All Forum Posts by: Cesar Egas

Hi Alexander, I have done a lot of research about wholesaling, think of wholesaling as flipping, but instead of flipping a property you are flipping a contract, you don't need a license to flip a house or wholesale but having one, knowing the laws, having full access to the MLS, and having the option to work as an agent will give you more options and will also save you money when doing this type of deals. To get your license you have to go through a 90 hours course, pass a test at the school where you took the class and then take the estate exam.

@Chris Hayes building a team is a good plan but is usually tricky because they all have to learn to work together in an ideal world you could find a couple of general contractors like me that knows different trades and have them work in everything that have to be done, unfortunately those are very rare to find and the few that I know are staying busy all year getting good money. there is a math rule that I always explain to my clients and that you might or might not heard of it, I always tell them that as a client when you hire a contractor you gotta consider 3 things, Time, Money & Quality. you can only pick 2 out of those 3, If you want to save money and want great quality that means the job is gonna take longer, if you want to save money and have it done fast the quality will be compromised, and if you want good quality and do it fast that means you gotta hire more people means it won't be cheap. once you have this in mind you want to find that perfect balance that works for you. a lot of people also underestimate how important is to find a good project manager/general contractor, this is even harder to find because just because you know different trades doesn't mean that you are good a managing others and organizing the jobs, and I have also meet "Project Managers"  with business degrees with "experience in management" that have no clue what it takes to get a job done so they make the contractors work difficult and get in their ways and you as an investor end up wasting time and money. 

My advice and what I like to do is to assemble my own team and find individual sub contractors and make a team of 4  guys, 1 painter/sheetrock worker, 1 carpenter for trim, doors and cabinets, etc, 1 guy with experience in plumbing and 1 with experience in electric connections. have 1 to take the lead in their trade and have the other 3 help him out. Like I mention before good project managers/ general contractors that knows all the trades are rare to find, now one that can understand the investor mentality that can help you save money and time it's even harder to find and if you are lucky enough to find one it won't be cheap, this will be tricky but I will advice you learn how to become a project manager yourself learn the proper order of schedule the works learn to manage the budget, build a good team and once you made them work as a well oiled machine your job will get easier, if you keep them busy all year they will stick with you 

To start finding these guys just go to Lowe's or Home Depot around 7 am, you can find the hard working responsible ones around this time.

I could give you a hundred tips how to build your team of contractors and how to find them, how to maximize your production, save money, etc. but now this post is getting too long, lol, so just let me know if you have more questions and want more tips.

Awesome, thanks @Matt Motil.

@Chris Hayes I know a bunch of subcontractors in different trades, so it depends of what you need.

Thanks @Deborah Burian, technically I'm not leaving contracting at least not yet, what I have decided to do now is instead of managing and doing renovations for other investors I will do and manage the renovations on my own properties. I'm looking into purchasing a 2-4 plex in Oklahoma and surrounding areas right now. at the same time I need to work on getting my real estate license to eventually become a broker.  I keep hearing in the podcasts how hard is to find a good contractor that can work well with investors, that can save them money and time, I also heard that you gotta make sure you find the right agent that understand the investors approach and mentality so you don't waste time in bad leads, right now I'm having problems finding good leads where the numbers make sense to purchase, I also heard how hard it is to find a good property manager that is smart and creative and can maximize your cash-flow. Right now I'm just trying to mark off from my list all these positions that I know I can perform better than the current people that I know, then again there are also positions like Attorney and CPA that it will be better to find them.

You are on the right path man, I'm doing the same thing. I already paid off my debt, saving money and looking for a plex to purchase.

Oh I see William,  If you already made an offer and you are under contract now, then probably you already know how the property was managed in the pass which means that you already know how the property was taken care off so you have have an idea of what needs to be done in the units, so If I'm hiring an inspector I don't think I would waste my money going one by one, instead I will only go to the units that are vacant to figure out why are they vacant and what needs to be done to have them rent, and will also pick a few random units occupied where the tenants had been living there the longest usually these ones are the the ones that need more updates and fixes, what you definitely wanna use the inspector for is to check the exterior if there is any structural problems, exterior repaira, pipes, potential hazards that might need to be corrected, etc. You described that the buildings are relative new so you probably wont have these kind of problems but I will just do it to be sure you never know if you will find a flaw in the design.

These are just my opinions, I haven't purchased a multi unit yet, but it's one of my goals to purchase one in the future, all the advices that I gave you are based on previous podcast of landlords that have multi and books that I have read.

I had done some work under a few of big multy family companies here in Oklahoma and I advice you to create a good property management team, most of them in Oklahoma are terrible.

Good luck with your new project and let us know how it goes.

If I was in your situation I will definitely go in person with a contractor that I trust only after calculating and making sure all the numbers make sense, you probably already know that the value on the mutli is calculated by it's operating income. 

That's great! Congratulations! Hopefully one day in a not too far future  we will be able to help each other and close some deals.

That's great! Congratulations! Hopefully one day we will be able to help each other and close some deals.