All Forum Posts by: Chris Adams

I can’t see your house on this app but I know that area if it’s just north of Zimmer where I’m thinking.  The asking price sound kinda of high for that area but I’ve honestly not done much purchasing in the Warsaw area for about 4 years. If this is listed with an agent have them find you comps to show the appraiser. Be cautious because some of the low end financing like va/fda have restriction on how or if a second appraisal can even be ordered. I know a pretty smart realtor in that area still. 

The past few years have taken my home building business from what used to be 8 homes or so a year to around 20 a year. Mind you these are full custom homes, not track homes. THis year i have goals of nearing the 30 home mark. 3 x’s The work is 30 times the headache when it comes to scheduling, material ordering, client selections, construction draws, and on and on and on. 

A lot of what we do is system based, but not everything. And most of the systems we have in place rely heavily on professional and personal knowledge of the individual project. THis is good because we have a very personal touch with all of our clients. But it can also be bad because we are spending too much time doing some work more than once, or for instance a subcontractor can ask 2 people in my office the same questions and the answer is not always matching up. 

So I have decided I want to hire a person who’s main job duty would be to create and document a best practices type of system for my company. 

I’ve done some google searches but haven’t found much information, is there a job title that I am unaware of for this type of position? 

If there are other areas of research anyone can recommend I start looking into I would greatly appreciate the advice. 

It just dawned on me that I never mentioned that the new project is also a no money down deal. So I will definitely be starting a new thread to explain all of the details of putting this deal together. This new deal would never have happened without the first deal being so successful.  

I build 20 or so homes a year, I really just tape them to the inside of the window. THe permit placard at least. Everything else we can keep in a file in the office. It sound like you may have more documents that you have to keep on site. If that’s the case you might want to look into some sort of clear flyer box, I just cant say how you could use this and make it visible outside for the inspectors.

I did complete this project, I’m actually sitting in my lazy boy in that house as I type this. I recently got a new phone and all of my pics are in the old phone. I promise to upload a bunch of photos of the finished project. I still have to complete the landscaping so I guess im not really finished. We moved in about 18 months ago

Sorry for not updating this thread for so long, the last 12 + months have reminded me of the 2007 real estate boom. And im praying we don’t see a bust like 2008 anytime soon.

This project is almost completely sold out. We sold and closed 19 addresses in 2017. We sold 2 additional addresses that will close in 2018, and I have 2 more addresses to sell to be completely sold out. My original sales estimates with the bank showed a best case scenario of 4 years, but I gave them a more realistic goal of 5-6 years. July of 2018 will be 4 years so I’m slightly ahead of even my best case scenario. 

The best part of the subdivision selling out is my track record with the bank has been established. I saved this lender from a piece of property that was defaulted on by two different owners, and I followed thru with everything I told the bank I could do with this land. It wasn’t magic tho, It was just old fashioned hard work, combined with a rebounding real estate market, and then more hard work. 

Honestly in about 3.5 years I have take 1 vacation which was supposed to be a week long, but I came back 2 days early because I was bored. ( honestly I was bored and wanted to go back to work) I think I took 2 other days off. I really did give 100% of myself on this project, because I knew this was my last chance to make it happen. I turned 50 this year and I can tell you I accomplished more in the past 3.5 years than the previous 15 years I had in this market.

Since my last post I have hired 2 office women to help with the overwhelming amount of work that comes with all of these sales. At one point I had 13 presold units at the same time in different stages of construction. About mid summer of this year I realized I was almost out of lots and I started to get concerned. I have great employees and in order to keep them I need lots to build on.  After some looking around and lots of research I put together a deal on 80 acres, which I am now developing into 250 single family lots. We are 1 meeting away from getting all of our final approvals from the town and once the weather breaks we will start cutting new roads. I acquired 10 existing lots with this subdivision, constructed our new model home/sales center and will be ready to open the doors in about 1 week. We already have 1 presold in this new project and it is being dry walled right now. So I guess I will have to start a new thread on that project.

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have, and thank you for reading

@Eddie T. 

I never ended up putting this deal for the guidance line together for a couple reasons. First my LOC was keeping up with my needs, but more importantly my new construction business has taken off so well that I haven't spent much time acquiring more rentals. In fact I actually sold one of my SFR's.

 We have had some cost increases this year. Paint Plumbing Hvac and Concrete have all gone up. Lumber is a commodity and moves with the market. Im not sure where the $83/sf came from I don't remember posting that. Land, Labor and Material cost are going to vary all over the country. I can say without land I'm running around $93/sf all in which includes paying myself as a sub for the work we perform.

The 5 acres project your talking about is on the small side, but don't kid yourself its a big project to tackle for someone without construction experience. Are your buying raw land and starting from scratch? Do you have soil testing results for this land? Infrastructure such as sewer/water/roads can get very expensive even on a project of 5 acres. Do a lot of homework and get as many bids as you can. I could probably spend hours discussing all of the planning that goes into this project. Ask lots of questions no matter how silly they seem. 

Here is a short video of the snowblower in action. this is about 5" of extremely wet snow. 

 I did some research and our average snowfall is just under 30". I wouldn't be interested in getting more accounts at this time because the subdivision keeps us plenty busy and unlike a truck and plow I would have to trailer this to other locations. I own a trailer for this machine but trailering it around in snow could be a PITA.

This project is nearing completion, at least inside.  I have a fair amount of pictures I need to upload. I will try to make some progress on this thread this week.