contractors license

[Olivia Story]

I have been learning and reading so much in the past year about investing in real estate, specifically rehabbing and flipping. I feel I'm ready to make my move when all of a sudden, someone tells me that to do this in WA State, I need to have a contractors license! What?! This is the first I heard of this. This is a bump in the road but I will do what it takes. So I looked at the requirements on the State website but am still a little confused. Can someone from WA State tell me their process of getting their contractors license? I need insurance? How much does this cost?

[Richard Gaston]

@Wayne Brooks Sorry but here in Washington State a Real Estate Investor does have to have a General Contractors Licenses as well as be insured and Bonded. Its a Law they passed recently due to numerous complaints about shoddy rehab jobs which got blamed on the Investor and not on the General Contractor who did the job, so to insure that a future homebuyer who buys a home from an Investor, then the Investor can be held liable for any shoddy workmanship which is beyond me as well, I thought that is what the preinspection was for to see if there is any problems before the homebuyer can purchase the home, IMO I think its a stupid Law here in Washington but one we must comply with if we want to do fix and flips.

@Olivia Story If you're new to Real Estate Investments and want to hold off getting a General Contractors license there is another way, you can still look at the property, crunch the numbers like you would do if you were going to do a fix and flip but instead, once you get the contract to purchase you may want to consider to wholesaleing the property to another Real Estate Investor, there are courses here that can walk you through it but bottom line is you do most of the work finding a motivated seller, negotiate the contract, get the contract signed then flip the contract. I am still new at that but there are topics as well as E-Books and Podcasts that can teach you how to wholesale here, this is a wonderful site to get all the information you need to learn everything you need :) These are wonderful people here that can help if you need any questions answered :)