All Forum Posts by: Ian Middleton

Hi BP Community,

Getting to the part of the rehab on a 3/2 SFH here in Houston where I need to make some decisions on the flooring. The house is 1250 Sqft and i was thinking of Vinyl plank throughout including the bed rooms. I have had some advice on putting carpet into the bed rooms, but as it is a rental unit my concern is that carpet is more prone to being trashed - any words of wisdom on the subject would be appreciated.  

Dear Julie, 

Thank you for sharing your story and its great to hear that you achieved good success after the transition (even if it was not really the direction you originally set). Sometimes it just takes some time for a clear picture to emerge. 

I have just started my REI journey (1 month in) and find it both motivational and enlightening to hear stories of other successful peers.

Although I will initially be focusing on SFR for both fix-n-flip and buy-n-hold, i think the end game has to be multifamily as there just seems to be so many benefits over the SFR 'one at a time' method.

But for me its walk before run, and hopefully i'll be able to share a similar success story in the years ahead. 

All the best of luck with the next phase of your journey. 

Hi Mark, thanks for the suggestion and I will try to get to this one. 

@Kellen Canfield Hi Kellen, from the pics it doesn’t look bad, just not what you expected. There are some good posts from others which go over the options pretty well, so final call is with you, but as one other post mentioned don’t wait if you decide to change, just push ahead. Good luck with the rest of the rehab.

While i am no expert in these matters this does seem to be a tricky one. It is expected that subway tiles are placed horizontally (as you stated in your post), however if it was not specifically mentioned to your contractor then they used their own initiative (and went vertical). This being the case no-one is really at fault (you expected him to know, but he did not get specific directions on the orientation). I guess the first question is how much would it cost to redo this work, and possibly suggest a compromise where you spring for the materials and your contractor does the work (both at your own cost). You should of course let them know that you are not happy with the outcome of the work as it stands, and a lot will depend on your relationship with your contractor (and if they hope to get more work from you). If they agree then get it done and put it behind you, but if not then its probably not worth making a big deal out of it unless it will bother you for years to come (some people dont really mind these kind of things and others just have to get them fixed). Hope this helps and this is just my humble opinion.  Maybe post some pics and get the general opinion about how they look...who knows people may prefer them that way. 

Hi Vijal, 

Nice job and glad to see that you are getting things done. I think the advice you gave is very realistic that this line of work is not for the faint of heart, and solving problems should be part of the flippers mindset. 

Great job again and keep em coming. 

Originally posted by @Vijaianand Thirunageswaram:

@Ian Middleton I like your dream and realizing the dream and making it happen is going to be lot of work. Doing 4-6 flips a year might be very easy for many if you are planning to do it full time.  But if you are planning to do as part time projects, I would request you to be expect lots of road blocks and dips along the way. Don't mistake me and I am not trying to put you down. I am travelling that road and I know how it goes. First of all, it's hard to find a deal to make it work for the flip. 

Even if you find the deal, it's hard to get right contractors. If you don't get the right one, he screws up the project and you are set to fail on it. We have done 4 successful flips and now at the 5th one on the market. Got stuck with bad contractor and screwed the project and property is in the market for more days than I expected. 

Every part of flip is important and gotta to plan and execute. With 4 flips I took it easy that it won't be big deal but it is big deal and every project is different. 

Just want to caution you to be ready for realistic world!!

Hi Vijal, Yes I think you are right that the flipping business is no easy road. From my (extensive) research and long list of books on the topic I anticipate many problems which will just have to be addressed as they come up. From where i stand I see the biggest challenge is finding deals which seems to be in scarce supply in todays market - i guess i will just have to work the channels like everyone else. 

Luckily I will be doing this on a full time basis and the many years of project management experience in Oil and gas Services contracting should be of some help. We can talk again in a year when some of my enthusiasm has been tempered, but for the time-being its all systems go.   

Thanks for the feedback, it is much appreciated. I think from the above i will start with the LLC route and see how it goes from there. Also seems like a smart idea to meet with some professionals in this field early next year (closer to the time of getting things going) and get some specific advice based on the complete picture. I do see that there are quite a few variables to the equation that should be taken into account, so again my thanks for making me aware of these.

The general plan is to try and get through 4-6 flips per year with (hopefully) a profit of around 20k each giving a projected profit of say 100k per year - (all talk at this stage). 

Dear BP Community, 

I am looking for some advice on the best business structure for a Property Flipping business soon to be established in Texas. I am reasonably new to the US real estate market and thus would appreciate some expert advice w.r.t the best tax structure, liability protection and generally which structure is more suitable, S-Corp,  L.L.C, Series L.L.C, other. This will basically be a one man show (me) so no issues with partners or multiple shareholders etc.  

Hi Drew, I have been crunching the numbers and running the projections for my grand entrance into REI early next year in Texas, and basically came to a similar conclusion to flip for cash and buy-n-hold for longer term equity buildup. Although i have reasonable amount of cash to get this business off the ground, i just struggled to get the numbers to work (ie sufficient cash flow from buy and holds to support my life without a W2 job).

I was felt quite relieved when i came to this realization and that also took some of the pressure off in finding the 'home run' deals for buy-hold. It goes without saying that the flips need to work but i strongly agree with this approach, especially in today's market.  I really appreciated you sharing this info which helped to confirm this strategy workable.