do more heavy flips and additions. If anyone sees any please let me know. I have a couple in the works but I don't know how promising they are right now. I want to purchase one before the end of the month to get it listed in the Spring. 

I would like to piggyback on this and see how many people monitor and update their duplex, fourplex, type units with the latest smoke & carbon monoxide detectors? Am I obligated as a landlord to continually check on this? 

If I have them installed, is the tenant responsible for keeping the batteries in check while occupying the place? 

The reason I ask is I have gone in after they have vacated to find out that the batteries had died and were removed. Probably because they were annoyed by the warning beep and didn't notify me?

Should I be checking in on them regularly? If the units are older, do they need to be brought up to current code?

Thanks all for your comments. I agree that it is an easy game to get into and the TV shows makes it more enticing to get into. I'm just starting to ramp up my REI and will hopefully make it my full time job in the near future. I have not done any marketing yet and hopefully that will bring some deals. What is your best success? With my architecture background, I currently look for deals that have good potential for my taste. Am I being too picky? Maybe. But I'm also not that desperate I guess.

I like your approach @Zachary Wilson about giving the wholesalers comments back on the deals they send. I will try that and see what happens.

Maybe I just need to rant but I have always had a hard time with wholesalers in my experience. Why do some wholesalers take a house listed on the MLS, get it under contract for a slightly reduced price, then put their markup on it so it is near the original asking price on the MLS?? I know everyone is trying to make a buck but come on... This seems to be how a lot of deals are on all the distribution lists that I am on.

I do so wholesaling as a great tool to make some money if you find the deals off market and they are ACTUALLY A DEAL! When comparing the off market deals with comps in the neighborhood, they are always shooting way low on rehab costs and ARV's. I scour the MLS every day for new houses and deals and make offers on the ones that have good deals but I know the real deals are typically found off market. This is where I am trying to rely on these wholesalers to find actual good deals and I would pay cash and close within 2 weeks! I work a day job and flip on the side so my time in finding is limited in finding offline deals.

Maybe I'm just ranting but I've always had a bad taste in my mouth with wholesalers because I see it as a quick, middle man way to earn a profit? 

Thoughts or help?

No problem. Hopefully you can get it to work out!

Wow great responses all of a sudden this is great! I shifted focus a little bit from what I was thinking back then. Because the market is so much of a buyer's market I decided to start flipping some houses. I still think I'll eventually buy one in the near future just not exactly sure when. Part of the reason why I was going to be purchasing it is because during the off-season I wanted to use it as a weekend getaway for my family as well as during the peak seasons for one weekend or so. I did look at a couple though recently and I'm trying to just still crunch the numbers and make it work. I just think it's a big learning curve with maintenance and cleaning and everything so if I'm going to get into it I almost need to buy more than one to make it worthwhile. If anybody knows of any deals up there whether it is a buy-and-hold or a Fix and Flip I would still be interested in partnering or working the deal.

It would probably depend on the architect or firm that you choose on whether it will actually be cheaper or not. Some may be a flat fee regardless white others don't mind turning a functionable plan into construction docs. It should be less work for them because they know what you want and they won't have to do any programming or space planning. It really just depends on how you define the scope of the architect and how it is written in the contract. As far as site prep goes, you will need to see if there is a recorded plat and check what the zoning is. Zoning can have major impacts and effects on the design and size of the structure so you need to be real careful. If the site is unimproved and never been built on before, you may ask a couple survey guys to look at it if you aren't sure how good the soils are in that area. This is typically how it is done in the States on the main land and Guam may be completely different.