All Forum Posts by: John Hickey

Its been a while since I was here. I had a good run in RE. Made some big mistakes. After alll was said and done in RE I did pretty well and effed pretty big. Easy come easy go. 

In 2016/17 I had read 4 hour work week. Ecom interested me. So while I kicked my (self inflicted) wounds I studied ecom, and later DTC business. 

My wife the serial entrepreneur needed some digital help. In 2020 I felt experienced enough to give it a shot. While I was losing millions in 2020 on paper I helped start a DTC brand. By may of 2020 we were doing 320k a month. I was so busy. But as happens some things  don’t last. We shut that down just short of 1m in sales. 

I started a few more projects in 2020/2021 and then my wife gave me a small business to market. It was doing about 50k a month when I got it. This year we are solidly in mid 8 figure revs. Goal is 9 in 2024 but we will see. 

Telling you the story to be honest as a bit of a brag but also a little bit of closure I ran away from real estate totally ashamed of what it happened to me. Which is understandable I did take a total beating and it was 100% my fault. Ego drinking problem moments of laziness I did work pretty hard but I could tell you that there was a few minutes here and there were I probably could’ve done something else instead I was eating lunch or ********ting with my friends or working on something silly when I should’ve been working something something important I never really didn’t show up to work I was there every day .

I also wanted to share it just in case somebody else is struggling it’s OK to struggle everybody makes mistakes and even when you lose everything I mean I was sitting there in March 2020 with a huge lawsuit I took about 150 grand put it into options and lost that too. yeah that was pretty stupid. I felt like a total failure but I went back to the drawing boards I spent a lot of time on YouTube I listen to a lot of experts and recently I started a new business rehabbing beat up DTC companies kind of what I did with real estate. i’m approaching about 20 to 25 companies fixed so to speak hard to say cause sometimes when you get their revs to a certain point they shut you out and go back to running it themselves had some amazing success there’s a brand called blanks by 13 for instance. Seven figure apparel brand from LA . They went from losing money to six figures net profits a single month the owner attributes a lot of that to me 

I don’t get over here very much anymore anymore I’m not real estate except owning my own house oh yeah maybe I should tell that story one day I sold three houses since any of the post that were down here one of them cleared about 500 grand. So I wasn’t a total failure at RE. But Covid definitely helped there lol. 
so here’s my Instagram and Twitter if anyone wants to follow me I post on Twitter every day no doubt. 

IG

@Michael Ealy great thread.  

Rule: Don’t buy the first house you look at. Instead look at a lot of houses then buy. 

Three times now in a new market  I’ve bought a house which I saw and offered As a new investor in the area.  

Now don’t get me wrong I don’t advise it. LOL that’s my rule.  But I’ve broken it and made a lot breaking it.  

@Rebecca McDonald large funds no job?

Easiest way is to find a good deal. Then keep finding them.

Some people are good at finding deals but don’t have money. If you keep finding deals that will change.

Some people are good at the opposite, savers, high earners.

Don’t be surprised that some of these savers/high earners think finding deals with no money is nuts. They didn’t do it to get where they are so they think it’s impossible.

I would start out as others mentioned going to REIA or meetups....to find the folks with money.

Then figure out how to find those deals.

As others have mentioned check out max maxwell.

I’m in contract to sell a house now for 250

That was bought for 16k cash and later refi into a 60k cash out that had a 100k reno loan.

I put down nothing on either closing day.

@Monroe M. That’s about what I put down on my first house. 3 family. 35k. Had no reserves not enough enough to turn on the electric when I closed....as usual.

It all worked out.

@Bryan Cavellier

I’ve had other landlords look at my apartment to tell me that I make them too nice but when they hear the rents that I get they start renovating as well I would say it’s up to you definitely pulled out some comps if you can go to some for rent apartments in your area you don’t want to be $25,000 of renovation costs above the nearest apartment unless that’s going to be justified in the rents that you get but sometimes you have to take a chance I think about it this way if you make a mistake with $20,000 and you put a hole in the property for 30 years it comes out to a few dollars a month and then on the next one you know what you need to do

@Nick Mess depends. Contractors def need a truck. Investors? Maybe not.

I have a used truck. Used trucks can be a pain. If you can swing it and it makes financial sense new or lightly used is better bc maintaining an old truck can be expensive. But new is expensive. What to do.

I drive 20k miles a year a lot of that in Manhattan/Brooklyn. So the gas and maintenace would be a killer...I drive a Civic daily. The only time I need a truck

Is a few times a month. Home Depot is 4 miles away.

if you can swing it......you want to figure out if it makes Financial sense. In other words what's the ROI. I see some ppl saying it's only 500 or so...but it's also insurance gas oil changes and tires brakes etc. adds up.

Around here i can hire guys for 1000 a week that have trucks. I have a few guys with vans and trucks that I do biz with. Some of them used to let me borrow a truck.

I use dumpsters for Demo. No pickup truck beats a 30 yard dumpster. My typical Reno is 150 sheets of mostly 10-12’ 5/8 Sheetrock.

so that’s gettin boomed to the window....the lumber we order. as long as it’s more than 200 2x4 no sense in not having them delivered.

So then you have your insulation, paint, tubs, toilets tile, cabinets man it’s a lot of stuff. That’s not half of it.

But that’s what the guys getting paid 1000 a week grab on their way in or out because they make the list of what they need every day. How the hell do they make 1000 and 12% goes towards car payment? Oh yeah. They want to work for someone else. Guess the job justifies a truck and vice versa.

Truck comes in handy. Def. but 500+++a month is what I was paying on one of my mortgages...well actually 690 but it’s def 200 a month in gas and oil. So same thing.

I looked at it this way many times.

Buy a new truck....or buy a house. I’ve looked at truck prices so many times they went up 25%.

Then one day I had 14 houses and no truck. So I bought a used truck. 09 Silverado 3000 in repairs so far. Good truck. We ride it hard.

my take is don’t buy a truck till your houses buy your truck. And if that’s the case you won’t have to worry about it.

@Sarah Hooff thanks for stopping down. Nice work on those sales. Don’t let the. At out of the bag on the ending.

So the next one up was actually the first to go into contract. It was 11 units(My fav #) I had it listed as two separate properties. It was actually 4 buildings in 2 tax lots. 222/224/226/228 broadway newburgh. Bought 9/2017 for 664 or so. It had two liens 40k and 60k. It also had 2 lis pedems!!!!what I found that out a week before closing. It was a improper...there were no judgments but I did have a lawsuit and to be cute the lawyer filed them at the address... that took a bit to get removed.

In the meantime time was ticking away. Hard money guys checking in....and then boom sale went through.

Breathing room. I had sold the property for 825 my purchase was 664....but the mortgage was 335. So now I had some cash.

Still have few hundred grand at 10/12% and 200k in liens. Deadlines coming up.

meeting went well.  See that guy with the 10k? That’s me. And if one of these folks closes a wholesale deal with me that 10k is theirs.  Even if I make 0 or negative. 

Get on it.  

@Jared W Smith well we’re neighbors in WC and NB def have to get together.  

Man I wish there was a button for “view the post that has been removed” can whoever posted above and got deleted take a look at their post and figure out what got flagged and rephrase to make it less objectionable.  

On the edge of seat.  

Moderator Note: The post above was removed because it was a double post. It did not violate our posting rules.