All Forum Posts by: Michael Woodward

Thanks for the feedback David Beard. I might end up pursuing that strategy but my local REIA charges a ridiculous fee ($500/yr) so I haven't joined. I'll have to put some more thought into that.

Thanks also Will Barnard for the follow-up.

Thanks Will Barnard, Ann Bellamy, and Jon Holdman. I really appreciate your feedback. That gives me a lot of avenues to pursue. BP is awesome!

Thanks Jon Holdman. I think you put your finger on part of my problem.... the gift for gab. I don't tend to talk very much about what I do and I don't have a large circle of people that I regularly talk to....especially "executive" types.

I agree about the local REIA. The local investors I've talked to were very cagey and didn't really even want to talk, much less share information. I've found that most of them are there to learn something and don't have a lot to offer the group. Maybe I'll have to take up golf..... or horse racing.....

I'm whittling away at my local banks for leads and am actually starting to get some promising feedback. Thanks again for your advice.

Best, Mike

This topic produced no referrals which tells me that there are either very few private money / hard money lenders out there or that everyone is guarding their funding sources. It's probably a combination of both. By the way...I don't blame anyone for doing that.

So let me ask a different question..... Are any of you actually using private/hard money lenders? I'm not asking for referrals.....I'm just curious about whether or not they exist.

Cable TV has a pretty good line-up of shows for alien encounters, Big Foot sightings, paranormal activity, Lock Ness monsters, etc.. ...I'm thinking they need to add one for creative financing sources....I'm just saying.....

I find it fascinating that the replies to this post have pretty much split 50/50 for flip and buy/hold. The trend here appears to be that most people are having some trouble/frustrations with whatever strategy they're using and are looking to break into a different strategy to eliminate their current problems. From a big picture view, it looks like a "grass is greener on the other side" scenario that's playing out.

Both strategies have big challenges and their own unique headaches so it's easy to get sick of your current problems and quickly decide to change course.

My advice would be to work hard to solve the problems and frustrations that are part of your current strategy before switching to different one. It will likely be a lot easier to solve your familiar problems than it would be to have to confront a whole new set of unfamiliar ones.......my two cents....

My business is growing which is creating the need for more funding. I'm on the hunt for a private/hard money source and wanted to ask the BP community if anyone can recommend someone that you've used in the past that you were happy with. I'm doing a lot of research into the process but I haven't used a hard money lender before so I'm looking for input from those of you that have.

Nearly all of the team members in my investing business (Realtors, contractors, etc) have come to me via referrals from people I trust. I've found that this is the very best way to find high-quality people.

So the question is..... Can anyone refer a good private/hard money lender for single-family flip projects in east TN?

Thanks!

I'm also curious about the question from Patrick G. about the intended use of the Vote button.

Scott W. Good question about the wood subfloor. Of all the problems you can have with pet urine smell, a saturated wood sub-floor is by far the most difficult and expensive to fix.

If the urine is from a cat, it's usually only on the floor but if it's from a dog, you might have it on the walls and baseboard as well. If there's urine on (or close to) the baseboard, I always just replace it because trim is fairly inexpensive and not worth the risk of discovering later that there's urine trapped underneath. So far, I've been able to completely eliminate urine smell in my houses without ripping up the sub-floor.

In the case where you have a heavily saturated wood floor, what you can try (in addition to everything mentioned above this post) is to build a dam around the problem area with caulk. It should be about a 1/4" high. Use your finger to press it down onto the floor to make sure it makes a good seal. Let that dry over night. Now you have a way to contain large amounts of enzyme over the problem area which will give it a chance to saturate and fully penetrate the wood.

Be sure to shake the jug of enzymes gently and then pour it into your containment area. When that soaks into the wood, do it again. Keep doing this every few minutes until it stops soaking in and you're left with a standing pond of enzyme.

Let that sit over night. I like to leave the doors and windows closed when I do this for two reasons. One is that I don't want the enzyme solution to evaporate (I want it to soak in) and the other is that I want to know what the stale air in the room smells like. If the windows are open, you might not be able to "smell the room". If the odor is still there, you can treat it again.....and continue until the problem is gone. Your success will depend a LOT on making sure you're treating ALL of the problem spots.

Remember also that interior walls are usually built on TOP of the sub-floor so unless you plan to rip out all the walls too, you won't be able to replace 100% of the sub-floor.

This sounds like a lot of work.....and it is.....but when you think about the time and money you'll have to spend replacing the sub-floor, it's absolutely worth a try.

Travis West, Ben Hughes, You're welcome......glad to help.

Travis West, Almost every house I buy to renovate stinks really bad and it's almost always pet odor. I've done a lot of research on mitigation and have tried several techniques. Your situation might be fairly simple to solve since you're sub-floor is concrete (wood sub-floors can be very difficult to get the smell out).

Before I go further..... I've come to realize that it's best to make the decision up front to be patient with the process because rushing through it could ruin your efforts to get rid of the smell. There's nothing more infuriating than new carpet that smells like dog/cat pee so be patient. It will likely take several days to solve the problem.

Here's what I would do...(assuming you have concrete subfloor):

1) Scrub the floor with a very strong cleaning agent like Simple Green or some other industrial strength cleaner. Put fans on it to help it dry and check it to see if the smell is gone. This works great if the offending smell is on the surface. If that didn't get rid of it....

2) Bacteria is what's causing the smell so you need something that will kill it. There's two ways to do that. a) Use an enzyme cleaner which seeks out and eats the bad bacteria, or b) Use a bacteria killer like bleach that kills everything living that it comes in contact with. Enzymes work very well and leave no unpleasant odor but they're very expensive so I would probably opt for the bleach technique first on your concrete floor. CAUTION: If you use a high concentration of bleach you will probably have to use a whole-face respirator that's rated for gas filtering. Bleach is dangerous so be careful. After the bleach solution dries, check again to see if the smell is gone......if not....

2-alternate) If you would rather not mess with the bleach, this would be the time to try the enzymes. Now that the floor is very clean, the enzymes should penetrate the floor with ease. Just follow the instructions on the bottle and you should get good results. The best place I found to buy it is at pet specialty stores like PetSmart. You might be able to find them at Walmart, Lowes, or Home Depot but I didn't have any luck with that.

3) If you've done steps 1 & 2 correctly, the smell should be nearly gone. To finish it off, you can coat the concrete with a high-density sealer like shellac. Odor molecules are smaller than paint molecules so don't waste your time and money using any kind of paint or primer because the smell will go right through it. My experience has been that this step always eliminates the rest of the smell.

That should take care of the problem you're working on but if you every have a house that's just generally smelly, I found that I can eliminate most "general" smells by using a high power ozone generator. The kind I'm talking about generates ozone at (lethal) levels high enough to kill everything living in the house (including the bacteria that's making the bad smell). This works great for vacant houses where there are no plants or animals living in the house. Ozone (O3) is very unstable and harmlessly turns into oxygen after a few minutes so there are no chemicals or other residue left when your finished. You have to use these machines with caution but, if done right, they work very well for eliminating almost any smell. Most of the large equipment rental companies carry these so it shouldn't be too difficult to put your hands on one. Make sure you follow the instructions carefully though.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Mike, Why the cynicism? J's taking a lot time out of his schedule to share his experience....for the good of the BP community. There's no need to criticize what he's doing....or insinuate that it's untruthful. If you aren't finding value in this thread, there are lots of other ones you could follow. A new one pops up every few minutes. There's one now....