All Forum Posts by: Matthew Vitlin

 Thank you Guy for the advice.  I've gotten a laundry list of different event that I should attend through my work.  I see from your area code that you are local here.  Are there any that you would specifically recommend that I go to or steer clear of?

Welcome to the jungle, buddy

 A woman after my wife's heart.  She only tries to read 100-150 books a year.  And succeeds.

I would say if you don't buy new be prepared to replace it.  I remember having a landlord who bought everything used and tried to fix everything with caulking and duct tape.  It was only once we got the gas company to come and say "this isn't safe" that we got him to replace the gas connector for $50, even though they wanted him to replace the whole stove as it was roughly used by that point.

 Thank you for the advice Kyle.  I've glanced through the podcast titles and they look like a solid bunch.  A few of the guys in my new office have also recommended the, saying that they are solid.  I'll be sure to start checking them out.

If you are just starting out and you don't know anything, then you need to learn your market and cost bracket.  What kind of materials will you be using, what is the cost per /sf, what kind of labor cost is involved, etc.  The more quotes you can get and the more properties you run through, the more accurate your estimates can be down the road.

And please, always budget money for something going wrong.  Because it will, and you don't want to be in a deal where you have no room for error and you discover a problem at the 11th hour.

Welcome to BP, hope you find what you are looking for.

 Thanks Alex, I'm feeling pretty welcome so far!

I hope the repair numbers are coming from you/your contractor, otherwise I wouldn't trust that $30k is just cosmetic fixes.

Echoing Florian, you need to run the numbers to see what comps have sold for recently.  Zillow might be giving you a good estimate, but if you were just buying a house to live in which would you rather have: "Zillow says it is worth about $200k." OR "Having looked at the market, there are 5 comps that have sold in the last 2 months for between $185k and $220k that are close to us in size and configuration, so given the differences I feel a value of about $200k is fair."  Which is more persuasive, more likely to be accurate?

 Thanks Rudy I'll add it to the list, only about 20+ books long at this point =)