All Forum Posts by: Jacob Patterson

I'm getting ready to start a flip project and I'm trying to figure out the best/cheapest way to stage the home when I'm done and it is ready to go back on the market. Give me your opinions on renting furniture vs buying vs not staging at all. Also, should you stage bedrooms or just the main living area and dining area?

Also, I have never rented furniture before. Any ball bark numbers on what it would cost to rent enough furniture to stage a 1700 sf 3 bed 2 bath with a large eat in kitchen?

It was just a photocopy of the check for the earnest money. When I got into real estate investing I made my wife get her license. She only works with me so she doesn't have much real estate experience but I have direct access to everything she does so it works out very nice.

It was not a hud/homepath home. It was a foreclosure through a smaller bank which helped. The listing agent was able to get back to us quickly after they countered and we countered back.

It was a 90k cash offer and I did 25k in earnest money

I have looked into real estate trusts and from what I read it is really only beneficial if there are multiple owners and if I were super wealthy and didn't want anyone knowing I was the property owner. Other than that (from what I read) it really doesn't protect you from liability if you are managing the properties and a court can order full disclosure of property ownership for a number of different civil and criminal complaints.

I may not be a 100% correct on this. This is just what I came up with a while back from a few hrs of reading up on trusts.

The property I was talking about when I started this post was listed for 87K and a few days after I offered I called the listing agent and he told me there was 17 offers and the highest was at 120k cash lol. Needless to say I didn't get the property.

However, a few days ago I made an all cash offer with a very large earnest money on another foreclosure within a few hrs of it coming on the market and was able to get a counter and work out a deal. I am a big believer in the large earnest money offers now.

When I decided to get into real estate investing I had my wife get her real estate license. I do a lot of the work on my flips myself so having your licensed wife looking for properties for you while you do/oversee your renovations is a huge bonus. Plus it is awesome making commission both when we buy and sell properties.

Great tips Bryan! It is very easy to get caught up in the excitement of getting your first deal and forget to do the little things right out of the gate. I have heard of people turning on the water and there was a leak that caused a lot of damage.

Thanks for the great info and contacts! I will try and get several brokers to give me prices and do my homework on what is covered in each policy.

Thank you for the info! I will keep in mind that I don't need someone local.

J Scott I appreciate you giving me your accountant's contact info! I actually bought your book on flipping houses before I knew who you were and was pleasantly surprised to find out you were doing work right near where I'm located!