All Forum Posts by: Jacob Workman

So, here’s my dilemma and my thoughts. I’m about halfway through building a spec home. Our initial plan was to sell it. Our targeted profits would be somewhere around 50k after all fees, loan closures, etc. Of course we would have to pay capital gain taxes on that. My wife’s thought was to keep it, move into, pull the equity out of it, and leave our current homes loan as it is. Our current home could rent for 1600 and by the time it was all said and done, we would be looking at around 250 in cash flow. This factors in what we would assume for the new payment. Should be about to pull around 25-30k of equity out of the new home. So on paper it looks like we could end the year with the same amount of cash on hand. However, both of us are self employed and this would effect our gross income. Figured I’d turn to BiggerPockets community and pick everyone’s brain. Thanks in advance.

What's your thoughts? Am I too late to speculatively build homes. To give you a backstory, my name is Jacob. I've been involved in real estate over the past 12 years in various different ways. I've owned land, flipped land, owned rental units, and New home construction. From about 2009 to 2011, We were able to build three spec homes.  The first two homes we sold relatively quickly, with the last one sitting on the market for two years. After sitting on the market for two years, I was newly married, and decided to just go ahead and move in at myself. This is how I gained my first rental property, by renting out the previous property that my wife and I had started our marriage off in.  since my wife and I had decided to move into our last spec home we built. we decided to get a HELOC on the property to buy my existing partner out his part of the business. Although it was extremely lucrative, we had decided to take our life in a different direction. This lead us to selling our property, and also selling our rental units. Fast forward to 2017 we decided that we wanted to get into laundromats. After four years of owning two laundromats, we have decided that real estate was a much better fit for us. Real estate checks all the boxes that we want to check. Enough backstory, and back to the original question do you think it's too late to start building spec homes? For my previous projects and projects in the future I was the general contractor. I have my license through the state of Tennessee and I am able to build up to four unit home with my license. My overall goal is to build single-family homes to fund my cash on hand, and use my Lassens to build multi family units to hold. The bank that I work with only requires me to put 20% down of property purchase price and will fund the rest depending on appraisal estimated value.  i've pretty much started the process to get started back into the industry. I just wanted to get on BiggerPockets and reach out to the community and to see what other people are doing in their areas. 

Does Fannie Mae offer loan assumption? It may be worth reaching out if you have a buyer.

The white stuff on the clothes is most likely a paper towels or a rug. The machine most likely just needs to go through a cycle with no clothes. This will remedy that problem. Just an FYI I would put a sign up about bathroom rugs and other things that have the nonslip backing. The backing comes off and will clog your pump. As for the dryer it’s most likely your lint screen. Some are fabric, some are mesh. The mesh is the best in my opinion. We own a commercial laundromat and have to clean our dryers out every 2-3 days, but we’re dealing a much larger volume. Shouldn’t be too hard of a fix. I wouldn’t do leasing. The machines will pay for themselves if you have to buy. Commercial washer and dryers will last years with regular maintenance. If you need a source for parts or new or used units, shoot me a PM and I’ll set you up with the people I use. Wish you luck.

This is crazy! There has to be an underlying cause. I can’t believe that the water table is just that naturally saturated. I had the issue of my personal home having a small stream in my basement. Only had the problem once. This was after 5 days of constant hard rain, flooding everywhere. The ground was just so saturated. It seems like there’s really only two explanations. Either there’s a busted pipe near you, or every bit of drainage is being directed you. Something to check that some people let go unnoticed are your downspouts. I’ve seen instants where the downspouts weren’t properly installed or over the years have been hit or what not and now are letting all that collected water drain directly on the foundation. Wish you luck, and hope you are able to remedy this.

I think it has great potential. My first choice would be medium/dark gray, but with the roof would need to a darker color. That being said my next choice would be white and a darker trim, with matching door color. Some dark hardware for the garage door will defiantly bring your eyes to it. If possible remove the trees, if not, trim them up. Clean the roof, and power wash the concrete. The shutters are iffy. You may be able to pull it off with them. It would certainly dim the white down some. I’ll be looking forward to seeing the result of this regardless. This is one of those properties that go unnoticed until someone sheds some light on it. Good luck!