All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Thrasher

 I went with Custom upgrades.   Biggest mistake ever.  

Thanks Joe.  After all the demo was done, there were only 3 walls left standing so tearing it down wasn't that much more but it was still the wrong decision.  I firmly believe the contractor got in over his head and he lost of lot of his workers and instead of finishing the job himself he wanted to pass me off to his partner who did the prefab homes.  

I'm not letting this experience keep me from succeeding at investing BUT it's very hard to not feel beat up and unmotivated. 

I guess this is more of a venting post than anything. 

2 years ago I bought my first house to flip.  Here's the original post.   I stopped posting after everything started going downhill. 

To make a VERY long story short, the house was eventually torn down after many issues arose and at the advice of my contractor.   He advised me to do a prefab home because his partner is the dealer in the area for a prefab home company and it would be faster and cheaper than doing a stick built home.  

After months and months of talking with them about that option I finally got numbers for what the cost would be and found out it was not going to be cheaper and because I wasted months just getting, it wasn't faster either.   I decided it would be best to cut ties with the contractor, cut my losses and sell the lot.   The contractor still owed me a decent amount of money leftover from the original money I gave him but he said come of that money was for a "design fee" for the prefab home which he never communicated with me during the process of talking about doing a prefab home and I never signed any contract with him or the prefab home company.   

 After months of asking for my money back, he refused and said I'd have to sue him to get it back.  So I am.  I'm currently waiting to hear back from my attorney on the status. I wish I could sue him for a lot more than I am. 

As if nothing else could go wrong, last month I accepted an offer for the lot and was supposed to close on it the last week of May.  The last week of May came and my realtor called to tell me the buyers were backing out because a property they found before mine came back on the market after a deal fell through.  

Really??!  Can something else go wrong please?!  I'm beyond frustrated, pissed and burned out.  Yes I definitely made my own mistakes.  I never should've torn the house down.  I should've fired the contractor at the first sign of red flags, which there were many.  I'm incredibly embarrassed at this failure and not really sure what to do now.  

The property is back on the market so if anyone wants a 5500sf lot in one of Grand Rapids, MI hottest neighborhoods (less than a block from Wealthy/Eastern) hit me up.  

I also used Foremost but I recently got a private money loan through Benchmark Capitol in Grand Rapids and they also offer insurance which ended up being MUCH cheaper than Foremost so I switched.  Look them up.  

@Ethen Weaver  don't even get me started on that.  haha.  It's a loooong story.  And unfortunately longer still as each day goes by.  Still going to be a really nice financial win for a first flip but has taken WAY longer than I expected or should have due to a few issues, the biggest of which was the city of GR's lack of efficiency in granting my permit to start the rehab. It's a very extensive rehab.   

Welcome @Ethen Weaver!  I'm from Grand Rapids as well.  Currently working on my first flip. 

I love butcher block.   I don't have any rentals yet but when I do, I'm sure I'll use it.  While it's harder to maintain, it's CHEAP and if it doesn't last you can replace it a few times for the cost one piece of granite.  

@Jim Adrian in my opinion laminate ALWAYS looks cheap, but depending on the neighborhood it can work.  Personally, I won't ever use it because too many people in the area do and I want my product to stand out. 

never mind.  after speaking with them they don't seem to be very accommodating for real fix and flip investors. 

Stumbled across this website and wondered if anyone had any experience with them.  

https://www.foacommercial.com

Thanks @Randy Charboneau but I'd rather finish the project as I'm sure we can get more money out of it. Plus, as a designer, I want to see the project completed,  at least on this one.