All Forum Posts by: Shaun Vembutty

Mark,

I would be glad to. I live in Sugar Land as well. I've sent you my contact info.

It would be Thursday evening at 6 pm, every two weeks starting this Thursday.

@Mano Selvan, welcome. I am in Sugar Land as well. You might want to check this out to attend our real estate workshop in Sugar Land.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/48/topics/382418-real-estate-investing-workshop-in-houston-tx

The OP was very clear in that he did not want to sell homes but rather was wondering if having the license would help in his flipping and wholesaling career. That is an absolute yes. The time, effort and money needed to get and maintain a license is far surpassed by the benefits you get with having one. Blanket statements like the one below are just amusing and blatantly wrong.

1. Don't wast your money on a licenses, it wont do you one bit of good as an investor. You can learn everything you need here on BP for free.

Every market is going to have ups and downs. Houston has slowed down due to the oil prices, but we usually don't have large price swings like some of the other markets in the U.S. Prices climbed extremely high a couple of years ago and everyone could see that it was a bubble. Since then prices have stabilized and the folks in trouble now are those that bought based on those inflated prices. Deals are still out there and the good locations are still selling as always.

Benjamin Francis , Try Basecamp. It is very useful to help manage your projects, keeping track of bids, assigning to-dos to other team members etc.

I agree with J Scott. I made the same transition from flipping houses to building spec homes. You can either shadow someone during a spec build or partner with someone that has new construction experience on your first project. A third option is to hire a construction superintendent for a flat fee to manage the project but vet this person very carefully and check all their references. Regardless of how you do it, you need to really be on top of bids, invoices and payments. People that get into new construction get taken advantage of frequently, by sub-contractors and superintendents by inflating proposals and doing kickbacks.

Good luck trying to find consensus in a public forum. Try to network with local investors first. The advice you are getting here might not apply to your local market at all. Try to find a mentor that has been in the situation you are in and learn what they did and how they started and scaled their business. The RE license is absolutely worth it. Anyone that says otherwise is just plain ignorant. Start building relationships with local wholesalers and get on their mailing list. Just analyze the deals they start sending you for the first couple of months. Once you receive a deal, analyze the numbers, research the neighborhood, drive the property and do everything you would do if you were to proceed with it. This will get you acclimated to analyzing deals fast and also grow your knowledge about each neighborhood. Now, you can also get on the MLS and search for deals in those neighborhoods once you have analyzed a couple of deals in those neighborhoods. Also figure out which price point you want to flip. In my experience, doing fewer projects at the higher price point made a lot of sense. However that doesn't mean that is the best option for you. Network, educate yourself and good luck with whatever you proceed to do.

My honest advice would be to do one with your own money/loan to iron out any kinks in your process. There are a lot of things you will learn when you do your first spec build and you do not want to do that with an investor's money on the line because if he/she does not make the projected returns, you possibly lose that investor for good.Is it possible for you to do one project with a construction loan?

I have flipped a lot of houses in Houston and always felt it was better to flip the higher priced properties. If your clients can pull it off, that would be my suggestion. With a 21K margin, all it takes is a couple of unforeseen issues to wipe out your profit. Also, with the higher price point, you are competing with fewer investors and so have access to more deals. Not to mention you make higher commissions. Good luck.