All Forum Posts by: Mike Lynch

Thanks Guys!

I really appreciate it!

Hi everyone,

It is career change time after over 20 years in the commercial / residential plumbing service business. I love the internet, but believe it or not, it has crushed my business. Every product company like Moen, Delta, Kohler, Toto, American Standard, and Youtube etc. has tons of instructional videos of how to repair your plumbing. People between 18 and 60 years old have just stopped calling me, unless they want to know free technical information. I am not going to whine about it, but that's just the way it is with plumbing these days. Plumbing is also very hard on a persons body, lifting very heavy items, and crawling under homes all day.

I have been thinking about several options: --- Real Estate Flipping, Starting a Property Management Company, or Non Medical Elder Care Company which also provides home maintenance and a cleaning service.

Yeah, I know, that I am pretty confused, but I know a lot about home repair! ( drywall, plumbing, electrical, painting, carpentry, and landscaping )

I would like to hear the pros and cons or what might be the best choice. -- During my time in plumbing, it has been a 24/7 and 365 day a year career. I would like to work hard but not work 7 days a week anymore with no real life. At my age of 48, it would be nice to slow down a little and maybe work 40 hours per week. -- Any advise would be great!

Thanks!

Great!

Thanks for your feedback. I feel a lot better about what I am trying to achieve now. I would never swindle a poor Grandma out of her home. I would be totally up front with my goals and end result with buyers and sellers. During my years in the plumbing business, I have be ripped off many times and have ended up going to the magistrates office. Sometimes I get my money and sometimes I do not. Yep, I am ready for a new career.

Hi,

This may be a "beat to death" subject on this website, but I would like to know your opinions and hear your comments. I can never get too much education.

As a plumber, I deal with a lot of Contractors, Realtors, and Home Inspectors. They all keep telling me to get into real estate. They say that since I repair homes all day, ( plumbing, walls, and repairing all of the damage that I did in order to get to the piping ) that is no better candidate for a home flipper / investor. I have never had the money to mess around with homes and / or have not be educated on the subject of buying and selling homes. A while back, in the summer, we sold our old family soybean farm near Charlotte, NC and now have a nest egg of money to invest.

I have been watching a lot of investment videos online, which in turn suggested books for me to purchase such as, "Rich Dad Poor Dad" - "The Millionaire Next Door" - "The Millionaire Mind" - "Real Estate Riches" - "The Millionaire Real Estate Investor". 

One of the suggestions is to find people who are in bad trouble with their home, who need to be released form their situation. This involves placing ads like "We buy Homes", looking at properties until I find one that I want, then paying off what they owe on their home. They get to save their credit, are now able to rent other properties, if someone does a background check on them, and move on back to New York or wherever. 

I have friends in the Pawn Business and I have actually worked in their shop for a few days while I was visiting them. It was quite an experience. They offer a service. If you don't want their service, you do not stop and walk in their shop. Nobody makes people walk into their shop. People walk in by the dozens anyway. Many people have a lot of money or appear to be very wealthy. They buy a lot of gold and diamond jewelry. They also bring in a $5000.00 Rolex and get 20 to 30% of what it is worth. Then my friends sell it for 60 to 70% of the value. Is this wrong? Nobody forces anyone to walk in the building, but they are lined up at the door when it opens in the mornings. Seeing people sell their expensive items for 20% did creep me out somewhat, but they were very eager to sell them, then turn around and buy more gold or diamonds. It was pretty strange indeed.

Questions:

Having said all of this, is it wrong or unethical to pay off someone's home in full with cash at their bank, get the deed, and sell or rent it. They get to move on, without problems, and start over with their life, while I get a property.

Is this a bad way to start out my investment business? I would go to an attorney and check for back taxes, liens, and clear title. I would want to do it by the book. What do you think? How else can I protect myself on this kind of deal?

I am used to only making money the hard way for the past 25 years, by literally busting my knuckles and knees all day with plumbing, wearing filthy dirty clothes and looking like bum, so making money a faster or more easier way seems strange, a little creepy, and somewhat unethical to me, if you know what I mean. I have a poor mans mentality at the moment.

Thank you for your time.

Any feedback will be great!

As a plumber, I go into hundreds of homes, sometimes as many as 7 per day running service calls. Many drunk people call me over to their homes. I don't know that they are drunk until I am around them for a minute. I run into all kinds.

I went to a vacant winterized home on Holden Beach, NC to de-winterize it around March, like I do dozens of times per year. While I was under the kitchen sink turning on the water valve for the dishwasher, something went flying past me, ran out the door, and took off running down the beach. That scared the crap out of me. I couldn't even get a description, as I only saw the back of a mans body for two seconds as he turned the corner and jumped the seawall. The cops came and they wanted a description. I told them that I was under a sink, on my side, and didn't get a glimpse until I was on my feet looking out of the window. He was a white guy with dark hair as I saw his face for maybe half of a second. It could have have been millions of different men in a police lineup.

You really have to be careful going into strange homes. Your life can change in a second!

Thanks! - Looking forward to hearing more!

Thanks!

What happened was, the previous owner let the septic tank overflow for months until the environmental health dept. shut the home down. I have now repaired the health issue, so as soon as we do the other repairs, we are good to go.

Hi,

My wife and I have been saving our pennies for 20 years. We live in a small 3 bedroom home, near the NC coast. We found and purchased an REO property with cash that has a bad sewer and needs work on everything. I am a commercial plumber and she is a graphic artist, so she is great at painting and has an eye for proper colors and I can do all of the rest. I have already replaced / repaired the plumbing, much of the carpentry, and much of the electrical myself since we purchased it this year on August, 31, 2015. We have not hired any outside help, just the two of us so far with our sweat and materials. At least 40 people tried to buy the home, but after finding out about the bad septic, not being able to get a loan on a condemned home, and other things that needed repairs, they all failed to purchase it. The zestimate is $301,287, if that means anything? We purchased it for $118,000. It is a .5 acre waterfront property on a tidal saltwater river and even has a small creek running down by the side of the home.

Now, we do not know what to do with it after it is finished in a few months? My goal is to have plenty of money for retirement. I am 47 years old now.

How do I turn this into a lot more? Do I keep it and rent it out? It is a prime piece of property! I really hate to sell it. The view is pretty breathtaking. Do I get a renter in there then take out some sort of loan on it and buy another "fixer upper" property, fix it up and flip that one. Do I sell the river property, and buy perhaps 2 more homes to flip? Before the bubble burst the home was worth about $450,000.

I want to try and play it as safe as I can, but keep on going with the house flipping or other real estate ventures. We are not sure of the best and most safe way to do it?

Any suggestions would be great!

Thanks!

Thanks,

I am not bidding through a site. I contacted the listing agent. She told me to call a local agent in my town, so I did. The listing agent's husband died last week, so you can imagine her state of mind, so I am working with the Realtor that she told me to call. I guess they will split the 6%. On the online Realty sites, not one of them mention that the septic system has been shut down by the county and needs to be replaced, or mentions anything about how much damage is in the home. I am bidding against people who have no idea about the magnitude of the damage. There is a lot of damage. My guess is that it will take my wife and I at least 4 months to repair the problems. I will not bid a penny more for this home due to the amount of work and permits that I will need to purchase. It is gonna be a red tape pain in the butt already. If the bank would reveal the actual home damage with photos, we would not have so much competition,  As a plumber, I have gone to many homes where people have purchased their home "site unseen". They have no idea what they are getting into at all. Due to this, our venture as new home flippers, that we started this past week for the very first time, will be pretty difficult.

Yep, there are three things that I can think of that would cause that toilet problem. If you live in a home that has a low pressure sewer system or condo on the bottom floor of a building with a bunch of units above, invest in a $100.00 sewer backflow check vlave to be placed on the main sewer line leaving your home or unit. It can save thousands and thousands of dollars in the cleanup of backflow sewer and destroyed home decor, toys, furniture, everything, etc. It is a complete nightmare to clean up, not to mention a health department nightmare. They can close your entire home down and tell you that you can't move back in until they say so, which could be a long time. Someone can go from having a nice place to homeless within hours. I have seen it several times in the past couple of years alone.