All Forum Posts by: Jason Fant

The problem with the free stats and public records is that you can find out the sales prices, but they usually lack other critical information you need to make an informed estimate of market value. Some of these factors include days on market, any seller concessions, etc....

You might find that you have a comp that sold for 200k in public records, but a realtor can tell you that it sat on the market for 200 days and the seller ended up giving back 20k in closing help to finally get it sold. Now if I was trying to evaluate a property for a rehab, I really need to know those details for me to fully evaluate the deal.

Find a realtor that will do these CMA's for you. Many will help if you promise to list with them if the deal goes through. Don't abuse them though by running deal after deal through them and never biting. If you are just trying to get a feel for a particular area rather than a particular deal, offer to pay them a fee for running these reports. Beleive me, it will be worth the expense.

-- Jason

These shows are great entertainment, but are for the most part smoke and mirrors. I read a bunch of articles last year about the guy from flip this house in atlanta (Sam Leccema) being a total fraud, and they had a news team go through one of his rehabs that supposedly sold during the open house for a profit. Turns out the house never sold, and was never finished. It was amazing to see how much they fluffed the project for the show. The Montelongo guy in texas is another one that gives legitimate rehabbers a bad name. For the most part I enjoy watching the antics and theatrics, but I don't know that they really do much to promote the industry.

On the flip side, I have talked with a contractor that does work for Richard Davis' Trademark Properties (formerly of Flip this House and currently doing Real Estate Pros on TLC), and he basically said that that guy is the real deal. If that's true, that's one hell of a rehabber, but I have to take that account with a grain of salt. I'd like to figure out how they get their contractors to pull all nighters for the peanuts they say they pay, but hey, more power to him if they are being truthful.

-- Jason

Hi Jason, yeah so far I'm loving it here in NC. I did pretty well rehabbing in the Baltimore market before I lost my patience trying to find property to rehab during the insane growth years and became a GC. I did pretty well at the GC thing for a while, but when the bottom dropped out of the building market I found I had over-invested and was still under capitalized to carry it through the lean period, so I cut my losses and decided to start over.

It's funny (not really), when I moved from investing in my own properties to building for others it seemed like I was taking on less risk, but as I found out, I was actually investing in something that was intangable, and when the market got tight, that intangable was simply gone, along with my investment. I learned that it's far better to put my money into the property itself, where at least no matter what happens, you still own something that will ultimately pay off for you. That's why I'm re-focusing on REI. In fact I wish I had never lost my focus, but with all things come experience, and I feel that I'm at least a little wiser having taken the path that I did.

Hi everyone, thanks for the warm welcome. I originally became involved in REI through my step-father who is a pretty successful rental property investor. I started doing work for him, renovating properties as he bought them and getting them ready for rent. From that I bought my first property, a 130 year old top and bottom duplex that I completely gutted and converted back to a SFR. While a lot of lessons were learned on that one, I made a pretty nice profit and continued from there with several more properties. I eventually became a GC and started building "on-your-lot" houses and did that for a little while before the bottom completely dropped out of the building market. After I lost my pants on the GC buisness, I packed up and moved to NC, where I am essentially starting over from scratch. Of the many things I've learned over the years, the lesson from the GC company is still the most fresh for me, and that is, the ones who ultimately have control of thier profits are the ones that control the property, which is precisely why I'm going back to my REI roots.

I'm looking forward to getting back to rehabbing distressed properties. I have always focused on properties in the low-mid cost housing market and was pretty successful in that arena. I'm hoping to re-establish that strategy here in NC.

The one thing I'd most like to learn about is controling rental property. I've tried in the past, and found that I'm generally too soft on tennants to be a good landlord, but I'd like to re-evaluate that situation and build a book of income property, so I'm hoping to glean some advice and possibly some practical solutions to address my landlord shortcommings before I jump back in to that segment of REI.

I hope that gives a little more detail on me, and again I appreciate the warm welcome thus far. I look forward to interacting with you all.

-- Jason

P.S. Andy -- I will shoot you an email. I'd love to grab some coffee and pick your brain. Thanks for the offer!

I just found these forums and it seems like there is a great community here. I have experience rehabbing SFR in the Baltimore market and have recently moved to the Raleigh, NC area. I want to re-establish my rehab business here in NC and I'm hoping to make some local contacts as well as learn from and contribute to this community. I look forward to meeting you all.

-- Jason