All Forum Posts by: Jennifer Jacobs

Steve Kirsch Ask yourself this question to find the answer. If you can borrow at 5% and invest that and make 10% how much would you want to borrow? You can buy AAPL, TSLA, FB, GOOG, XOM, IBM, and make huge gains or better yet - another SFH.

Jd Martin "Banks make money by loaning money. ... Hint: Keep the name of the bank to yourself :)  It's like sharing your fishing hole. " Do you feel that these two statements contradict one another? If I was the bank and someone brought me more clients I'd treat them the way Mr Drysdale treated Jed Clampett.

Hi Everyone,

What do you do when your contractor asks for a deposit?

My partner and I have always done our own rehab. The next project we are working on we can’t do ourselves and are looking to hire a contractor.

We’ve contacted several reputable companies and all of them are asking for a deposit of 25-50% up front.

Is this standard practice?

We’ve all heard stories from rehabbers who put down a deposit and never hear from the contractor again.

The companies we’ve contacted all have offices, professional websites, and several references that we checked.

I’m wondering how safe is it to give a deposit with a company that is established.

What has your experience been?

I understand from the contractors point of view they don’t want to do all this work and not get paid. But from the owners perspective it’s the same thing - they don’t want to pay out money for work that might not get done.

What is the best way to serve both parties so that they both feel secure?

Thanks everyone for the replies so far. 

We are planning on having lien releases with each draw, however, my question is about protecting from unknown subs claiming they were never paid from the GC.  

On one of the BP podcasts one of the guests talks about this.  Where he paid the GC the final draw with  lien release after the job was done, several weeks later a couple of subs contact him saying they never got paid, when he tried to contact the GC he disappeared off the face of the earth.

What's the best way to protect against that situation?

Hi fellow BP members.  

We are looking to hire a contractor for our next flip we are working on. 

I've heard plenty of horror stories about home owners paying the general contractor and then the contractors not paying their subs which causes the subs to place liens on the property.  

Then it becomes a "I paid"  "I wasn't paid" battle.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to protect yourself from this type of situation?

@Vitaliy Merkulov By all means search for what people post publicly. On the topic of requiring them to give you access, frankly, whatever you would find even if someone did give that information to you - that is none of your business. I don't criticize you personally, after all you are asking for others opinions (before?) you try this. I do however criticize the idea as it gives us landlords a bad name and to me, personally, I feel that something as intrusive as that is un-American.

Hi Jack, If you want cheap prices you should check out Tallahassee.

Hi everyone,

My name's Jennifer. I've been in real estate for five years doing flips and a few buy and holds.

I am in the Tampa / St. Petersburg and Jacksonville areas. My brother is a contractor so he does all the renovations and I do all the decorations. We make a great team and have done over 20 flips together.