All Forum Posts by: Jeremy Lewis

Another all around good company to check out is Ohio Home Improvement. Typically they don't work on flips but if you can get in with them they do top notch work and are professional.

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone. I appreciate each and every one of you and I can't wait to meet many of you to forge many friendships.

That is great Aaron, so it should appreciate well. I hope you can find the funding you need at reasonable rates. Please keep us informed as you go along as this sounds like it'll make a great "from tragedy to success" story.

Man oh man! First of all I would get another opinion on the work needing done to the property, where one person may see one hundred problems another may only see a few that would need to be addressed immediately. Secondly, as soon as possible get as many pictures of the place and what your mom is describing as you can, that way you can make informed decisions. Thirdly, shop around as much as you can for the best and most reliable contractors to do your repairs. Family is great, but often not super motivated to put in more work once they're done with their day job (it took me two and a half years to swap out an old shower head at my own house... I change other peoples shower heads every day)

So I am a bit of a oddity. I was working a stable job making nearly six figures travelling the country. Sounds great! But it wasn't. I wasn't happy at all. The travelling was great most of the time, and I got to see a ton of great places and some bad ones but I visited 18 states in 3 years which is awesome. The money came in on time and without fuss, I never had an issue with pay and that was always a plus. However; the management was terrible. Snakes in the grass every step of the way just waiting for their chance to bite you and then tell their buddies that you tasted bad.

Once it came out fully that the management was nothing more than a boys club full of best friends and that that smiled to your face and spoke ill of you behind closed doors; most of my direct management (the ones that were right below the upper management boys club) left immediately making the upper management scramble to fill the void and basically overly micromanage.

Right before this all came out I had a vivid dream of starting a Handyman side hustle, and I didn't know where it would go but I would use the funds from my 'good' job to get the Handyman business started and work it on the side until I could do it full time. I spent three days working on it before the events I explained earlier came to pass. On the fourth day when multiple snakes were biting at my legs I decided I had enough.

With a thousand dollars in my pocket (I had just dumped my emergency fund into fixing up my truck Oiii) I left the company and decided I would pursue my Handyman business while looking for another job. The sink or swim scenario proved to provide me with the right pressures to stick to it and succeed. For weeks my money dwindled and I lost a lot of sleep wondering what the F-word I just did to my family. 

Fast forward a couple months and we are doing well. Marketing is picking up and my schedule is filled out almost a week in advance every week. Sometimes we are forced into making changes before we are ready, sometimes we jump too early but in this world it is sink or swim and it is a valuable lesson regardless of the outcome.

Cheers!

I've spent the last two days reading this entire thread and I have to say that I love it and while at times I have had some objections, I have long since forgotten them (53 pages!)

I miss Squirrel Lady :(

Thanks!

 Thanks Justin, I'll shoot you a connection request and I'll be getting ahold of all of you around the 10th of May!

That is awesome Aaron. It is a good lesson for everyone to learn; just because something looks scary doesn't mean it is. Secondary lesson that I got from your followup about the headaches is to always have your team solid, and when you have them solid, make sure your back up team is just as solid. Your favorite contractor might be busy when you make a deal, your agent might be out of town and your dog might be at the park when you need to pet the goodest boy. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

My apologies for bumping, but I think I can better phrase this to get some ideas.

Let's say I run my Real Estate under an LLC or even something bigger when the time comes. But I also own a Property Management company and a General Contracting company, are there any laws or rules against having my PM company manage my RE properties, or having my GC company rehab the RE properties?

I am very entrepreneurial and can see a benefit to utilizing my own companies for my RE, however I don't know if its legal and haven't found anything via searches.

Note: I do NOT own a Property Management company or General Contracting company, those were just for the purpose of putting out an example that would be easier to understand than my last post.