All Forum Posts by: Eric Miller

I've used Performance Stoneworks on 2 houses. They are located on the Westside of Indy, but do houses all over. Price ends up being about $48-$52 per sqft installed including sink. They have 2 or 3 main colors they do for house flippers that they have this price on since they buy a lot of those colors, or you can pick other colors that cost more. The best part is they install VERY fast. They were always out the same, or next day after I call for a measure and both houses they installed 3 or 4 days after my initial call.  All other granite places I talked to were about 3-4 weeks for the whole process. I am about to call them again in a few weeks for the house I am working on now. 

I'm in a similar position as you. I have not taken any classes yet, but I plan to at some point. I use a realtor/friend now, but I keep watching the commissions eat into profit, and opportunities to save some money myself on my purchases (since I would keep the commissions). I briefly chatted with my realtor about what his office takes if I were to work under their office and it was around 35% of commission if I remember correctly. I don't know what the going rates are anywhere else. When I was looking into getting my license it looks like there is no way around the 2 year rule of working through someone's office before you can "go alone." 

I'm looking to do the same thing with getting a license. Just buy and sell for myself with the occasional transaction for others. 

That is basically correct. I just looked at a past bill (for Wayne Twp in Marion County), but they added in Solid Waste and Storm Water on top of the 2% of assessed value, which added 73.40 (yearly) to my bill. Not sure if that varies for different locations. On a side note for Wayne Twp they they added a voter passed school tax that added about $350 to my bill, in addition to the assessed value going up 10% the same year. My tax bill jumped 30% on that house last year.

@Monti Harris Please send me info on your portfolio lender. Hello from Danville, we're neighbors almost!

Wow! Nice work, looks awesome.

@Jake Hahn Hello, I am in Danville and I am a beginner also. This is my first year flipping and I did 3 successful ones this year (2 in Avon and one in Wayne Twp). I don't know any other flippers or investors in the area either, would love to meet up.

@Nicole Graves - You will definitely want cash reserves. Everything is always more expensive than you think and you might end up wanting to update something else once you get going. I think about everyone goes over budget on their first one. In many cases, way over budget, like I was. Luckily I was able to increase the home sales price because by the time I was done it was a brand new house inside. After I got the house and started getting better numbers on actual items, and finding more things I was going to end up replacing, fear did set in. ALWAYS remember, your money is made at the purchase. Get a GREAT DEAL going in. Its hard to turn a marginal deal into a great deal. Even though my rehab costs went up significantly I knew I was going to make something because I got a great deal. Good luck!

@Peter Zora - It is laminate flooring from Lowe's. Pergo Max Montgomery Apple for $2.49 per foot when not on sale. There is an Allen+Roth color that looks similar and is the same thickness and I think it is 1.99 per foot. I might consider trying it in the future as well since it's a little cheaper.

@Autumn Allen - Regarding general contractors I would not be of much help about finding good ones. I already knew two different GC companies who were friends and both had done some work on my own house previously. Estimates for both companies came in pretty similar, but I chose the one because they did everything them self, the second company that I did not use contracted out the work for painting/drywall/ceiling texturing so I would have to count on another person/company to finish the contracted work. I liked one crew doing everything (other than roof and electrical). This house was just West of Indianapolis in Avon, Indiana and was 1,222 sqft. Both of the companies I knew are just 3 person companies. In my opinion, the smaller companies like this are great because you get better service and they have less overhead costs.

@Chris Boyd - We did not use any outside money for the purchase or rehab. We have always been good savers, but once we paid off all of our debt a few years ago the savings went up significantly since we were not sending money to banks anymore.

@Kevin Lussier - I think you will find many investors will try and access a vacant (and no showings) bank owned property as long as you DO NOT do any damage getting in. In years past on BP I have seen others post about going in windows, and I personally know others who do it locally. In fact, because I was able to get inside, I increased my bid amount and ended up paying more for the house. 

Regarding auction.com cleaning up the house, you are mistaken. They had accepted my offer to purchase the house before the auction started. Then they came in to clean up the house and yard in anticipation for the auction that was not happening. At that point I did not own the house, I just had it under contract. I did not own the house for about 5 weeks after they cleaned it up when we finally closed. I knew it took them a lot of time to clean it up because I drove by one day and saw half of the yard cleaned up so I stopped and look in the windows and saw it was cleaned up inside. When I came by a few days later to have my roofing guy look at the roof, the rest of the yard was cleaned up.