All Forum Posts by: Justin Leithem

Eugene Bryskin Great question. We have a few GCs and they are their own crew and can do a house or two at a time and we have our own in house crew that can do 2-3 houses at a time. Honestly we are still trying to figure it out. We grew so fast and are trying to buy the deals as they come and sometimes that puts us in a place where we have too many houses and have to figure out how to solve that problem.

Omid A. Pretty much from Beaverton to gresham and everything in between. Mostly Gresham and east Portland though. I don't know your side of the river near as much so it's rare for us to venture out there. I hear it's growing out there though so I know there is a ton of opportunity! Where have you been investing in?

@William C. @Omid A.

Great questions. Sorry I didnt get into that on the post. I felt like it was already too long, As far as capital goes, my partner had a few small investors for a total of maybe $75k, he himself had made a few hundred grand from a house sale in southern california. I had a HELOC for $75k, and soon got another investor for $210k, and a few hundred grand of credit cards (we love free travel points!). Ive always read that money follows success, and this is the first time I have experienced that truth first hand. We have people (friends and family,etc) looking to invest on a regular basis now.

We use that capital in combination with hard money lenders. It allows us to do about 5-7 jobs at once. We are still trying to find the happy spot on how many deals we should do at a time, and the best way to allocate our finances. We have definitely spread ourselves a little thin once or twice while waiting for deals to close. 

We are getting deals a few ways. 2-3 were from the RMLS. a few from online auction houses and live auctions. Majority from two awesome wholesalers. They have been key in helping us grow. We bought 3 houses at a time from one a few weeks ago which was a first for us. We already are needing more houses to keep our guys busy, which i guess is a good thing, but it really highlights our dependency on other people at this point. We know if we are going to be successful long term, we need to cultivate our own deals from off market whether that be through mailers, or whatever. Our wholesalers are making $15k+ off of us most deals, so that is a lot of money when you are talking about 20 houses a year. On the other hand, one of our wholesalers spends like $40k per month to get leads. So i understand they have to make money as well! 

Hope this answers the questions! THanks for all your support!

@Cody L.-It is crazy to think about the trajectory i got set on once i made that offer and started on that first flip. I look back and honestly am so glad I went through everything i did, I wouldnt change anything. 

@Brian Garrett-My partner had only done about 6 over the last few years, so while he was more experienced, he also has never done this volume before. We both are amazed how together we could accomplish more than apart. I think having someone to cheer you on and take their share of the mental burdens helps immensely. 

So I planned to write a "success" story after my first flip was sold last year and never got around to it. Partially because it didn't feel like much of a success after all was said and done and I was exhausted. Mentally and physically. I probably should post it under "horror" stories because I think that every bad thing you hear could happen, did happen. Here's the short version: House was sagging in one corner, looked like dry rot and home inspector confirmed this. Contractor said that it would be pretty easy to jack up that corner of the house and re-support it with new wood. Easy enough. Thought it would add 5 days max to my timeline 😂. Demo day: Started tearing off some "dry rot" siding and laminate floors only to discover that a colony of termites had been munching the house to dust over the last 5 years or so. Dry rot would have been a blessing at this point. We ended up rebuilding 90% of the exterior walls from he foundation up, put all new floor joists in, oh and re plumbed and re wired the entire thing. We basically built a new house. Only I was in denial for the first few weeks and ended up dragging demo out way too long because I wanted to salvage whatever I could. The funny thing is, my dad who has built hundreds of homes in his life, told me to just tear the thing down and start over the day I closed on it, and I got upset because I thought I knew what I was doing and this was going to be a quick 30 day Reno. Well 90 days later, after a series of poor contractors, giant termite extermination bill, begging my dad to frame the house up for free, and long 10 hour days, I finished. I lost my whole summer because I was so "behind schedule" and couldn't bear the $50/ day hard money bill, but I was finally done. I listed it and waited a few VERY long days for a full price offer. Mission complete. Almost. A week from closing the buyer's lender caught a problem. With FHA buyers, there is a 90 day flipping rule where basically you can't sign a contract to buy a house within 90 days of its previous sale. Apparently in my haste to get this deal done, I had accepted their offer 8 hours before the 91st day started. So, we had to resign the contract, order a new appraisal, and basically it took another 3 weeks or so to close. Sheesh. Good things that happened: Made awesome friends with the neighbors on both sides and they would bring my coffee and lunch some days. I ended listing both of their houses and helped a friend of theirs sell a house. $15k side bonus (I gave them a super low listing rate for a bulk deal). Made about $25k when all is said in done. $150k purchase price $60k Reno. $5k hard money (rough estimate) $10k closing costs $250k sales price. Fast forward two months to November 2016. Met a partner. Bought a house, bought 2 more, bought another, had 3 renos going at once by January(I couldn't believe that's possible) sold those while acquiring another 6, had 6 renos going at once by March ( made 3 seem like a cake walk), wholesaled one, flipped the other 5, and bought another 7, including a sweet old bed and breakfast on 4 acres near the beach (That one is for fun and hopefully a good air bnb). Our company has already cleared $250k as of April (7 sold,2 pending,1 listed yesterday, one coming on the market tomorrow). I can't even believe how far I've come since my first flip. Oh and the best part, I'm not doing any of the work anymore. We have full crews running on all our projects and my partner and I can focus on big picture things like starting a construction company, a real estate brokerage, and property management company. I've learned that you are only limited by what you can dream. I'm so humbled by this opportunity to employ people and give back to the community. I had a goal of doing two flips this year before I met my partner. Once we got rolling we thought we could hit 12. Now we are going on 17 and the year isn't even half over. It's truly mind blowing and honestly I can't take any of the credit. A good partner makes a world of difference! Thanks BP for all the inspiring podcasts to help me to keep believing achieving financial freedom through real estate is possible!

Hello, I'm a real estate agent/investor in Portland and have recently gotten pretty active into flipping houses with a partner. We are building a team to help with our rehab work and are in desperate need of help! We cannot keep up with all the projects we have going right now due to lack of contractors/handymen and would love someone who knows his way around general renovation tasks. This is a great opportunity for someone who wants to learn how to flip houses or who has been wanting to for a long time and just doesn't have the funds. We are well funded and can provide some good hands on education as well as potential financing on projects of your own one day. We generally operate in the portland/Gresham/troutdale market. If you are handy and willing to work, we would love to talk more with you. Private message me and we can set up a time to meet.

Cash flow will always be a by product of how much you put down, the purchase price, and the amount of rent you are getting. Most investors, including myself, love to find the most cash down for the least amount of money out of pocket. Or atleast this is my experience. This is shooting for a high cash on cash return. How quickly you can get your down payment back out of a property. I've found its tough to find great deals while prices are this high and cap rates are so low. I have a good cash flow property in madras, that I've been super happy with. Bend is insanely priced so people are moving to outlying communities where prices are still reasonable in my opinion. Maybe take a look around there.

Hey Ryan,

You are definitely in the right place to get some good direction. I am an agent/investor, working in the Portland and surrounding areas and would be happy to help underwrite deals. I almost closed on a 50 unit property last year (learned a lot about what not to do) and I just bought a 5 unit property out in Madras. I also flip houses as well to create cash to pour into rentals. That's awesome that you are able to rent your house in Bend and make some money. Bend is insane for rent right now, so way to go on timing that purchase!! Let me know if you need any help or want to chat about multifamily investments sometime. 

@Randy 

@Randy Johnston thank you for your insight!! We actually have a potential developer interested but will keep planning on flipping it until he comes through. 

Hey local Portland investors I have a question. I just closed today on a rehab project that I was intending to fix up and flip. I paid 150,000 for it and think that my $40,000 budget Will be sufficient to get it looking amazing. A comp sold down the street for $262,000 in a couple days so I'm shooting for something near that price point. However I also discovered that it is zoned residential high density which allows for a minimum of seven units with no maximum limit. Obviously the size of the lot will dictate how many units I could ultimately get in there but this zoning designation is pretty crazy in what it allows for developers to do. I'm definitely not a seasoned developer by any means and wasn't intending on developing this but I'm wondering what my best option would be to maximize returns. Have any of you ever dealt with this zoning before or have any advice for what I should do? If I decide to go big and add more units then I definitely would need to get an investor involved so that is something to consider. The property is located off of SE. 126 Ave. Near Stark. Thanks for any input.