All Forum Posts by: Chad B.

That might be the worst advice I have ever heard. I would never hire the cheapest electrician I could find. My mechanical contractors are the one area I never cut costs. You try hiring the cheapest mechanicals and you will pay for it big time down the road. I found my current electrician 5 years ago by a recommendation and I have never looked back. I know he is not the cheapest but he does better work and is faster than any electrician I have ever met so he is the only one I allow to bid my work. I have only 3 plumbing and 3 HVAC contractors that I allow to bid my work. My point is to find good mechanical contractors and stick with them. I have never found a good contractor in a Home Depot in my life. I'm not saying they might not shop there but if they are shopping there they are just picking up a few missing things and running back to the job. More than likely a mechanical contractor with a full cart in a Home Depot means that they are behind on their payments to their supply house so they are now cut off and are now shopping at Home Depot trying to get a couple of jobs completed so they can get caught up on their payments.

Always use contractors that come from recommendations you can trust. That applies to all contractors and not just mechanical contractors.

Amerikote-

Ok let me get this straight. You had people bending over backwards getting you good deals on real estate, you had $800k in the bank, you have 2 college degrees and it sounds like you are the best thing to happen to construction contracting since the invention of the cell phone. But now 2 years later you are living in poverty and your willing to travel anywhere with all your tools in tow and can still do the job as competitively as any contractor just so you can show people how great your work is and you don't mind losing money because you will make it up on the next job.

Well I don't know about the rest of you but I'm SOLD. Come up here to Chicagoland I've got enough work to keep you busy for atleast the next 20 years. OK maybe I'm not being fair. Maybe you can teach us something here, afterall I think that is why most of us are here.

What went wrong? What I mean is how did you go from being on top of the world 2 years ago with $800k in the bank and having deals "spoon fed sweatness" thrown at you to where you are now begging to drive across the country to be little more than a handi-man for a couple of bucks? Maybe you could teach all of us how to avoid the pitfalls you must have hit to cause such a crash.

Thank you.

If you don't have the money to fix it up, can't get the money from other means, and it can't be rented out as is, I see only one good solution. Sell it. If it is really worth $300k after repairs, you should be able to find an investor who would be willing to buy it as-is for $100k-$110. That puts $40k-$50k in your pocket for your next investment. It's time to move on to another project.

Well said Jeff...exactly what I was trying to say but much easier to understand!

Hope I didn't come accross as sounding like I was supporting ILLEGAL Aliens. I agree with everything you have said but I also think there are a lot of immigrants here legally, who do pay taxes, and who do work for themselves and their families to have a better life here in America and whatever is decided in Washington DC to protect the interests of the American people need to take into account all possible ramifications of their actions before ruling on legislature. I think most of the guys who work for my subcontractors are here legally, do work hard, and do pay taxes. Maybe not all of them but most of them. There must be a way to protect the ones who are here for the right reasons and doing the right things and eliminate the vast majority of the ones who aren't here legally. I don't have the answers to resolving this issue but I think it is an important one. Thank you for pointing out the negative effects of the current system that I failed to mention as I think that it is more important to focus on those negative effects if we are to come up with a solution.

It's the least I could do to try and help support this site. I figure it is the cheapest education I ever received. Atleast it is a lot cheaper than my 4 ...errrr ok 7 year education I received at Purdue but I have learned so much more useful information here than I ever did there. No offense to any other Boilermakers out there, I still bleed my Black & Gold. It's just now I will do it in my Bigger Pockets sweatshirt or if Josh can't get the XXL thing worked out maybe he can just cut arm and head holes in one of those large contractor trash bags and paint Bigger Pockets on the front of it. Either way I'll wear it with pride and try to get more people aware of ths forum. :D

Sorry, early bird gets the worm. I think this topic has been discussed a couple times on this forum lately and I don't think anyone has come up with any place to go to find 100% financing these days. Should have jumped while you had the chance.

I approach every house I build as an investment no matter if I am building it for my family to live or if I am building it as a spec home. At the same time I build every house as if I were going to live in it myself but that's a different personally philosphy altogether. So in a matter of speaking every house I build is my "dream home" but I make sure I'm never so attached to a house that if someone came off the street and offered me more money than what I felt it was worth that I would even have to think about it. It's easier for me to approach it this way than it is for my wife but I'm still working on her mindset. I never buy a house with plans to live in longer than 2 years (again a tough thing to convince the wife of). It just doesn't make since to not cash out and take advantage of the capital gains tax break to not do this. So unless you are the type of person who can't be moving every couple years I would suggest stay the course with your investment property plan. At the same time I would seriously consider buying that lake house and flipping it if you think you can buy it at 2/3 of what you can sell if for. It may hurt to sell your dream home but you will get over it quickly once you move onto your next "dream home". Hope my perspective helps.

Can't believe I didn't see this thread sooner. I voted and it's up to 62 votes! Of course I will donate. It's still a cheaper mistress for me than what a real mistress would and could cost me. :D I too want the sweatshirt but is it possible to get a Double XX Fat. I am a big boy and can rarely make the standard XL work.

Great job Eric pointing this out!

I think immigration is a big issue that could affect many industries but may have huge impact on construction and restaurants which I would bet to be two of biggest industries in this country (I don't have any facts to back up the restaurant industry claim).

I've already felt the effect of the value of the american dollar dropping by many of my Polish Contractor's employees moving back to Europe and fewer new Polish immigrants coming to replace them. If they continue to make it harder for immigrants to come here or stay here then we will all feel the effect in our pocket books because the fact of the matter is that most Americans don't want to do a lot of the jobs they are doing and the ones that are willing to do it won't do it for the wages currently being paid.