All Forum Posts by: Christopher B.

Control the controllables. Success in this business is A LOT of hard work but the formula is simple. You need to know 4 things:

1. Purchase price 

2. Sale price or ARV

3. Rehab Costs (construction knowledge)

4. Expenses (buy/sell costs, holding, etc)

So your weakness is construction knowledge, that's a big weakness and only time and experience will resolve that. The short-term solution is working with a partner or more expensive contractor that can make-up for this deficiency. So become highly proficient at the other variables to mitigate your weakness.

Any house can be fixed of you throw enough money at it. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes not. So the answer is knowledge. Become the comp master, if you're confident a house can sell for 300k and you can buy it for 50k, probably should look into, right?

Having some go to contractors is a good thing. Having options when they're not available or flake is good to. Your profile states you're wholesaling, why the need for a rolodex of contractors?

While I do have a storage unit for some items I highly recommend NOT keeping everything.

Let's say you have a stack of large cuts on 3/4" advantech sub-flooring. Good sizes for patches, etc. You drive to the job site, load it into your truck and then drive it to your storage building and unload it. Project comes up and awesome, we're going to need to do some floor patch, so you drive to storage and dig your materials out and load it back into your truck. Then you pick through it on the job site to find what will work for the job. You didn't have to buy 4 pieces of advantech. $100. 00 saved less your time.

Or... you send your salesman at the supply house a text, "need 4 sheets 3/4" advantech with that lumber delivery tomorrow am, thanks" and you spend an extra $100.00 and they bring it to your site and even carry it into the house for you. 

I prefer to save the time. Don't step over dollars to pick-up nickels. That's my take anyways.

In my area tile is much more expensive. As mentioned, if you're on a slab it won't be as bad. If you're not then you have tile, backerboard, screws, thinset to put backer down, thinset to put tile down, may need some self lever, grout, sealer, and then of course labor. There are a lot of little things with tile and it adds up quick. I pay $2.25/sf to install laminate flooring and $6-$8/sf to install tile flooring. I do feel my tile labor is a bit high but haven't found anyone worth a flip to do it cheaper. I'm drooling over $2.50/sf. 

Takes money to make money. Once you have money and/or experience you can get to the no money down stuff people balk about but nobody other than friends or family is going to take on 100% of the risk in the beginning. As J mentioned, less risk = less return. 

@Tony Wooldridge It no problem at all. I'll be honest, I didn't even look at Nichole's location when I posted so had no idea she was so close haha. If I had I'd made the offer initially. 

@Nichole Ovens I got your colleague request, we can meet-up sometime. Your on the money about Oak Ridge, there are A LOT of professionals brought in to work up there. The challenge is most of them end-up living in West Knoxville though. I've heard Oak Ridge has started a redevelopment plan for the old WW2 houses built for the Manhattan Project but honestly don't know much about it except for some hersey. Might be something to look into 

@Nichole Ovens I am being a bit sarcastic. I truly love Knoxville. I don't think @Levi Graziano is out of line though. The amount of investors that have moved here over the past 5yrs is pretty astounding. Then they get online and talk about how everyone should "come to TN, it's so great here!!!" it has increased the competition and raised prices. I'm not as familiar with other markets obviously, but I feel that in Knoxville, like any market, you can find success with rentals about anywhere depending on the your strategy. 

Lowes and HD have numerous vanities in-stock. A lot of the times they will have bulk stacks of them sitting along the front wall of the store. I just purchased 2 from HD the other day, $150/ea and that included the top and mirror. I want to find another local source to buy my vanities from as well but haven't found a better spot. 

As others have stated you'll have to bring more to the table to get a piece of the deal. Look at it as a positive situation though and don't get caught-up in what the investor is making. Your bf may be a talented carpenter but if he underbid then he has some growth to do on his own business before moving to the next level. Take advantage of the front row seat you have to flipping houses by learning from the investor on how the business works, even if it's just being observant. Look at it as getting a paid ride to real estate investing school.