Fort Lauderdale, FL · Member since 2015 · 45 posts · 6 votes
Hello BP Community,
I am in the process of starting to buy fix/flips. The real estate agent that sold my house told me he had a person. However, that person haven't been able to go and see any of the properties I am interested due to having other commitments.
Some people recommended to go to home advisor dot com. That site only provided me with a list of people to call; chances are those people are also working on projects and are not available on short notice or by appointment the day and time the agent is available for showing for just an estimate.
Hence my question: are there companies that do estimates and have people full time just doing that?
if you ask a knowledgable contractor to give you a detailed estimate for materials + labor and pay him for it that should work. As a contractor I do that sometimes for ppl who want quotes and not necessarily looking to hire me.
I would say- you look on craigs list (hmmmmm) or get a couple of people by word of mouth.
I think you can do a lot of the initial work yourself and then get people to come out.
Get familiar with the cost of everything: i.e. cosmetic fixes: kitchen, bathrooms, flooring, tile, painting, base boards, roof, electrical, plumbing etc.
If you want to be successful - you better know how much are materials and what the retail labor will be and what you should be paying for labor on flips.
You have to let contractors know that you will give them a lot of work through out the year and not just one home. To give you an example: I called a home advisor contractor (just for to check) on a property we were starting on: his bid for the work was for $550k .... I went into cardiac arrest....
it is a big project... but my contractor is at $350k (and I know he is making a pretty penny at that price... but I can trust him and he doesn't over price stuff).
once you know the prices of materials and or what for example: AC for a 1200 sq ft home should run for? then you can really interview contractors and know if they are over priced or not.
Then - you can easily go to a home and say its listed for $250k (bc its florida :) )
and you see it needs a kitchen: mid level: at $6500 to $7000 with counter tops: and needs flooring at 1.80 per sq foot and labor another 1/2$ a sq ft.
2 bathrooms: each for $5500 to $6500 : and paint etc. then you can see that if you buy the home for $230k and home needs about 30k in renovations: (you are at $260k) and home can sell (ARV) for $400k : you will make _______ profit after cost of sales and closing costs. (if the numbers make sense) then you get the contractor to go out there.
You can even make an offer: it gets accepted and then you have 3 days to take a contractor to bid on the work (check for florida contract law about the 3 days)
Good luck and let me know if you need a good investor friendly realtor in your area I can recommend you to!
if you ask a knowledgable contractor to give you a detailed estimate for materials + labor and pay him for it that should work. As a contractor I do that sometimes for ppl who want quotes and not necessarily looking to hire me.
I would look into your local REIA. They will have GC that can help you and are used to working with investors. Also really good realtors. I have heard the Tampa REIA is a great one. Good luck in the fix and flip!
I am curious. What would you all pay to have a full detailed estimate from an experiences rehabber and licensed GC? Based on the number of bedrooms or square feet?
Only Tony Fendi is correct. That is one option, hiring a contractor and paying for detailed estimates, but investor grade contractors won't be able to do this, maybe you did not express on how much you're willing to pay. Either you call an insurance adjuster hire him/her, or you take a bunch of pictures and send it to one of xactimate estimators, try to google xactimate estimator. Usually around 200-500 is a good payday depending on the size of the project, there are companies out there that charge a %, usually 3-5% of project size, but talk to them that this is a home project and would like to get some help on pricing. Their estimate might look high because they use commercial prices, but it will be going out the same when you walk out the door.
Develop a relationship with a GC with the understanding that you are looking for a long term business relationship with multiple fix&flips and he should be able to spare some time out of his day to look at properties and give you an estimate of how much he would charge.
GC's will have different prices so using a GC just for an estimate may be off by a little or a lot for the GC that you do end up using.
As a GC I wouldn't use an estimate provided to me by someone else. I wouldn't be able to trust it because I don't know where their numbers came from or what materials they planned on using or what subs they based their labor numbers on. I usually do estimates pretty quickly for investors that I work with on a regular basis and they are often experienced enough that they have a pretty close rough number before I even see the house.
I found my contractor through my neighborhood community facebook page. I asked who uses contractors from the area and he was recommended by a number of people. I hired him for a smaller job ~$3k and his team did great work. He now has no problem going out to a potential project and giving me a rough price because he knows I'm working towards a pipeline of work for him. I've recently acquired another contractor who will do smaller jobs via the same FB page. I recommend it but make sure to check references and set expectations up front. Best of luck.
If scheduling seems to be an issue, which it often is for me during the week. Than try to set up weekend appointments if possible. As a contractor, I'm typically way too busy during normal business hours(rare day today that I'm off early), so I like to set them up on the weekends if possible. Either that, or I shoot for right after work during the week, like at 6:00 or so.
If scheduling seems to be an issue, which it often is for me during the week. Than try to set up weekend appointments if possible. As a contractor, I'm typically way too busy during normal business hours(rare day today that I'm off early), so I like to set them up on the weekends if possible. Either that, or I shoot for right after work during the week, like at 6:00 or so.
Chris Krivanek,
Your time works for me. My real time can focus on RE is after 5pm and weekends.
Yadira Gutierrez Just a reminder, you will not be able to secure a job continuance for a contractor, while you are vetting them, they are vetting you also IE ease to work with, picky, mind-change issue, budget, affordability, price point, etc. Without these info and inviting a contractor will end in a not so good relationship in the end, not knowing what you want is a common mistake a newbie could have. What I do is, I get their budget and tell them what can be done with that budget, sort of reverse engineer the budget and bring them to reality, I believe this is the best way a win-win situation can work. With that said, you are on track not getting a contractor invited and potentially lose a good contractor referral. My advice is to go with your plan by hiring an estimator, list down your scope room by room, internal and external, to double scope security reproduce the result from xactimate, and give them to your contractor. I have worked with adjusters before, they are fairly priced that any contractor can work within their numbers ESPECIALLY investor grade contractors, and when I see the result, I can have a go or no go without even looking at the project.