All Forum Posts by: Tim Macy

I like light staging.  Just a couple mirrors, plants, and pictures.  Unless it's a 350k+ listing, I don't look at staging.  I've got a couple listing lightly staged on your site if you want to take a look at pictures (w kings hwy is a good example).

@Spenser Murphy don't be so determined you make a bad purchase.  Patience is better than determination in this market.  Make lots of low ball offers and wait for a no brainer, almost sure thing, home-run deal.  I WOULD NOT BANK ON APPRECIATION!  This market is getting frothy.... and this election coming up..... It's not a bad time to be sitting on the sidelines.

I think your plan could work if you have a lot of capital and aren't expecting unreasonably high returns, but if that is the case, I would recommend partnering with experienced investors and become a private money lender to them. 

If you're a single mom, ready to try and flip a house, I would STRONGLY recommend you focus on finding a deal close to you.  Find the seller yourself, run the comps yourself, go through the title issues, see what the real closing costs and holding costs are.  Deal with contractors yourself.  If you are willing to work your tail off on the first couple deals, you may be able to expand, but lots of people lose a lot of money and time trying to take the easy route.

Everything coming off MLS and things wholesalers are putting out are really only for experienced investors that know what they're doing. If you want to try to do your first deal, you're best off finding it yourself in this market.

@Nathan Seltzer I misread your original post.  

I've seen this done by some larger institutional buyers.  They've gone as far as writing algorithms that pull data points like crime rates, age, median income, number of coffee shops and hundreds of others to create heat maps of where to buy.  It is all very interesting, but I haven't seen it create astounding returns.  

The only reason I recommend focusing on a couple neighborhoods, is because house hacking entails buying in a neighborhood you want to live in.  There are a couple of small areas I look in to house hack myself, but because I'm going to live there, I've really narrowed it down.

Keep us updated!  I'm interested in seeing how it goes.

Hard money and private money @Brent Coombs, and a good refi lender with low seasoning requirements.  The "right" deal is the challenge these days, it seems the money is readily available.   

@Matt Jackson you definitely do not need 20-25% down if the deal is right.  I would recommend talking to @Jason Hirko and getting your numbers on a spreadsheet and seeing what really makes sense. Look at your ROI, but also just look at your net cash. A lot of time can get sucked up by these flips, you really want to make sure you're maximizing your net profit.

I would be very weary if the foundations are different (slab and pier and beam)

@Brian Phelt always good to have knowledgeable agents on here!  Let me know if you ever want to grab coffee sometime.

I would recommend you focus on a couple neighborhoods that you would like to live in; and familiarize yourself with that market.  Some may tell you that you can systematize anything, but the problem is, every individual home is different (even the newer cookie cutter neighborhoods).

Focus on two or three neighborhoods and know what a good deal looks like in those pockets.

I would also temper your expectations as far as finding a lot of equity on MLS. This is a competitive sellers market at the moment with a lot of players working the MLS, you can get some nice base hits here and there, but I don't know of anyone that's hit a homerun buying on the market lately.

If you are good with your numbers, you're already ahead of the game.  The problem is, you can't put the unique challenges that each single family home has on a spread sheet.  You can set some alerts and presets that will send you houses, but you have to be able to look at them and know if its a deal or not.

Just my two cents!