All Forum Posts by: Jeffrey VanGilder

Being debt free is an amazing goal and will free you indeed. It's a path I'm on as well but just know that there is good debts and bad debts. Using debt is a good tool to gain wealth but you must be disciplined with it. So after following Dave Ramsey initially I have veered off his course. Yes I am paying down debt using the snowball method but raising I'm adding to my savings weekly. On learning to flip houses you could go a lot of different ways. Find a contractor to work for on the side or find a mentor in your area that you could give value to while learning the process on the investor end. It depends on your personal goals and really how much you believe your going to succeed. Work the process backwards in your head and on paper. Start with your goal of flipping houses and then work backwards in what steps you would need to take to get there. Also. Read. It will teach you new things and open your mind to growing more and more. Good luck

Also look over warranty coverages and consumer reports in system reliability. In Connecticut we have a quality installation program. Install may run a little more but in the end you are getting one of the best hvac systems in your town.

Whatever you do is make sure your contractor does a proper heat load. Manual-d. This will size your unit and all ductwork and registers properly. Using a rule of humble measurement can get you close but hiring a contractor that will run the numbers and get the right system for you house and your efficiency needs will be the most beneficial. Over sizing and under sizing a refrigeration system can drastically raise electrical costs and cause the unit the prematurely fail. Would you buy a house without running numbers? Then don't hire a hvac contractor that won't or can't do a heat load. Roughly the same concept.

Thanks for the reply @Christopher Reid. Actually Rick and I recently met up and had a great chat. I'm in the process of contacting brokers in my area to find a good fit for my goals as an agent and in my investment future. 

Besides interviewing brokerages my focus is  education and practice of the skills needed to be successful. I love bigger pockets but are there any other websites you would suggest to focus on strictly real estate sales?

I am building my business plan for being a new agent. While I know being a new agent is tough, so is being an experienced seasoned agent. From my brief research so far, I learned that knowledge is power in real estate just like any other industry. So I'm not letting the new agent stigma stick to me. Instead I actually feel like with a little more direction I could really succeed. First off I'm looking for low cost marketing strategies that I can customize to different incomes and age brackets Second I'm also looking for a website or source to start learning my area and all of its statistics. Stats like days on market, average sales prices inventory numbers, etc. Finally. Practice makes perfect. While I am in the process of becoming an agent I'd love to practice role playing scripts. Any recommendations on good scripts to get and from where? I do have some basics penciled in and nothing will ever be set in stone as markets shift with the wind sometimes. But any pointers would be helpful and very much appreciated Thanks.

Just wanted to give a big thank you to Rick Santasiere. I truly appreciate you lending some of your time for a rookie like myself to just sit down chat real estate. I hope to have the chance to do it again in the future. I also couldn't be happier with bigger pockets and their forums. The content is free, so take it for what it's worth lol, but any question that I have had this far has been answered by others or just searching past posts. Education never stops and neither does the information provided here. Along with the positive mindset of forum members the only thing that can stop someone from getting into real estate/investing after visiting here is themselves. "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right either way."- Henry Ford

There's a few apps. I have heard the app "raise" is good, but there are others available. You can buy discounted gift cards for like Home Depot and other stores and save a good chunk of change. Happy hunting.

I'm a newbie but looking into the same situation. From other posts I got an understanding that it's all bank dependent. Some will have a shorter seasoning time than other but most of the time the less of the seasoning the less ltv percentage that will dish out Please correct me if I'm wrong but basically call as many banks and credit unions to ask what their requirements are. If you don't ask you are saying no to yourself. Give yourself a shot and ask ask ask.

If it's a personal residence then I would think tankless but as a rental unit you would want the cheapest option wth the least maintenance costs and best warranty . Now if it's a rental and they have hot water capacity issues you can basically double your hot water you have available with the use of two things. 1. Make sure your using a mixing/tempering valve on the tank. Set the tank temperature to 140 degrees and then set the mixing valve to send 115-120 degree water to the fixtures. 2. Adding a recirculating pump will save you tons of water that goes down the drain while people are waiting for the water to get hot. The domestic water recirculating pumps are now super efficient and you can also install them into existing domestic water lines without added more piping. Now you could have a couple others options available either to if you have a boiler rather than a furnace. You can always add an indirect water heater to the boiler. You could go high efficiency heat pump water heater. You could use a tankless with a storage tank. Solar. The options are vast and really comes down to the dollar. Good luck.

I am a licensed hvac contractor from CT. I don't deal with through the walls air conditioners much but did run across one recently. The guy wanted it changed out. Well after contacting my supplier, we couldn't find out to fit into the wall sleeve. If you can get one to fit perfect or one that requires a little adjustments to get it in, it would be a better option that a ductless. While ductless units are an awesome product, you would also have the addition cost of fixing all the holes in the wall, running or extended electrical, and then install costs. Now they are super quiet, less of an eye sore and depending on make, model and installation can run at some of the highest efficiency rating in America. $1000 though sounds like an extremely cheap unit though and would want more details. It could be your contractor is running into finding a matching unit for your wall sleeves and then he would be adding extra labor for having the custom fit these into the wall. Before going the route of doing the work yourself, get a few more quotes and ask for more information then just the cost.