All Forum Posts by: John Lyszczyk

Does any have anyone have tips on building relationships with Brokers? I have some decent momentum cultivating new contacts in markets where I will be buying multi-family properties. I plan on visiting the brokers in a couple months. Any tips, advice, dos and don'ts of relationship building would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for the guidance! 

Calling on the more experienced house flippers and wholesalers...

Generically, what search criteria in List Source (or other list brokers) do you use for finding house flip deals? How many times do you direct mail that list in a year?

I have a list with the following set of criteria. There are 3,459 addresses to DM. 

-ownership of 5 years or greater 

- > 20% equity

-Four Different zip codes

Originally posted by @Chris Blackburn:

@John Lyszczyk @Jay Hinrichs   I have a solution if you are building out larger projects.  One of the companies I am part of is called Treenada.   We are battling the cost of lumber and reducing the specialist required for a project.  Our product works great if you are building out multiples of the same homes, building apartments or building assisted living.  We are also working on warehouse space and flex space.  Our costs are significantly lower than a lumber package with a time+labor savings as well.  I see lumber prices continue to rise faster than steel.  Our panelized system with EPS built into the walls offers better R values, faster construction, and lower cost.  We are expanding and at capacity but we are looking to add bigger projects, subdivisions, apartments/warehouses to our schedule for the next quarters.   Please contact me if you want to discuss more.  I know it is hard to move away from lumber but the economics are almost forcing and change and this change has a huge number of benefits. 

We are located in Salem, Oregon.

Chris Blackburn Clutch Industries,  www.treenada.us   

(The pictures include a project in Bend)

 This looks very interesting. Does this product comply with any ASTM standards or third party certified (UL, intertek, etc)? If you can get a wall assembly put together using this product and have it pass the E84 ASTM (fire-wall testing) standard I think this product could take off. If it passes 1 and/or 2 hour test (certified third party) while simultaneously maintaining structural design factors that meet code, this could be used in larger multi-family across the country. Those fire walls are important to inspectors and architects. 

 

You're right about Canadian producers. Supply is tight in Canada and they are leaning on our wood products right now. However, our mills are also out of wood. Import is non-existent for both panels and lumber. It's crazy...

 There are a few schools of thought here. As a society we are somewhat bound to steel, concrete and wood. I'd love to see more alternatives at similar price points. GCs often run cost comparisons between steel and wood to see which is cheaper. Both steel and wood fluctuate just like most commodities, so one may be more cost beneficial than the other depending on markets. A major cost to building is labor, and the building industry has developed efficiencies around using concrete, steel and wood. There would need to be significant automation and cost savings in labor for GCs to shift away from what they know from a skill's standpoint. 

I don't think we will necessarily have a permanent substitute for wood, but there are developments in place to increase supply and drive costs down. State-of-the-art sawmills are being built as I type this. As far as building innovation, check out www.katerra.com. The trend for wood construction is on the rise. A recent report on the North American mass timber market projects that the number of mass timber buildings could double every two years. By 2034, there would be new demand for 12.9 billion board feet of lumber! There are currently over 500 mass timber buildings under construction or planned to be built. Pretty crazy!

The lumber and plywood market has always experienced volatility, but never to this degree. With the levels of inflation that have occurred, it is hard to say what will happen. We could see supply levels balance out to meet demand and price plummet back to historical marks. If prices do return to normal levels, we're talking about a 60-75% reduction. From a macroeconomic standpoint, this sort of correction in a short time period would, for lack of a better term, shake things up. The more likely scenario is supply catches up to demand and pricing levels out, but we may be at a "new norm" of inflated prices. For the next decade we would see consistently higher prices than the previous decade. 

If I had a crystal ball, I would be sitting at a high office in Wall Street lol But I don't so I'll stick to slinging lumber for now haha. Hope this helps!   

 Interesting take. I don't think the value of Gold or the $DXY index correlates with the massive supply/demand issue of fiber-source and remanufactured wood products. There were several events that I detailed in my previous post that caused a nationwide supply shortage. 

Your weak dollar value reference might be due to the US federal government printing 37% of all dollars made in the HISTORY of the federal reserve in just 12 months.

It's crazy out there, Jay. It's the truss package figures that are eye opening. Price inflation has put builders in a tight spot and forcing them to pass the cost onto their customer. Considering the rising cost in building materials in general due to similar circumstances, it will be interesting to see how high home prices will go.  

Glad to have helped! Some of your suppliers would normally be engaging in what we call the "Spring Buy", which is basically an offering of discounted wood (PT, decking, untreated, etc) that the dealers take advantage of to stock up for the spring/summer. That is not happening this year. Everyone is still "hand-to-mouth" so to speak.