All Forum Posts by: Ryan Johnston

Wow @Costin I. this is going to be an extremely helpful checklist for me when I go shopping for some loans. Thank you so much for providing this

@Account Closed Thank you for the recommendation. I'll be giving him a call this week!

Hey BP,

Just moved to the Tampa area and I'm finally going to begin flipping houses here. I've been waiting to move into this market for about 8 months and I'm super excited to be here. I was wondering if anyone had any advice for someone looking for a hard money lender or a bank that'll fund my first flip with me. I'll be able to put a sizable chunk of change down but I won't be able to fund the entire thing. 

I'll need a loan somewhere in the $75k-$150k range. The fix-n-flip should take me about 2 months to complete and the ARV's are going to be around $220k. I have a ton of construction experience and contractor management experience for multi-million dollar projects if that counts for anything (My W2 job is a project manager for a huge general contractor).

Does anyone have a piece of advice for me regarding funding my first flip? I prefer to work with local lenders in the Tampa Bay area (St. Pete, Clearwater, Largo, Brandon, etc). It's the only part I'm stuck on. Thanks everyone!

SketchUp has a browser version that's free. The pro-version is actually used by professional services like architects and contractors. You can use it to produce floor plans, renderings, walkthroughs, etc. I've been using it for a couple years and its the cheapest and most practical. Also, you can do the modeling in Rhinoceros 5.0 but this is more for form making and design modeling. I included the hyperlinks. Hope this helps!

@Mike DeBuccio Jr. @Phil Weiler

I'm actually looking to get my license to make offers on my deals easier, list my own deals, save on commission, let myself into houses, MLS, etc. I'll still be working full time at my construction job. I've thought about being a real estate agent as a side-hustle but we'll see. Flipping houses is my main priority.

I was looking at real estate express and the prices seemed really good. I'll be sure to check out the Bob Hogue School. I was also wondering about annual fees for having a license. I know there's the post-education required too.

Hey BP,

I'm planning a move from Chicago to Florida (Tampa Bay area) this fall and I want to get my real estate license before I go. My first question that I have is if I'm planning to move there in August but I want my license as soon as I get there - how many months before should I start my Real Estate Licensing course?

Second question: I'm looking for online courses since I won't be able to attend class in Florida. Does anyone have a recommendation for an Online Real Estate School? I don't need all the frills and I do really well on tests because of a good memory if that changes anything.

I saw a couple of post about this but none that were recent. 

Thank you all for your help and I look forward to your response!

As far as apps go, there isn't one that does exactly what you're looking for. You can't currently take an image and turn it into a 3D model for manipulation. The closest thing there is to that rigth now is laser scanning but this is super expensive (like $3k-$4k per visit). I work with a giant general contractor and I just finished scanning an big old hospital and they sunk about $12k into scanning it to get an "as-built" model. You can see this just isn't feasible for smaller projects.

Best option, in my [biased] opinion is to hire it out. If you're looking to hire it out you can find a lot of help on sites like UpWork for a decent price (under $100). I do some work with people on there in my free time. The process goes something like this: They'll take pictures and make a little hand sketch, maybe providing dimensions and then they ask for a 2D floor plan or a 3D floor plan/model or all 3. They can be as simple or as complicated as you want. You can view the model online too but doing manipulation can only be done in the software. A cheap software that's easy to use is SketchUp. Something you also might want to check out. 

@Tim Vander Ploeg being just recently graduated from college, I'm having the same problem. But there are definitely ways around this problem. Here's some ideas on where to start:

• I've found that hard money lenders are very beneficial IF the numbers work. 
• Call some banks and see if they offer construction loans and then secure the loan with your house/car. 
• Live frugal and save that money! I managed to save a good chunk of money even with over 2k/mo in living expense (Chicago rent & student loans are no joke). 
• See if you can find a partner and split it 50/50. Half of something is better than all of nothing
• If you have some connections with some people with money, try to get some private investors.
• HELOC

Get creative with it and keep talking about it to everybody. You never know who's going to throw you a bone!

Holy moly. That's a helluva story. Truly inspirational for me to get out and take some risks.

Thank you!

I think that right now it's too early to make that decision. In the winter months it's a dud. Inventory is dry and prices are high. All of the rental properties are tied down and there's no new construction projects opening their doors to tenants (they doesn't typically open up till the summer). If you really want to know the answer, wait until May or June when the market gets a new 'hit' of apartment complexes all over the city. That's when you'll see thousands more rental flood the market. If there's too much inventory management companies will start incentivizing with free TV's, free rent, and whatnot. If there's not enough inventory, the market will climb higher. In my opinion, after seeing the population decline in Chicago for the first time in a very long time, I think the rental market will flatten or even dip due to the lack of people to fill the spaces. Population levels are below 1990 levels but the builders keep on building! I think you'll see more opportunity in renovating than anything else. Interesting conversation though! Thanks for bringing up the discussion

@Adam Stacey This is super helpful advice. Just what I needed to know. Thank you so much.