All Forum Posts by: Matt A.

While a rather long story, Ill try to keep it short as possible. Last fall my mother-in-law passed and she had been the primary caregiver to her mother (my wife's grandmother), whom at 98 was still living independently in a condo she purchased some 20 years ago. Many of the care responsibilities fall on my wife and through a series of events her grandmother ended up relocating to an assisted living home. Her condo had been transferred to her daughter (wife's mom) over a decade ago. The net is my father-in-law didnt realize he owned this property and it suddenly became an issue that he did not want to address.

The short version of the story is I really hadnt given ANY consideration to getting involved, but figured "WTF", make an offer and see what happens (I SHOULD have kept my trap shut and asked what he wanted for it, however I still more than doubled my investment - so I didnt do too bad)... he accepted and had a deed produced in a matter of days. (I told him Id write a check when he could deliver a deed, I had already checked on liens and it was clear).

I had my painters in the day after getting possession to remove anything that wasnt nailed in place, pull the carpet, strip wallpaper, and of course paint.  I put  in ceramic tile in bathrooms, entry, and the kitchen, had crews install granite in the kitchen and bathrooms, new carpeting, replaced lighting and plumbing fixtures, and generally readied the place for retail. I didnt expect a friend (also an investor) to make me essentially a full price offer (minus commissions of course) before it was completed - two weeks into the project. He has already rented the unit and were closing (officially) tomorrow morning.

All told, I spent 3 weeks in total on the flip and more than doubled my investment in ROI.

Greetings.

I found this site about a month ago - would have been great to find a few years back, but at least its bookmarked now. Im an ex in most things construction, ex laborer, framer, roofer, concrete, ex owner (two companies - framing & roofing, and concrete)... in general an entrepreneur with a couple of successes and a few failures (aka "learning experiences") under my belt.

Fr the last 30 years Ive been in the IT industry in sales, sales management, engineering, and architecture capacities. Having recently hit my 50's Ive decided its time to find a way back into real-estate and potentially put 'Corporate America' behind me. I bought a condo from a relative that was involved in an estate for a ridiculous price, rehabbed it in 3 weeks, got it sold before I was finished, and am closing in 48 hours form now. The net is I did some, but not much of the actual work this time, and netted over 110% of my investment in just over 7 weeks from acquisition to closing... and my wife now sees the ability to make some serious lifestyle changes (meaning she is fully on board - especially when one transaction netted over double her annual earnings).

Im actively searching for the next project. Its been 25-30 years since Ive done anything with building, rehabbing, flipping - albeit like riding a bike, it seems to be a skill that you dont forget. Times have changed greatly with the tools available, mainly the internet and information accessibility.

Going forward Im looking to connect with a few wholesalers and others that flip in the area. Longer term (being 24-48 months) Im looking to move to medium sized rental communities - 100-200 units to build longer term wealth.I am in a position to buy cash, prefer to work the suburbs and stay out of the war-zone (aka center-city Allentown). My main interest is single family in the 150-200k ARV ranges, duplexes (both sides) or quads (all units). After dealing with this last condo Ill probably pass on those due to the restrictiveness unless its an exceptional deal!

Looking forward to making new connections here.

I just sold my first deal (closing in 14 days) so Im still not across the finish line, although most of this holds true. In PA local and county taxes are due at the end of June - School tax bills (the big one) come out in July/August. I hadn't planned on paying those, however its an ever looming cost should closing not happen. I did find that electricity jumped for a couple weeks especially as I had crews in the place all day, and an agent advised me of the FHA rule after I was into the project by 21 days.

Essentially it was the little stuff I hadn't planned on - this was a condo and a "resale certificate" is necessary... another few hundred unplanned, mandatory "dryer vent cleaning" (albeit I cannot fine this anywhere in the rules/regs of the association, its just cheaper to do it rather than fight it), cabinet pulls (after replacing counter tops, faucets and fixtures)... all in I came up with another $1400 of unplanned expense, eating up roughly 50% of my contingency budget!

I did get very lucky on the sale however - I had planned to retail the property, but after showing it to another investor/friend he bought it for his rental portfolio. Overall it was a win for everyone except for the agent we had planned to use (fortunately I was not under contract... yet).

I found the major and obvious things were pretty easy to estimate, it was all the little, easy to overlook type stuff that crept into the equation. I was probably light on a contingency budget, although I didn't exceed in ant area - I was actually under budget overall by about 35%.