All Forum Posts by: Ryan O.

@Anthony DiRico

I shoot for a minimum ROI of 15% that is:

Profit/(purchase costs + holding costs + rehab costs) > 15%.

In my market ARV is $275K and up.

@Brie Schmidt @J Scott

I don't have their attorneys info, not sure if they have one at this point. The closing agent would normally be the sellers attorney as well.

I think I will just make it out to my attorney, and if they have issue with that I could always issue another check or let the attorneys figure it out.

I will be using the standard Illinois 5.0 contract

Our long time agent brought me a off market lead that we are preparing to submit an offer on. Our agent is negotiating the deal on our behalf but does not have an an agreement with us or the seller regarding representation or compensation.

We want to submit our offer with a significant EM check, but are unsure who to make it out to. We can't use our agents brokerage, and I'm not willing to make it out to the buyers for obvious reasons.

My thought is to make it out to our attorney and provide a copy to the buyer with our offer. Thoughts?

@Marcin G. I have no experience in cook county, I imagine that dealing with Chicago building inspectors must be akin to a 3 month long colonoscopy. Good luck.

@Marcin G.

Your right every municipality will be different, not only will the inspectors personalities differ but the process of just getting the permit will vary from town to town. Some will let you walk in with very simple CAD drawings, and maybe the license # for your plumber and 10 days later you have a permit. Others may want stamped drawings, contractor registration with fees, proof of insurance, bonds, ect.

Once I tried to get a building inspector to take a look at a project and tell me what needed to be corrected, they wouldn't step foot in the property until I had my permits in hand. Then I had to pay a reinspect fee because his initial inspection counted as a "failed" inspection. This was unincorporated Dupage county.

@Marcin G.

I'm not sure what municipality you are planning on rehabbing in, but in my experience a CO is not required when you sell a property in Illinois. None of the municipalities I have worked in (Dupage County) have required a CO to sell a property.

A CO will be likely be required when you pull permits. It's basically the last step in the process. After the AHJ performs his final inspection a CO will be issued and the property can be occupied.

To your original question, I would pull permits for the work you describe. Too much can go wrong if you decide to do your rehab without the required permits.

You said you were worried about the inspector being nit picky and requiring you to bring a bunch of old work up to code if you pull a permit and invite him into your house. What do you think will happen if you get caught doing a rehab without the required permits? On top of the fines (usually double the original permit cost), and the lost time waiting to get your permits approved on a red tagged property, how picky do you think the inspector is going to be when he thinks you are a shady rehabber trying to cut corners to make a buck (I'm not saying that's who you are, but that's the impression your going to give the inspector).

I don't like pulling permits any more than the next guy, its costly, time consuming, and you risk having some power tripping inspector come into your property and tell you to bring a bunch of grandfathered items up to code. But, it is part of the business, just accept it and plan your time/budget accordingly.

@Sheik Charles Brown-EL You have not given enough information for the community to tell you what a reasonable timeline would be.

Do you have a scope of work that you can share?

If you haven't already bought J Scott's book on rehabbing I would recommend it, lots of good stuff especially for the rookie rehabber.

The Book on Flipping Houses

@Steven Hamilton II

Thank you for the clarification, I only need to pay myself a reasonable salary if my company makes money, otherwise I'm allowed to work for free.

@Brian Oney Any roofer worth a damn could tell from the street that a roof with three layers didn't have just one. I have bought properties that needed roof and sometimes we would need to get on the roof to tell if there was one or two layers of shingles, but we always new how many layers before we started the job.

You also said "they looked in the attic and didn't see any need for redecking" It would be blatantly clear from looking in the attic that there was more than one layer of shingles (look at the number of roofing nails sticking through the decking).

As for uncovering bad roof decking during the tear off process, sometimes you just don't know until you tear off the shingles, other times its obvious from looking in the attic or walking on the roof.

Sounds like this company has taken you for a ride. There are plenty of shady roofing companies around, my personal favorite are the ones that chase storms and fix "hail damage"

@Benjamin Kanevsky I think it would be pretty unreasonable to expect your tenant to bear the cost repairing a electrical problem in your property.

Like @Troy Sheets mentioned it is likely a dead short somewhere in the circuit, could be as simple as the hot leg on the recepticle shorting to the grounded metal box (assuming its a metal box), Or it could be a pinched staple or melted wire, hundreds of other possibilities

If its a melted wire you have a bigger problem, there should be no possible way a standard gauge wire could carry enough current to melt the wire. The circuit breaker should trip way before the current gets that high. BTW its not the wire that melts its the insulation on the wire that melts, which causes the wires to short.

In any case it doesn't sound like your qualified to DIY this issue, I would call an electrician to evaluate the problem. Electricity isn't something that should be taken lightly.