All Forum Posts by: Trenton Miller

A FSBO would your only likely shot. Anything listed by a firm has entered a contract with a broker/agent of that firm.

Is it impossible to enter a wholesale deal with a listing agent?  Not is not...  However it is extremely rare.

Is the interior of the property flat roof at 8-ft height with ample room in attic space?  Or our ceilings voltage requiring blown in insulation?

My biggest advice would be to streamline the finishes you choose and purchase yourself.  By doing this you know what materials will cost you and you will not be paying for markups with GC's and or Subs.  This goes back to the analyzing phase as well.  If the numbers don't work when analyzing the property based off the finishes you want then it won't work.  Labor is the differentiating factor here.  Another tip I have is intended use.  For example, is the roof functioning as intended, or is it just old.  just because something is old but still functioning as intended does not necessarily mean you are required to improve it.  I'm a firm believer that all cost savings will be found during the analyzing. If you know what type of product you are trying to flip and provide consumers with.

Are you looking for a good property to inspect?  Or have you found a property you need inspected?  Typically sellers will not allow inspections until after a property is under contract.  When we do home inspections, depending on the size of the property we charge an average of $650.

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I give my tenants 5 calendar days.

I couldn't agree with you more!  I as well have used ever so complex spreadsheets for bidding projects.  However, I would like to applaud your comment regarding your software being like a custom car.  Out of the box estimating/bidding software is basically useless until you have tailored it to fit YOUR business.  I could not agree with you more.

As far as other software goes I prefer to use Google products for pretty much everything else.  I use calendar for not only scheduling timelines with customers, but also scheduling my employees with job sites and punch lists daily that automatically syncs to each of their phones.  I use forms to track employee hours.  Each employee selects his or her name and the hours populate in a weekly report.  I also use drive for keeping all job documents in one place.  Managers, customers, and employees have access to these documents.  This eliminated information being stuck in 'someones' inbox.  

Again, I have put a great deal of time and effort into setting up these 'systems' within a 'system' you could say.

If it were me and you are occupying the primary residence on the lot I would not spend the extra money to separate utilities.  Instead I would calculate what the average utility costs will be, build that price into the lease agreement and include a separate clause stating that if the tenant goes over the allowable cost built into the lease for utilities then they would be responsible for the additional cost.

If you are considering this type of investment, the quickest way to analyze cash flowing properties would be through the four square method.  You can find this spreadsheet on the BiggerPockets files page.

When we're renovating projects in Los Angeles that are in undesirable areas we use a third-party security company that brings a camera in that is powered through solar.  If there is traffic on the job site within specified periods it will alarm the security company which will in turn contact the police and us so that we know what's going on.  Video surveillance is also stored in the cloud 24/7. 

It does cost you additional money.  However it's better than getting all of your Romex and copper stripped out of your walls as well as equipment loss.

You can also set the alarm to an audible sound or a silent alarm.