It's not a success story yet, but I wanted to post about a great partnership that has evolved from BiggerPockets relationships...

As some of you know, Marty Boardman and I presented together at the BP Summit back in the Spring, and that was actually the first time we officially met (along with Marty's business partner, Manny). The three of us hit it off quickly and we knew there would eventually be an opportunity to work together. That opportunity actually came pretty quickly.

Around that time, inventory was drying up both in their market (Phoenix) and my market (Atlanta). We decided to do some research, pick a new market and explore a flipping partnership in that new market. After a few discussions with Steve Cook (a well-respected RE analyst who gave a great presentation at the Summit), we decided to take a look at Milwaukee.

During our first investigative trip up to Milwaukee, we met up with two other BP members that we'd never met in person -- James Gefke and Emilio Ramirez. On that first trip, Marty and I made several offers,including an offer on a property in the west suburbs of Milwaukee. After several months of negotiation with the bank, due diligence issues and closing fiascos, we finally closed on that property two days ago.

I'm in Milwaukee this week working with James and Emilio to put together a detailed scope of work, make design decisions, line up contractors and get the permit process rolling. James will likely be our Project Manager for this project (he just finished a great flip in downtown Milwaukee) and Emilio will be helping us with contractor relationships and perhaps doing some of our rehab work.

This week has been a huge challenge for me -- it's been a couple years since I've had to think about building contractor crews from scratch, learning the permitting laws, finding a GC and putting together new processes for getting work done. Add to it the fact that there are a whole set of renovation issues up here in the great white north we're not used to, the fact that Marty, Manny and my trips will be relatively short (we both have little kids and other family/work responsibilities at home), and the fact that this will be a very large and complex renovation, and what we have is a ridiculous learning curve that is a GREAT REMINDER for what new investors go through every single day.

While I'm not always enjoying the pressure and challenges that are going along with the start of tbis project, it really allows me (forces me!) to put myself in the shoes of many of the people who read my blog and my posts here on BP. Hopefully, it will help me better empathize and gear my advice towards the real struggles new investors face. In addition, it's made me very reliant on all the great advice and information here on BP -- I've spent the past couple nights scouring old posts about investing out-of-state, trying to dig up information on some specifics of our rehabs that I'm not accustomed to, and trying to find resources/contacts for those up here who may be able to help us.

I've learned -- and re-learned -- more in the past week than I have in the past 2 years. It's refreshing and terrifying... :)

Anyway, I don't expect this deal will be a home run (that was never the goal), but it should allow us to get our feet wet in this new market, learn the intricacies of investing in a place with a different climate, different types of houses with different types of problems, and start to build a team so that if we decide to do more projects in this area, we'll be better prepared. That said, hopefully it will at least be somewhat profitable as well.

In terms of numbers, we purchased the house for $151,000, will be putting about $75,000 into it, and will hopefully resell it for at least $275K. At times this week, it's looked like we'd be $10K under budget and at other times, it's looked like we'd be over by $15K. And we haven't even started demo yet...a good reminder that rehab estimation is hard!!! :)

Anyway, I'll post updates as we move forward (the bulk of the project won't start for a few weeks, as our foundation repair company is pretty booked and can't get us on the schedule until the first week in August). And if anyone is interested in pictures, budget breakdown or more preliminary details, feel free to check out my blog (it's House #36, "The WI-1 House").

In the meantime, thanks to BP for helping us put this opportunity together, and I look forward to getting a chance to work with Marty, Manny, James, and Emilio!