All Forum Posts by: Glenn Levy

Hello All.

I'm trying to reduce my overall kitchen reno costs and cabinets is a high spend area on every property I do.

I'm looking for a good distributor for cabinets in NJ that can do basic kitchen design layouts and whose cabinet pricing is better compared to most. I'm not looking to step down the quality of the cabinets (usually go middle of the road or higher) since the kitchen is a very high "touch-point" part of the house during showings and buyers can tell pretty quickly if you went cheap on the cabinets & drawers.

Does anybody know of any good distributors in NJ?

Thanks in advance!!

Hi William.

I maintain a Lowes Pro card that I use every time I make purchases either online or at the store. I get a standard 5% discount on everything plus points that build up.

My best recommendation for you is to work through their Pro-desk. Home Depot has one as well. Put together your entire order (as much as you can) for your rehab, including the lowes part numbers and item quantities, and give it to your Pro-Desk rep. If the order is large enough (usually $1,000 or above) they will provide contractor discounts across the board for all items on the order. Discounts land anywhere between 9-12% I have found. Use your Lowes CC to pay for the order and you'll get another 5% off the entire order. Home Depot does the same thing. They refer to it as their "bid room".

Good luck.

Hi Marlene. 

There's a ton of information online, including here on BP, that you can research. But honestly, it can also cause you "analysis paralysis" since there's so much. A great single resource is J Scott's books on flipping houses which really breaks things down well so you can understand the overall basics. After that, the absolute #1 best place to learn is to jump in and do it. You'll learn more from doing that 1st property than you ever will from books and articles.

The best advice I can give that worked for me is:

1. Learn the fundamental basics of the entire process including: researching/finding properties in your market, buying it, rehabbing it, selling it (all specific to your market). Consider building a team of people to guide you for each step (local lender, local realtor, attorney and GC). Experienced people you can trust to ask questions and get advice from is priceless.

2. Do your homework on the property to know EXACTLY what you're buying and getting into. Establishing relationships with a good local realtor and GContractor will help you a lot here. Use them to give you guidance on the market, resale values, rehab costs, timelines for repair etc.

3. Know your numbers (costs) ahead of time for each stage of the process (buying, holding, rehabbing, selling). Nailing down your resale value (ARV) and your rehab costs as best as you can, will usually always keep you out of trouble.

4. Don't go for a home-run swing on your first property. Maybe focus only on condos or small townhomes first. These tend to be mostly cosmetic interior rehabs (not always but usually) and you can usually avoid the big hidden issues that single family homes can have (structural, environmental, plumbing etc). Also, you can usually avoid exterior renovation costs with these since many have HOAs that maintain the exteriors.

5. Be OK with a minimal profit on your first 1-2 properties. I told myself on my first property that I would be totally OK with breaking even because the real value for me was in learning how to do it so I can do more properties. Turns out, I profited nicely and learned a lot.

6. Don't forget #3   :)

Hope this helps. Best of luck!

Tough spot, sorry. The overall rehab looks great on the downstairs rooms and it's staged well. I do agree with other comments that the upstairs bedrooms and office should be staged to show how the smaller rooms can be used. Unfortunately, most people cannot envision how to make a room work, they need to be shown and staging solves that.

Also, and it's too late now, but all the price decreases you did (I counted 8) with many happening weekly show desperation to sell. This is really easy to see on Zillow under Price History. Desperation can scare most buyers away because it raises red-flags. In my opinion, your best bet at this point is to remove the listing for a few weeks and re-list it as a new listing with updated photos, new write-up, upstairs staging and minor repairs as others suggested. The cash-back incentive to a buyer towards their loan costs is a good idea as well.  Good luck.

Hi All. Looking for some BP member experience on planning a marketing budget for my new Wholesale startup. What is a realistic estimated annual amount to budget for marketing if I plan on a combination of Direct Mail, email blasts, SMS, lawn/hanger signage, Website and SEO?  $5k? $10k? $20K? ...

Any and all feedback is much appreciated!

Your current situation reminds me of 2 of my favorite questions:

1. How do you eat a ten-ton elephant? One bite at a time. - Meaning, take your time with this big project. It's easy to get overwhelmed and try to do everything all at once. The problem with that is, you will probably make some bad decisions and spend money that does not bring you the return you want (i.e. higher rent). Take your time and make smart calculated decisions. Research your rental market and see what other rental units offer that yours doesn't and compare the rents. Maybe put the money into making those upgrades. Also, nobody should really eat an elephant. They are way too cute and majestic.

2. What do you call someone who learned how to sail on calm seas? A lousy sailor. - Meaning, you are dealing with some tough landlord and property issues right off the bat while you are learning the process. These will only make you better downstream on your next property, knowing how to handle the rough stuff.

Well done and congratulations to you for taking that all too difficult first step. Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback Steve and Sam. 

In NJ, the seller and buyer each have their own RE attorney representing them. When the buyer presents their offer to the seller, typically through their real estate agents if house is on MLS, it may or may not have other agreed upon terms in addition to the purchase price (like agreeing to waive the appraisal regardless what it comes back at, among other things). If seller agrees to the offer, at this point, both buyer and seller sign a Purchase/Sale Contract outlining the offer which then goes to each party's respective attorney for the "Attorney Review Period". In NJ, this is typically around 3 business days, but could be longer depending upon how much back and forth there is between the attorneys. During this time, the attorneys review the offer, the contract and everything else related to the property and proposed deal, working to protect their clients and ensuring that they understand the many different facets of the deal and contract they signed. It is during this AR period that the buyer's offer to waive the appraisal typically gets IMMEDIATE pushback from their attorney in order to protect their client. Since the property is not yet officially "Under Contract" until after the Attorney Review is complete, and since no home inspections or 3rd party appraisals are performed, and no EMD is collected until it is out of AR and "Under contract", the appraisal is still very much a wild card/unknown variable (especially in situations where the offer is above asking). The buyer's attorney I'm sure scares the hell out of their client explaining what waiving the appraisal really means and that they could possibly have to come out of pocket 10k, 15k, 20k+ to cover the loan gap if it comes in low. The buyer usually gets scared and has their attorney try and strike it from the offer during the AR period, forcing me to make a decision of going forward with this buyer and rolling the dice on the appraisal, OR dumping them and going back to the well of other offers I may have had.

So...I'm wondering if anyone has come up with a way to get that offer to waive the appraisal to really stick and hold up through Attorney Review??

Yup, totally did that. Everywhere I wrote "seller" should be "buyer". I typed this quickly. Sorry for the confusion and thanks for the response. 

Hi all! Looking to get some feedback on this topic if anyone has experienced the same difficulty. Often when I get offers that are above asking, the seller will state that they are willing to "waive the appraisal", assuming the appraisal will come in lower than their offer. I have fallen into this tempting trap twice now, only to have the seller's attorney immediately wipe it out during Attorney Review (I am in NJ which is an attorney close state). I am then left with the decision of walking away from that buyer or accepting it and moving forward with them.

 I was hoping to hear if people on BP have experienced the same thing and how they get the waiver to stick knowing the seller's attorney is always going to talk them out of it. This scenario is assuming that the buyer shows proper proof of funds that they can cover the loan gap between the property's appraised value and purchase price.

As a follow up, or side question, if someone offers above/well-above asking without offering to waive the appraisal, what's the best thing to do to hold them to that purchase price if the appraisal ends up coming in well below their offer?

Appreciate any and all feedback! 

Every buyer is different when it comes to the items noted in their inspection report and how they react. I would suggest going through the entire report and prioritizing everything from highest to lowest concern and decide from that list what you want to go back to the seller with based on what's most important to you. Certainly the roof and possible termite damage are big concerns and I definitely would not just take a seller's word that everything is ok. Get a dated receipt that the house was treated for termites. Unfortunately, without opening walls you never know the extent of possible termite damage. Some follow up should be done with the roof as well. Don't be scared to ask the seller to fix many of the things on the inspection report. I get lists from buyer's all the time and I fix some items myself, issue credits back on others for the buyer to deal with after they own the house and just say no to certain items. The bottom line is, don't be afraid to bring the issues up. Your higher priority items will usually end up getting fixed by the seller or getting you credits at closing.