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All Forum Posts by: Mark Ferguson

Mark Ferguson has started 247 posts and replied 2799 times.

Post: REO List Provider - Not Realtors or Asset Managers - Where?

Mark FergusonPosted
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Greeley, CO
  • Posts 2,879
  • Votes 1,353
Originally posted by @Brian Sinclair:

@Wayne Brooks - Thank you for you input. However your answer is of no help to the question at hand.

What you are looking for does not exist. The banks do not sell their REO assets without agents.

Post: Front Range Investor

Mark FergusonPosted
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Greeley, CO
  • Posts 2,879
  • Votes 1,353

Welcome to the site! I am in Greeley not too far away

Post: My project manager experiment failed

Mark FergusonPosted
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Greeley, CO
  • Posts 2,879
  • Votes 1,353
Originally posted by @Don Harris:

@Mark Ferguson I give you a lot of credit for trying. Right idea , wrong person for the job. Not a bad person, the shoe just doesn't fit. You will do him and yourself a favor as soon as you removed this burden from both of yourselves. (He is probably frustrated internally as well because he is not done what he is primarily gifted at). 

You can both look at it as "my project management experiment failed" OR you both just learned what doesn't work. Remember , you said it was an experiment. It does take a lot of Inspect to get what you Expect. 

 Don't give up, you may need some one who is actually more green and train them in how you would do it from the get go. I'm sure there are eager wannabe flippers in your market who would jump at the chance to learn from a pro. Yes, they will leave "some day" but you will have created a working partner for life as well. Hire character, train skill. 

Persevere. 

 You are right about the way I look at it as well. When I say the experiment failed, that doesn't mean I failed. It just means that particular idea didn't work and its time to tweek it or try something else. 

Post: My project manager experiment failed

Mark FergusonPosted
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Greeley, CO
  • Posts 2,879
  • Votes 1,353

I agree about trying someone green. With my other staff they have mostly been green and I trained them exactly how I wanted things to be done. They didn't have any preconceived notions about how to do things. I didn't have to retrain them to think differently. 

Post: My project manager experiment failed

Mark FergusonPosted
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Greeley, CO
  • Posts 2,879
  • Votes 1,353
Originally posted by @Manolo D.:

He is not a project manager, most small contractors can't handle multiple jobs, they think they could though. Depending on educational and actual brain capacity, things could not work out. I had a contractor that does ground-up construction, he got tired of owners not paying him on time, workers complaining for weeks without pay, material delays by owner, so he stopped being a contractor, he now runs 4-6 jobs at a time for someone, he is fairly happy with his hourly job and won't miss the things of being a contractor. Not all are bad, only those who think running jobs are easy are bound to fail. Sure they know how to do materials run and boss their workers around, but being a PM is a different job description itself.

 I agree. I thought this person could handle it because his previous job was managing 40 people at a corporate manufacturing job. 

Post: My project manager experiment failed

Mark FergusonPosted
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Greeley, CO
  • Posts 2,879
  • Votes 1,353

last week I posted about some successes. It can't all be fun and games! In April I hired one of my contractors to be my project manager. My goal was to have him hire subs, mange contractors, bid jobs and basically handle the rehabs for my flips and rentals. I thought he would be awesome since he is a great guy, has contracing and corporate management experience. 

After months and months it is apparent he can't handle the job. As I have less contractors working on jobs, less subs and things are taking even longer then when I did everything. Not too mention things are more expensive! 

I am sure some of this is my fault for not overseeing everything enough, but I have been very hands on lately and nothing is getting better. I have contacted my old contractors who we used when he started and they like the guy, but said he just stopped communicating with them and jobs they thought they were doing were given to other contractors. I have also found he had been blaming delays on things like plumbers and electricians I have used for years being too slow. When I talk to them they say they did the work within a week of being asked but they weren't asked to actually do the work until well after the project manager said he ordered jobs. To top it off ot took over 6 weeks to get two hvac bids on a house and over 4 weeks to get a foundation bid. That was all the hvac and foundation companies fault as well. We have given him a couple contractors names who he said weren't working out. When we talked to those contractors they said they waited and waited for call backs but had to take other jobs because he wouldn't get back to them. 

On the end I am not giving up and sorry for the long rant. Next year I am bringing rehabs back in house for two of my team members to manage. They have more time since reo and hud listings are down so much. I am implementing more systems including inspections after I buy to make sure nothing is missed. And then another home inspection After repairs are done. I called most my contractors I had before and they are still cool with me so that is good! 

Post: Part Time Flipper

Mark FergusonPosted
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Greeley, CO
  • Posts 2,879
  • Votes 1,353

Welcome! I am in Greeley. 

Post: I WANT PROPERTIES - Have $900,000 That I Need to Use By Dec 31st

Mark FergusonPosted
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Greeley, CO
  • Posts 2,879
  • Votes 1,353

I may know someone who has some inventory. Pm sent. 

Post: Hiring my first general contractor

Mark FergusonPosted
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Greeley, CO
  • Posts 2,879
  • Votes 1,353
Originally posted by @George P.:

i am sorry, but you will have problems. i hope not, but all of us have problems. i wish you the best, but prepare for the worst. 

i have tried to have "contracts, clauses, timelines" and it didn't work out. i got super, super high quotes. so high that they were higher than the house i had purchased at the time. 

so i ended up just hiring individual guys and just explaining what needs to be done. so i acted like a GC. i dont kneed to hire a GC and pay him 20% for something i can do. sure, i was pulling my hair at times, but i hear hair grows back as you get older. so i am all set!

 I'm still struggling with this. I hired a contractor as a full time employee to n manage my rehabs and it is going worse then when I did it. He had management experience too. I think I am going to have my team manage them and see how they do now. 

Post: Seasoned investor wanting to walk away from it all

Mark FergusonPosted
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Greeley, CO
  • Posts 2,879
  • Votes 1,353

great post. I get most of my deals from the mls and I feel the same way as you do  out buying direct from sellers for a huge profit. One thing I do since I have my license is give people two options. When I have an interested party who wants to sell I tell them what I will pay and WHT they could get if they listed it on mls. Sometimes they list it and sometimes they sell to me. But I give them the option and explain why the prices are different. 

On mls I always buy from other agents so the buyers are represented. You can make money in this business without buying direct from sellers.