All Forum Posts by: Maria Mendez

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment.

Great 4 bedroom, 2 bath home in the Buffalo NY Suburbs (Cheektowaga)

I just finished reading The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J Stanley and William D Banko and picked up Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson as well as the Warren Buffet Story by Robert B Hagstrom. I read a lot on real estate too, but wanted to branch out for some variety and particular focus on biographies to get better ideas of the challenges that they had to overcome. 

There's no right or wrong answer to this. I am in my early 50's and can attest that from experience, each decade has brought a different superior skill set. If you take care of your mind, keep educating yourself, keep challenging yourself and keep growing, you will find the same to be true.

For a rental, I would stick with the carpets in the bedrooms. They are relatively a quick and easy change out if you need to plus they help with the noise from one unit to another.

Hi Mario, I'm an investor in the Buffalo area. Great to make your acquaintance. =)

The coolest thing I found in a property was actually its history and the newspaper that was used to insulate pipes. The papers went back to the early 1900's. I bought a house that ended up being owned by the CEO of a local railroad. He used to house some workers in the back addition on the house. The railroad that he worked for was the railroad that my grandfather and great grandfather came into this country to work on. It was a proud moment being the great granddaughter and granddaughter who was now buying the property. It also showed just how much our society's expectations changed since this was a CEO's house back then and today it's considered just a normal house.

@Basit Siddiqi I do prefer a CPA who is local but thank you for reaching out.

@George W. thanks, that's what we do, my company name has "development" in it and we say we are renovators not flippers. It isn't so much our specific reputation, but flippers in general. That's a few times I heard about the warranty so I think we might be adding that to our properties or start posting our signage on the properties so they know it's our work and our good reputation goes with it then vs just another flipped house with hidden problems. 

@Kathy Utiss thank you. I try to interact with buyer as much as I can, but that's difficult as I use a broker to sell my properties. Testimonials on my website is a great idea! I will definitely incorporate that onto my site and make a sheet up for my broker to use as part of the listing.

@Lynnette E. I was thinking about doing that too- especially because they are only about $500. That would help ease people's minds.

@Christopher Janney It's buyer's in general saying that we make properties look pretty but they assume because we are flippers that we spent all of our money on making it look nice rather than fixing any potential mechanical problems. We have tried to use contractor statements to show that mechanics were checked, replaced, serviced, etc, but the comments that come back from that are that the contractors are just friends providing useless letters. Kathy's idea about the testimonials might help. Have you done anything to prevent this since you aren't experiencing the same issues?

What strategies have other successful flippers used to overcome the bad reputations that flippers tend to have? We encourage buyers to check with the inspector's office to make sure that permits were pulled and signed off on and always encourage buyers to run a home inspection. We don't even call ourselves flippers, we prefer renovators. We use higher end materials as well so they are visible to the potential buyers.