$140,805.92 profit on our first flip...Thank you Bigger Pockets!

$140,805.92 profit on our first flip...Thank you Bigger Pockets!

Investor · Oxnard, CA · Member since 2014 · 438 posts · 187 votes

Before I begin and receive any responses that my title is not accurate, I just want to state upfront that only 60% of that profit goes to us and the other 40% goes to our private money lender.

Now that I got that out of the way, I just wanted to take some time to thank BP and the people on this site for helping my wife and I successfully complete our first ever flip. I am sure that a lot of the successful investors on here are super busy, and I’m not sure what your reasons are for contributing to this site, but I just wanted you guys to know that your efforts are definitely not wasted. I will not speak for any other newbies, but the knowledge and insight that I have gained from many of you has been invaluable. My wife and I would have been happy if we would have just broken even on our first flip, but thanks to everyone here, we more than met our expectations.  The victory is a little bitter sweet though, as our lead funnel has been dry for quite some time now.  We plan on reinvesting a portion of the profit into marketing to hopefully reach our goal of 4 flips in 2016.

Please pardon me for name dropping, but I also want to take a second and thank some of the people whose comments and/or posts I have been following over the last year and a half or so.  I really appreciate the time you take to help others who are just starting out.  Although some of you write about different niches than I am interested in, I have learned something from each of you.  I am sure that I'm missing a few others, but here goes:

@Antonio Coleman@Chad Carson@Ali Boone@Danny Johnson@Jeff Greenberg@Mindy Jensen@Scott Trench@Rick H..  ;)  Thank you for everything that you guys do and please keep up the great work!

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Joel OwensBusiness Member
Moderator
Real Estate Broker · Canton, GA · Member since 2010 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes
10y

Cornelius,

"Last but not least, i would like to thank @Brandon Turner and his assistant@Joshua Dorkin. ;) Thank you for everything that you guys do and please keep up the great work!"

Yes assistant Josh Dorkin, go Josh go! LOL.................. : )

See this reply in the discussion

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  • Real Estate Consultant · Camarillo, CA · Member since 2010 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    10y

    @Cornelius CharlesYou are my hero.  Great job!

  • Real Estate Consultant · Camarillo, CA · Member since 2010 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    10y

    @Cornelius CharlesThe @ only works if the people are your colleague, or in the current forum string.  You will need to add them as colleagues.

  • Wholesaler · Deland, FL · Member since 2014 · 17 posts · 3 votes
    10y
    Wow, that is amazing! I am trying to secure my first property as we speak and this encouraged me to keep going! I know I may not get the same results but, I do plan on profiting! Very fine job!!
  • Joel OwensBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Real Estate Broker · Canton, GA · Member since 2010 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes
    10y

    Cornelius,

    "Last but not least, i would like to thank @Brandon Turner and his assistant@Joshua Dorkin. ;) Thank you for everything that you guys do and please keep up the great work!"

    Yes assistant Josh Dorkin, go Josh go! LOL.................. : )

  • Cincinnati, OH · Member since 2015 · 10 posts · 1 vote
    10y
    That's incredible! Are you going to give any details on the deal? What's the story? How many bedrooms and bathrooms? Struggles, lessons learned, etc?
  • Investor · Austin, TX · Member since 2014 · 144 posts · 86 votes
    10y

    Can we expect a thread over in the Success Stories section with some of the juicy details?

    @Cornelius Charles, very exciting. Congrats!

  • Chad CarsonPro Member
    Investor · Clemson, SC · Member since 2008 · 198 posts · 156 votes
    10y

    @Cornelius Charles that is awesome! What a success story!! 

    I can't speak for others on BP, but hearing about people like you who go and apply what you learn keeps me coming back. It's what they call a virtuous circle;)

    I do hope you share some details, lessons learned, and future plans. 

    Best of luck with your 4 flip goal in 2016. Reinvesting profits into marketing is a wise first step.

    Chad 

  • Engelo RumoraBusiness Member
    Investor · Toledo, OH · Member since 2013 · 4k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    10y
    Originally posted by @Cornelius Charles:

    Before I begin and receive any responses that my title is not accurate, I just want to state upfront that only 60% of that profit goes to us and the other 40% goes to our private money lender.

    Now that I got that out of the way, I just wanted to take some time to thank BP and the people on this site for helping my wife and I successfully complete our first ever flip. I am sure that a lot of the successful investors on here are super busy, and I’m not sure what your reasons are for contributing to this site, but I just wanted you guys to know that your efforts are definitely not wasted. I will not speak for any other newbies, but the knowledge and insight that I have gained from many of you has been invaluable. My wife and I would have been happy if we would have just broken even on our first flip, but thanks to everyone here, we more than met our expectations.  The victory is a little bitter sweet though, as our lead funnel has been dry for quite some time now.  We plan on reinvesting a portion of the profit into marketing to hopefully reach our goal of 4 flips in 2016.

    Please pardon me for name dropping, but I also want to take a second and thank some of the people whose comments and/or posts I have been following over the last year and a half or so.  I really appreciate the time you take to help others who are just starting out.  Although some of you write about different niches than I am interested in, I have learned something from each of you.  I am sure that I'm missing a few others, but here goes:

    @Antonio Coleman@Chad Carson@Ali Boone@Danny Johnson@Jeff Greenberg@Mindy Jensen@Scott Trench@Rick H..  ;)  Thank you for everything that you guys do and please keep up the great work!

    Well done mate,

    Killer deal and killer profit.

    Much success and keep pumping :)

  • Real Estate Investor · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2010 · 328 posts · 182 votes
    10y

    That's incredible, @Cornelius Charles!  Very inspiring.  

    The fact that you took the time to say thanks for all of the contributions on this site says a lot about your character.

    To your success!  Great job!

  • John FedroPro Member
    Investor · Austin, TX · Member since 2009 · 413 posts · 295 votes
    10y

    Congratulations Cornelius!

    Thanks for the shout-out. However the credit goes all to you! You deserve it. Keep up the great work and daily action to help others locally. Well done again.

    Talk soon,
    John Fedro

  • Real Estate Agent · Saint Louis Park, MN · Member since 2015 · 213 posts · 82 votes
    10y

    Cornelius - congrats! What an amazing success story. Your post provides many of us with the daily inspiration many of us newbies need! Would love to hear more details about the flip and some photos if you have them. Best of luck with the 4 flips in 2016! 

  • Mindy JensenPro Member
    BiggerPockets Money Podcast Host · Longmont, CO · Member since 2014 · 7k+ posts · 10k+ votes
    10y

    @Cornelius Charles, congratulations. I'd love to hear the details of the flip. 

  • Cornelius CharlesPro Member
    OP
    Investor · Oxnard, CA · Member since 2014 · 438 posts · 187 votes
    10y

    To everyone asking about details, I didn't really think of it before, but i will post some details of the deal within the next day or so.  

    @Joel Owens I don't know if it came across correctly, but i was being sarcastic in that last comment.  I was trying to play off of the comments that Josh makes on the podcasts about people mistaking his role in the company.  I should know by now that my sarcasm never works when it's not in person.

  • Joel OwensBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Real Estate Broker · Canton, GA · Member since 2010 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes
    10y

    No worries. I have known Josh for a long time. I know you were kidding... : )

    Next time you see Brandon Turner ask him how the weather is up there? He loves that question.

  • Castaic, CA · Member since 2015 · 4 posts · 3 votes
    10y
    Congratulations! How long did it take you?
  • Investor · Chicago, IL · Member since 2015 · 40 posts · 24 votes
    10y

    Congratulations @Cornelius Charles!!! Waiting to hear the details...

  • Melbourne, FL · Member since 2015 · 7 posts · 1 vote
    10y

    Congrats on the successful deal! I'm looking forward to hearing some more of the details. 

  • Keller, TX · Member since 2015 · 28 posts · 4 votes
    10y

    Congrats!! @Cornelius Charles Keep it going!

  • Joshua D.Pro Member
    BiggerPockets Founder · HI · Member since 2008 · 16k+ posts · 5k+ votes
    10y

    @Cornelius Charles - Congrats to you and thanks for sharing some detail for all of us.  That's awesome!  Continued success...

  • Brandon TurnerPro Member
    Investor · Maui, HI · Member since 2009 · 13k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    10y

    @Cornelius Charles dooooood! Congrats!!! Can't wait to hear more about the deal and how you did it! And I'm sure my assistant @Joshua D. will be excited to hear this also! But he's busy scrubbing my bathroom toilets in my rental property, so I'm sure he'll see this when he gets done. But first he needs to go get me my coffee!

  • Real Estate Investor · Arlington, TX · Member since 2015 · 4 posts · 0 votes
    10y

    Now this is what I call team work!

  • Lawrence L.Pro Member
    Rental Property Investor · Bronx, NY · Member since 2008 · 144 posts · 64 votes
    10y

    Awesome job.....CONGRATS 

  • Real Estate Coach · Venice Beach, CA · Member since 2012 · 6k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    10y

    Congrats!! :)

  • Cornelius CharlesPro Member
    OP
    Investor · Oxnard, CA · Member since 2014 · 438 posts · 187 votes
    10y

    Here is a brief summary of the deal. I will try and keep it short and to the point, but if there are any questions, please let me know. And to any other new investors reading this, I just wanted to add that neither my wife nor I have any prior real estate experience (although my wife received her real estate salesperson license last June to help with our investments), but we knew that we had to take the plunge at some point. If you do your homework beforehand, don’t be afraid if you don’t know the answers to everything as you will find them out as you go.

    Property details:

    1216 sq ft, 2 bed, 2 bath, located in Oxnard California

    Original Analysis - Purchase Price 500K, rehab 66K, ARV 724K

    Final numbers - Purchase Price 500K, rehab 93K, sold price 820K

    We got the lead from our absentee owner direct mail campaign. My wife fielded the owner's phone call and we made an appointment to view the home at the tenant's earliest convenience. I don't remember if it was a scheduling conflict or what, but I was the only one who went to view this house initially. If my wife was there, she probably would have caught a mistake or two that I made in the repair estimate. Using a repair estimate spreadsheet that comes with our CRM software, I came up with 66K in rehab costs. Using this number, we presented the seller with 3 different offers of varying purchase prices and terms using hard money, conventional loan, and seller financing (he owned the house free and clear). He chose the offer that we presented using the price and terms from us getting a conventional loan, which was $500K. At this point, we did not know where we would find the rehab costs, but I explained to the seller that one of our contingencies would be a financing contingency to confirm that we would be able to obtain the appropriate financing, and he was okay with that. From speaking to lenders previously, I was pretty sure that we would qualify for bank financing, so all we would have to do is find the rehab costs. At this point, our exit strategies in order of preference were to fix and flip the home ourselves, find another investor to form some sort of JV agreement, or to wholesale the property. Fortunately for us, since the seller and the tenants were good friends, the seller asked us to delay the closing date for 6 weeks after whenever we would get the thumbs up from the bank to give his friend time to find a new place to live. Obviously we agreed to that, since we would not be losing any money in holding costs prior to closing and that gave us more time to find the rehab money. Long story short, our lender approved our loan and during the 6 weeks we gave the tenant to find a home, my wife's broker's dad heard about our deal and approached her to see if he could get a piece of it somehow. He said that he would either lend us 75K for repair costs at 8% or he would offer whatever amount the rehab ended up being, as well as pay all our holding costs and have access to him as a mentor for 50% of the profit. In the end, we chose the latter because we were not sure if we would be able to stay under 75K and that our bank account might end up cutting it close if we ended up holding the property for much longer than 4 or 5 months. We negotiated him down to only receiving 40% of the profit, as he was not coming out of pocket the entire purchase price and we felt like obtaining the bank loan in my name stood for something.

    As far as the rehab is concerned, we only collected bids from 3 contractors as it was difficult getting people in the home with the tenant still living there (he took the entire 6 weeks to move out). We ended up choosing the contractor that our money lender had done business with for decades as we felt their relationship provided some level of credibility. Based off of our original scope of work, his bid was $62K. Between the 2 or 3 months since the seller initially contacted us and us actually closing, there had been some good activity in the neighborhood and we deiced to finish our rehab near the level of a bigger model that had sold down the street for 930K. The upgraded finishes along with us missing a few things on our scope of work increased our final rehab number to 93K, but we believed the comps would support an ARV of around 800K by doing so. We did not follow some of the lessons that we had learned beforehand when it came to developing a schedule with a contractor, so our 6 week rehab somehow became 9 weeks, which seems kind of ridiculous on a 1216 sq ft home to me. In the end, everything worked out and we were able to overcome the little hurdles as they came up. As I said to begin with, we knew that we did not know what we were doing, but we had confidence in our education and believed that we would solve the problems one at a time as they came up. This post was much longer than I initially intended, so I will end it here and answer any questions as they might come up. For those asking for pictures, since I cannot post links on this thread, if you google "Dream Home Property Solutions," you should be able to find our website pretty easily. Go to "Recent Projects" in the top menu bar and you'll find a link that will take you to pics and videos of our progress throughout the project.

  • Cornelius CharlesPro Member
    OP
    Investor · Oxnard, CA · Member since 2014 · 438 posts · 187 votes
    10y

    @Dumitru Zah

    It looks like I left that part out.  We closed on the property on Sept 10th, began demo the following Monday, put it on the market November 27th, received two full price offers 4 days later, and sold it Jan 13th.  

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