All Forum Posts by: Shulem Deen

Thanks much, @Sarah Hatton. That's super helpful. Haven't looked at Redfin previously—will def check it out.

Cheers.

Thanks all for the super helpful replies.

@Todd Sullivan and @Michelle Pepe: you're in my farm area, so would def love to connect further. Will DM.

Cheers.

Thanks, Ryan. 

Yes, I totally get transaction costs, expenses, etc. are all factors, but trying to focus on what I find most challenging. (It's precisely those frictional costs that make this so important. e.g. 6% agency fees on selling alone can take a big bite out of profits—or worse, keep you from breaking even.) But I feel like most expenses can be calculated with reasonable degrees of precision once the other figures are in place. It's the rehab costs and ARV that just seem so frustratingly elusive.

Truth is: even rehab costs could be dealt with by estimating super conservatively at a high cost p/sqft and looking only for deals with a wide margin of safety. But without accurate comps, you're not even in the game, let alone setting up for a win. Wouldn't you say?

Would love to hear of good tools for comps available to beginners, if you're familiar with any. (I know there's Dealcheck, Propstream, etc., but are they any good is the question.)

Cross-posted to "Starting Out" forum, where it might be more apropos. Apologies if that's bad form — didn't see that section earlier. 🫤

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

Hi all -- I'm new to real estate investing, but looking to get into SFR fix-and-flip. (I'm in NYC, and looking at properties in Hudson Valley and Upstate.) I'm hitting a big stumbling block, though, and wondering if anyone with experience can share some tips.

From everything I've studied, it boils down to three numbers: 1) Purchase Price, 2) Rehab Cost, 3) ARV. The formula being: Profit = ARV - Purchase Price - Rehab Cost.

The problem I have is getting reliable figures for 2 and 3 — Rehab Price and ARV.

For rehab price: getting a contractor to give me a ballpark estimate seems the natural approach, but that seems doable only for 1-2 properties. If I'm looking at a dozen properties, it's hard to ask a contractor to run around with me to them all.

For ARV: the right way seems to be to look at comps. But without experience, where do you get reliable numbers? I've asked my agent to run a CMA for me on some properties, but it seems impossible to know if it's apples-to-apples, given that I don't know if those are pre- or post-rehab. I can use the basic criteria (BRs/BAs, sqft, year built, etc), but one property might be a dump sold to an investor for a gut-job, and another might be a beautiful turnkey for an owner-occupant.

Anyone have any insight to share? Appreciate any and all thoughts.

Shulem

Hi all -- I'm new to real estate investing, but looking to get into SFR fix-and-flip. (I'm in NYC, and looking at properties in Hudson Valley and Upstate.) I'm hitting a big stumbling block, though, and wondering if anyone with experience can share some tips.

From everything I've studied, it boils down to three numbers: 1) Purchase Price, 2) Rehab Cost, 3) ARV. The formula being: Profit = ARV - Purchase Price - Rehab Cost.

The problem I have is getting reliable figures for 2 and 3 — Rehab Price and ARV.

For rehab price: getting a contractor to give me a ballpark estimate seems the natural approach, but that seems doable only for 1-2 properties. If I'm looking at a dozen properties, it's hard to ask a contractor to run around with me to them all.

For ARV: the right way seems to be to look at comps. But without experience, where do you get reliable numbers? I've asked my agent to run a CMA for me on some properties, but it seems impossible to know if it's apples-to-apples, given that I don't know if those are pre- or post-rehab. I can use the basic criteria (BRs/BAs, sqft, year built, etc), but one property might be a dump sold to an investor for a gut-job, and another might be a beautiful turnkey for an owner-occupant.

Anyone have any insight to share? Appreciate any and all thoughts.

Shulem