All Forum Posts by: Monica George

Thanks so much for sharing @Thea Linkfield , it really gave me hope to read your story today!

I'm about mid-way thru my first flip in almost the exact same situation.  Partnered with my mom & dad on half the financing.  My fiancee is doing almost 100% of the rehab and, I've been handling the design, purchasing, and selling (when we finally can sell it).   Since I have a day job Mon-Fri I can only go and help out on the weekends.

I was starting to go a bit mad when we flew past our 3-4 month timeline and are now in our 5th month of rehab.  We finally completed all of the rough-in work, moving walls to add a master bathroom and indoor laundry, and fixing the never-ending list of broken things that need repair on this 60 year old home in VERY VERY HOT Cathedral City, CA.   

I hope that since the rest is just cosmetic it will go a bit faster  (i.e. install laminate floors, tile, painting, install new kitchen cabinets, landscaping, and staging).   But at this point I'll be happy to walk away with around $25K profit by September if we can sell for the higher end of the neighborhood with the upgrades we choose. 

I wish you the best on your next investment.  :)

Thanks for your replies.  I hung in there and just kept cranking out the offers and we finally got an accepted offer for a fixer in Cathedral City, CA.   Totally excited and a little terrified at the same time.  And I was able to meet my goal of closing on our first property by the end of the year.  Excellent ...It's all happening!  :) 

OK.  So I know I'm a newbie, but I need to vent a little.  

Uh-oh ... I can already see the eye rolls ...  so before you look away let me just say I'm not giving up, I'm just frustrated and looking for some advice from those that have been there.

I've done all the work and setup for starting my first flip project. Got financing in place with a hard-money lender, hooked up with a bunch of wholesalers, realtors, contractors, escrow and insurance. I check and analyse properties every evening after my current day-job and early morning before I go in. I get to an accurate ARV and max offer right away and I put in offers usually same day or next if I have to see it first. I go after the deals quickly and generally try to come in at 100% of the asking price or very close to it. I haven't ever put in offers lower than 90% of asking and often will offer more than asking if that's my best price for the deal. At this point I'm making about 1 offer every other day and I'm sure my realtor is ready start blocking my calls. (no JK - he's awesome)

But it's the southern California Market!  

So one after another, each property gets snatched up by someone else.  First you get the "best & highest" request which is pointless cause I already went in with my best offer.  Then either the seller goes with a higher offer than ours, or there were 25 other cash offers above asking  (and seriously I'm not over-exaggerating here, I just got that reply from a listing agent yesterday on an offer we put in for a fixer in Chino Hills).

WHAT THE HELL MAN !?!?!???!

I keep looking and making offers every day.  And there's plenty of great deals out there.  I can find them quickly but how is a newbie like me to compete with the ridiculously high cash offers being thrown down by more experienced investors?  

I desperately want to lock in a project before the end of 2017.   But I'm starting to run out of steam.  

And I really want to try to make a business out of real estate investing with the hopes that it can replace my current income.   But now I'm starting to doubt how realistic that is in the southern California market where it it THIS hard to purchase a good deal.

How do you keep going without getting discouraged?

Hey Nicole, welcome to BP!  

This is the best place to get started learning the ins & outs of real estate investing. I've been on a similar path too and eager to make real estate my full-time job. I've got a SFR rental out in Corona, live in Moreno Valley in a home we plan to sell in next 1-2 years, and currently looking for a place to flip anywhere in southern California.

It takes a little time and work to get your resources setup (agent, financing, contractors) but then you can start searching for your next investment.  Right now I'm also working on getting my real estate license so hopefully by early or mid 2018 I can use that to replace my current income and help with the investing side too.  

Take care and just keep learning.  :)  

Please send more details if it's still available. You can PM me at [email protected]  

Thanks

Thanks for the suggestion @Kenneth Mooney. But I prefer to do my own analysis and not rely on my agent for an ARV. It's just not realistic to send him a huge list of comps every day and expect he'll want to look up MLS details on them.

I've been analyzing a lot of homes for a fix-flip investment, and of course it all starts with the ever important ARV.

I was an appraiser years ago, but now I don't have access to the MLS anymore. So I'm using public sources like Redfin, Zillow, Realtor, etc ... to pull comps and get an accurate ARV. And since this will be a rehab and sell property I want to eliminate the REO / Foreclosure / Short-Sale sales from the list. And ideally choose only Standard sale comps that have been rehabbed or were sold in good condition.

So how do I identify if a comparable was a Standard Sale or not?    

I'm analyzing dozens of properties every day and pulling hundreds of comps. There's gotta be a good way to find which of them were REO's, short sales, or foreclosure sales. The MLS details would have this info, but I can't seem to find the same details on the public sites. They only provide that info when something is for sale. Or sometimes it's in the Agent Remarks section (if you want to read thru all that). Where do I find this info for recent sales? Or is there a public site that will tell me what type of sale it was if I look up an address or MLS# of a recent sale?

FYI - I'm looking in the southern CA area, so there's A LOT of non-standard sales everywhere.   Ugggghhhhhh!

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to weed them out?

Hey Robin, I haven't been to any of the meetings yet.  I'd like to be there. PM me for next time.   :)
 

Thanks, please add me to your list:  [email protected] 

Great work on this condo!  I'm a newbie and actively looking for a cosmetic flip just like this.   It's always great to see examples from other investors in SoCal too - I learn a lot.   I saw the listing and your remodel and staging looks awesome.   What was your rehab budget on something like this?