Argo update: from 2 flips in 2015 to $12.2m and 45 units in 2017

Argo update: from 2 flips in 2015 to $12.2m and 45 units in 2017

Developer · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 902 votes

- In 2015, my partners and I started our company and completed 2 single family flips. The first one we used day labor, handymen, a few licensed subs and lots of our own labor, all financed by personal loans and credit cards. The second one we used a bank loan and a full service GC. Unit count for the year: 2

- In 2016 we became GC's and completed 2 more single family homes; 1 new construction and another small rehab. The new construction single family sold for the highest price ever recorded for a single family in Brewerytown...by over $50k. Unit count for the year: 2

- In 2017 we built 64,882 sqf of properties for ourselves as GC's. We started completing our first multifamily projects having just learned about this asset class during 2016. We converted $1,756,000 in acquisitions to $12,264,500 in completed value. We hit the highest comp for a triplex rental building selling the rental property a full point below competing cap rates for our market. By the end of 2017 we raised over $3,238,000 in investor equity in our projects. Unit count for the year: 45 

- In 2018, our acquisition costs of projects in development are already forecast well above $3 million and completed value well above $11 million. We are forecast to complete at least 80,000 sqf of properties. We are starting our CMX development portfolio having only started in this asset class with a test the waters project in early 2017 before diving in on full scale commercial corridor redevelopment starting in early 2018. 

Unit count for the year: at least 69

We have never acquired a fully performing, stabilized property. We've never lost money on any real estate investment projects (the GC business is another story). We have relationships with over 10 lenders including the region's largest and smallest banks, and we also have relationships with private and hard money lenders.

Since we started ~2.5 years ago, we have completed or have in progress:

  • 45 projects with a peak of 21 active projects at one time.
  • 141 Units totaling 173,872 sqf 
  • We have acquired ~$6.4 million dollars worth of real estate and built out nearly $30.5 million worth of value from this portfolio

Our biggest projects to-date are forecast for 2018-19. We have not started planning 2020, but we have some ideas! 

As a side note, I met both my partners @Jeremy T. and @David Ross right here on BP. We've made friends and found private lenders on this site. We've collaborated and worked with people from this site. It's been an invaluable asset and I can't thank the good folks at BP enough for putting this site together. 

Feel free to ask questions, we're happy to answer what we can. 

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Pleasanton, CA · Member since 2016 · 30 posts · 12 votes
8y
Hey Troy, great story. How did you and your partners meet up? A BP event? How did you decide to go into business together? Do you write up a formal business plan? Your business sounds amazing. Good luck and thanks for the great post.
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  • Real Estate Investor · Palm Beach County, FL · Member since 2017 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    8y

    Congrats keep up the great work and I agree about BP being an invaluable resource!

  • Lender · Northbrook, IL · Member since 2014 · 198 posts · 50 votes
    8y

    Wow congrats and best of luck in 2018!

  • Fremont, CA · Member since 2015 · 289 posts · 63 votes
    8y

    Amazing story

  • Developer · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 902 votes
    8y

    Thanks guys! We’ve been extremely fortunate with our timing; we made a lot of mistakes! If we weren’t in a rapidly appreciating area in a strong market we’d have much less leeway for errors and couldn’t have grown as fast as we have. 

  • Pleasanton, CA · Member since 2016 · 30 posts · 12 votes
    8y
    Hey Troy, great story. How did you and your partners meet up? A BP event? How did you decide to go into business together? Do you write up a formal business plan? Your business sounds amazing. Good luck and thanks for the great post.
  • Property Manager · Charlotte, NC · Member since 2017 · 39 posts · 21 votes
    8y

    This is really motivating for someone just starting out. If you don't mind it would be really helpful to hear a little more about how you financed your first deal. What were the terms on the personal loans? How much financing came from the loans vs the credit cards? How quickly were you able to pay off the debt and how? I am also very interested in the idea of becoming a GC. How exactly did you go about doing that? School? Apprenticeships? Or just on the job experience? Sorry for the barrage of questions but this story really caught my interest! Thanks!

  • Developer · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 902 votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Erik Harrison:

    Hey Troy, great story. How did you and your partners meet up? A BP event? How did you decide to go into business together? Do you write up a formal business plan?

    Your business sounds amazing. Good luck and thanks for the great post.

    Thanks for the kind words Erik. David and I met through interacting on the forums. We realized we lived a few blocks away from each other and met for coffee. We eventually started hosting a monthly BP meetup here in Brewerytown and met a ton of great local investors. I highly recommend attending or starting a local meetup for the networking and education it provides. Also, keep meeting people. You never know who will turn out to be your next investor/partner/lender or who will give you a piece of advice or new strategy that you'd never have come across on your own. I meet with people regularly just to chat about real estate/Brewerytown and answer questions to help them get started. There's no scarcity around here, the more the merrier, so I try and help as many people get started as I can. 

    When David and I met, it turned out we had similar goals, complimentary skills, and just enough money and credit between us to bootstrap a cheap flip. We had no business plan and no documents or agreements in place. Handshake deal all the way. Our business plan was "don't lose too much money". I think we ended up making $8k or so after it was all said and done. I tell people all the time, even if we lost $5k or $20k, it would be a cheap education.

    After we completed our first flip, David and I met our third partner Jeremy, also through BP. David had already built a relationship with a local credit union who gave us a small mortgage (purchase only at 80% of appraised value - no construction costs) on our first flip. Once we got Jeremy involved and the bank saw our meager track record on the previous project, they were much more interested in loaning us money. Jeremy negotiated a construction loan with them that covered 80% of purchase and 100% of construction! We bought the property at a nice discount (it appraised for nearly 20% more than purchase price) so we had to come up with $5k or so out of pocket to purchase and build. As we all know, there are way more costs involved (architecture, holding, staging, change orders) that most people never think about but it was an amazing introduction into the world of what's possible with good banking relationships and an almost "no money down deal". 

    These days we buy each property in a separate LLC and that LLC is owned by another entity that we partners own. We do have operating agreements in place and we work with a lot of debt and equity investors as well as banks so we've spent a lot of money on legal help getting all this sorted. We didn't start out that way, even our second flip with three partners involved was mostly a handshake deal. We may have had some crappy legal zoom doc in place that was likely worth what we paid for it but it didn't mean much.

  • Developer · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 902 votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Adrien Hebert:

    This is really motivating for someone just starting out. If you don't mind it would be really helpful to hear a little more about how you financed your first deal. What were the terms on the personal loans? How much financing came from the loans vs the credit cards? How quickly were you able to pay off the debt and how? I am also very interested in the idea of becoming a GC. How exactly did you go about doing that? School? Apprenticeships? Or just on the job experience? Sorry for the barrage of questions but this story really caught my interest! Thanks!

    Happy to. I qualified for an 80% of purchase price mortgage so that 20% shortfall plus closing costs wiped out my cash. I then got a personal loan for $25k at 12%. David got a small home equity loan at standard rates and we put those two loans towards construction and holding costs. We used the cash to pay for labor and some materials and credit cards at stupid high rates to buy materials as cash ran out. I’d guess we spent $60k on construction and holding and 2/3 was “cash” vs. credit. We paid off everything immediately upon sale of the house which luckily didn’t take long to complete and sell. There’s a thread on it somewhere in here. Details are fuzzy at this point but we documented it pretty well. I don’t recommend the credit card route for everyone but we were pretty confident we could pull it off and we both had decent W-2 income that would allow us to pay off any shortfall within a year at most. Not ideal but we were desperate to get a project under our belts and we were willing to pay for our education if necessary. 

    I’ll make a separate GC post later. Lots of lessons learned...

  • Accountant · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 303 posts · 210 votes
    8y

    So happy to see you guys are doing so well. Good presentation at the FCA RCO meeting last month and hope you got approval for the second and third residential stories for the chicken take out place. I'm always checking out your quad on the corner on my walks to Aldi.

  • sydney, NEW SOUTH WALES · Member since 2017 · 5 posts · 1 vote
    8y
    Hi Troy Very inspirational! First few deals are the hardest... I am all the way in the other side of the world, but I am planing my move to USA. A lot of people made a lot of money in Australian realestate in the last 7 years. It is becoming harder and harder to find good deals. Which is why I’m cashing out and panning a move to USA. One of the reasons why I’m on BP. I would like to initially invest/partner with someone who has similar goals. I will contact you through your website about your upcoming projects too, hopefully I can be a part of some of your projects in future. All the best Boyan
  • Saint Cloud, MN · Member since 2017 · 90 posts · 70 votes
    8y

    Wow, impressive! Congratulations!

  • Developer · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 902 votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Erik Anderson:

    Wow, impressive! Congratulations!

    Thanks Erik,

    Looking back at the stats and finally taking a break, it's surreal. We've been heads down in the trenches for so long, made so many mistakes, learned so many lessons, that it doesn't seem like an accomplishment day-to-day. It's only looking back at year end we're all seeing what we've accomplished. We all work 7 days a week for the most part and, even when something went well, we had so many other areas with, let's call them, learning opportunities, that it was tough to celebrate much. It's nice to put these stats together and see what we actually did accomplish over the long haul. 

  • Developer · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 902 votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Boyan L.:

    Hi Troy

    Very inspirational! First few deals are the hardest...

    I am all the way in the other side of the world, but I am planing my move to USA. A lot of people made a lot of money in Australian realestate in the last 7 years.

    It is becoming harder and harder to find good deals. Which is why I’m cashing out and panning a move to USA. One of the reasons why I’m on BP.

    I would like to initially invest/partner with someone who has similar goals. I will contact you through your website about your upcoming projects too, hopefully I can be a part of some of your projects in future.

    All the best
    Boyan

    Thank you Boyan! I used to read lots of deal diaries and success stories before I got active in the Philadelphia market and they always inspired me. It was good to read about others setbacks along the way as well. When all you hear is infomercials and gurus saying how easy it is and how much they make, I fear people will quit or think they're doing something wrong. There's nothing easy about any of this, although you learn with each deal and make new and exciting, more costly mistakes instead of the same old boring, cheap ones :)

    My mother is Australian (from Geelong). She's been here around 45 years though. Both my aunts still live in Australia and I've heard how insane the real estate market is there. It seems like everything literally costs a million dollars. I've got no idea how a blue collar worker affords a home there. 

    We always need investors; bank loans are great but there's always a huge gap between what they'll lend and what it actually costs to get a project off the ground. 

  • Developer · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 902 votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Account Closed:

    So happy to see you guys are doing so well. Good presentation at the FCA RCO meeting last month and hope you got approval for the second and third residential stories for the chicken take out place. I'm always checking out your quad on the corner on my walks to Aldi.

    Tim! How are you?!?!

    Nice to hear from you. We didn't get to chat at the RCO meeting but I did see you. Thank you for the kind words on the takeout restaurant. That's a great story and another lesson learned...

    The quad on Girard is doing great. I love that building. Ronit and I recently moved a block or so away but we moved the Argo office into my quad. David and I would love to get coffee one day and hear about what you've been up to. Very smart getting involved in the RCO, I'm sure that's quite the education. 

  • Saint Cloud, MN · Member since 2017 · 90 posts · 70 votes
    8y

    It sounds like your team has been determined to succeed. 

    Many people who have become successful are so because of their determination and because of the enormous amount of work they put in.

    Congratulations again!

  • Developer · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 902 votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Adrien Hebert:

    This is really motivating for someone just starting out. If you don't mind it would be really helpful to hear a little more about how you financed your first deal. What were the terms on the personal loans? How much financing came from the loans vs the credit cards? How quickly were you able to pay off the debt and how? I am also very interested in the idea of becoming a GC. How exactly did you go about doing that? School? Apprenticeships? Or just on the job experience? Sorry for the barrage of questions but this story really caught my interest! Thanks!

    Hi Adrien,

    I wanted to follow up on the GC part of your question since I ran out of time the other day. My posts can get quite lengthy since I love to hear myself type, ya know :)

    I've been in construction on the industrial/commercial side for most of my career and handy around the house mainly out of necessity. Being poor builds character, and if it doesn't build character it at least builds home repair skills if you want to have hot water and a roof over your head. The point of that little bit is I really didn't know a ton about residential construction. I worked in facilities maintenance after I figured out I didn't like industrial construction in winter. I had a decent broad skill set but no expertise in anything and didn't know framing, foundations, residential building codes, shear walls, fire ratings, fire ratings for 3 or more units, and on and on. I'd rehabbed a few of my own places myself, maintained a few rentals, but knew nothing about a full gut rehab like we run into here in Philadelphia nor dealing with the city and/or building inspectors. Our first rehab as a company was a moderate rehab where we didn't have to gut everything, just most everything. We ran that one ourselves and did a lot of the work ourselves out of necessity. We didn't need a license, we could pull an E-Z permit as the homeowner, doing non-structural basics, and we used licensed subs for plumbing and electric. The next project was a full gut and way over our heads to run ourselves with full time jobs. We hired it out to a good GC and weren't unhappy with his work or results. We of course thought it was waaay too expensive and we could save money if we GC'ed ourselves. More on that later. 

    We had a few other small rehab to rent single family houses that we used a lower level GC for. Cheap work for cheap houses, plus we all still had full time jobs. The next project was new construction single family so we used a hybrid approach. We used a GC that we paid a flat fee to to pull permits and manage the job through framing. We took over and finished the job ourselves and it turned out great. The GC we used didn't teach us much but I "stole with my eyes" as an old foreman taught me. I learned a lot of the process, or at least I thought I did, and we commenced on our next project, a 4100 sq ft, 3-unit condo rehab with me as GC, which was now my full time job for Argo. Here's a link to it: 1218 N. 30th . 

    From there we went on to new construction projects where I got my butt kicked on a daily basis with learning/mistakes. At one point I had 16 buildings under construction and it was just me. We said 21 somewhere above but that was likely projects that needed a final cleaning or CO inspection. I stopped and counted one day and 16 was only projects that were somewhere between foundation started and final paint. Both my partners still had very demanding corporate jobs and we had no money or time to hire anyone else. 

    I learned a ton GC'ing but realized that running a RE development biz and a GC biz are two totally different things. I wouldn't discourage anyone from it but I'd have to say learning one at a time would be a much easier way to go. The learning curve for each area (RE development, GC'ing, residential construction in Philadelphia specifically) was massive. When you combined them, even with two amazing partners (who were both still working day jobs at the time), it was too much. I highly recommend learning RE first and hiring good GC's. Once you've got the RE part down, move to GC'ing. 

    Oh, and the GC we used that did a great job for us but we thought was too expensive? His numbers are just as good as ours. I couldn't do what he did for less! Hope that answers your questions, feel free to hit me with anything specific. 

  • Investor · Port St. Lucie, FL · Member since 2017 · 56 posts · 22 votes
    8y

    If you want to get out of the cold and develop multifamily and select professional plazas look up Becker Road rezoning in Port St. Lucie, FL. Population will double in 20 years and this 4 lane road divides 2 neighborhoods. It is bookended with I-95 and turnpike exits.

    It needs everything including gas stations, restaurants, hotels, and apartments. It's 45 mins north of WPB and there is nothing like it available until you go 200 miles south to the end of the peninsula in Homestead.

  • Rental Property Investor · Allentown PA, United States · Member since 2016 · 567 posts · 442 votes
    8y
    Congrats on all the success Troy. Are you strictly focused on new construction, flips etc. or are you doing any buy and hold in the area too?
  • Developer · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 902 votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Bill Goodland:

    Congrats on all the success Troy. Are you strictly focused on new construction, flips etc. or are you doing any buy and hold in the area too?

    Thanks Bill. Currently we have everything underway from a 1,000 sq ft single family rehab for sale to a new construction, 18,000 sq ft, 5-story, 16-unit plus ground floor commercial mixed use building for lease. We prefer to build new construction as it's cleaner and faster but we're also rehabbing a 3-story mixed use building that is 3 residential units and ground floor commercial on the main commercial corridor. We're also converting an old 2-story 4,000 sq ft garage into a 6-unit residential building. We're adding a 3rd story and making it right around 6,000 sq ft. 

    We want to hold all we can but we have to sell some projects to pay salaries and help fund acquisitions. 

  • Flipper/Rehabber · Yardley, PA · Member since 2015 · 451 posts · 307 votes
    8y

    @Troy Sheets quite the story and hard work does pay off.  Glad to see your success right here in Philly!  All the best! 

  • Real Estate Agent · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2017 · 18 posts · 6 votes
    8y

    Troy, you're an inspiration and a motivation. For that I thank you! Where did you and your partners start finding these properties?

  • Lake Jackson, TX · Member since 2013 · 119 posts · 34 votes
    8y

    Awesome 

  • Developer · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 902 votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Todd Rainey:

    Troy, you're an inspiration and a motivation. For that I thank you! Where did you and your partners start finding these properties?

    First one was on MLS, second was off market through an agent. The second one had uncooperative/combative tenants in the property and you had to buy sight unseen on the interior and with the tenants in place. We negotiated a lower price as the landlord was out of state and didn't want to deal with the tenants or eviction. Since then we've purchased from MLS, word-of-mouth through neighbors, wholesalers, off market through agents, sheriff sales, etc...

    Another thing we've done several times and I don't see mentioned here on BP much is to partner with other investors that already own a property and they're just sitting on it due to not having time, motivation, money, credit or the experience to deal with it. 

    I know it's gotten tougher to find deals on the MLS but there are great deals sitting on the MLS even today, in this crazy market we're in.

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