All Forum Posts by: Eric M.

Just take notice when all the folks telling you this is a GREAT TIME TO START are brokers and lenders. In other words, people trying to sell something.

Investors are telling you maybe its not a great time. Properties are hard to find. I have done over a dozen flips and I have absolutely no clue how much a rehab is going to cost me right now. Like NO CLUE. Materials are crazy, contractors are unavailable and unresponsive. ARV's are looking awesome but I have no idea what costs are and what might happen between buying and selling. It feels very crazy to me.

The right house on the South side of Chicago will sell better than most places. I just listed one and had 21 showings and 7 offers within 30 hours. Wayyyy over asking.

but if its the wrong kind of house or the wrong block, that won't happen.

selling is not the problem. Buying is.

 When you say you want an estimator.....there is not a single worthwhile person who would do that. Saying you want an estimator indicates you have no interest in hiring them for the job. You just want to use them for imfo.

Every contractor worth his salt has more business than time right now. They have no interest in just giving estimates. Even when you want to hire them it can be hard to get an estimate out of them

It all depends on the type and age of the housing stock you are working with and what the market will bear.

In chicago we have a lot of pre 1950s buildings and are solid but need full renovation. And people will pay the higher price for a full renovation. So full guts are common and preferred. The customer knows the are getting new infrastructure.

in some areas like suburbs with housing from the 60s and 70s and limited ARVs, then you can't do a full gut. You can get away with just putting some lipstick on the pig.

The buyer will often pay the price down the road for buying that cheaper flip that wasn't gutted. Because the house infrastructure is still older.

Your post implies somehow that the bills just stopped for some period of time and they blindsided you with this court hearing.  That is not how it works.
 If you had old bills that were paid and then new bills just slipped your mind for 6 months or the paper bills got lost in the mail a couple of times.... you would just call them and pay it. So there is more to this story than you are letting on.

The fact that you apparently don't know how to pay a water bill and don't just google "how to pay a chicago water bill" tells me you never even took the steps to put the water service in your name and have never paid for any water or sewer or garbage... correct?

That is on you. You know water is not free. You know garbage pick up is not free. You know you weren't paying or getting a bill. It takes many many months or years to get to the point of a court hearing for a past due water bill. I have seen water bills unpaid for 3 years and there was never a court process.

Why is a Saturday court hearing worse than any other day? It is Zoom. I don't know, I just think the post sounds fishy.

 Honestly, if you are that far along, how can you possibly not have gotten quotes or have a budget in mind and why would you be depending on us? Unless maybe you are taking over someone's project blindly??

To me it sounds like 100K left but I could easily be off by 100% so I don't know how that helps you. There will probably be contractors who will tell you they can finish it for a lot less than that (cutting corners with crap materials). Just the quality of the finishes could change it by 50K+. Unfortunately the reality is that "Rental Quality" does not mean the same thing from neighborhood to neighborhood.  Rental quality for that building in Lincoln Park is not nearly the same as rental quality in Englewood. 

Frame or brick? Size? Roof condition? Basement? Windows? So many variables. Could be 75K, could be 150K, could be 300k. You don't give near enough information for us to give a meaningful answer. Call a contractor. Call 5 contractors. It is the only way to get a legit answer.

I assume you mean rent rooms in a SFH and not find a 2-4 unit building. That is possible for sure. Just check each town. You can run into rules about short term rentals and things like that.

They probably aren't going to check but it wouldn't be difficult to learn that you don't if they decide to check. They don't need to physically come out and check, although I have had lenders do that do confirm vacancies, etc.

Just think of how much social media companies "know" about you. Credit bureaus know the same. Everything you do leaves a trail. Every bank account, loan application, mail forwarding, utility payments, etc, etc. combined tells the story of where you live. Just the bank doing a credit check will alert them and banks often do periodic credit checks on loans outstanding.

The last couple of times I moved, I don't even bother calling the companies I deal with to give them the new address because I know they seem to find out about it somehow and change. Not sure exactly how they find out.

What you are describing is the situation for everyone.