30 Rehabs In 30 Months

We just completed the last of 30 rehabs in 30 months. Find out what it took, and what some of our projects looked like when finished.

How many rehabs can you do, and do well? I took the 30 month challenge. AKA - ‘how to lose 15 lbs without dieting’. Here’s why I did it and some of what it takes to complete a higher volume of house flips and renovations of rental properties…

30 Houses in 30 Months

One of the biggest issues out there in the market today is all of the new amateur real estate investors inspired by house flipping TV shows. Most don’t know how to value a property, manage a rehab job, or price and remarket them for resale. Some neighborhoods around the country are ending up with inflated prices and low inventory levels as these newer players overbid and then take many months to renovate homes, and leave them sitting on the market substantially over-priced. The investors aren’t being served well by this either, because they are falling far short of the returns they should be making, and that’s if they ever successfully finish the rehab without getting stuck with the property.

So, I took up the gauntlet to see how many house renovations I could do, and what it requires. Between Q4 2015 and Q2 2018, we rehabbed 30 properties. Essentially 1 per month, with the last one going on the market in June 2018.

I lost 15 lbs in the process, without dieting, but it has been fun.

Doing Deals While Others are Napping

Before attending IMN's Single Family Forum in 2015, my goal was to acquire ten houses for the year. That’s personally, outside of what I was doing with my businesses partners. The event was a conference with many high level institutional players, public REITs and funds. I was invited to moderate a panel on notes.

These guys were big players, managing at least 10,000 single family buy and hold deals or more. They each had their own trials with notes and managing these high numbers of assets.

It was a real honor and pleasure to be able to add value to that group and help them tackle their note issues. The experience also energized me to do even more in my own portfolio. It made me think bigger and gave me a new perspective.

At the time, I was allowing some investors to participate with me in my own deals if they weren’t a fit for the Note fund we were running. About $5M in new capital came in from individuals with anywhere from $50k in an IRA to over $150k to invest.

Placing that capital effectively, efficiently and profitably, and doing it through individual rehabs and separate structures certainly required more organization, new strategies, processes and systems. While I’ve been flipping houses for many years, in my spare time I was only doing about 2-3 renovations for myself per year. So, this forced me to find better contractors and elevate everything. That all ended up in creating the NNG Hybrid Fund to enable even more individuals and institutional investors to participate in the success we achieved with Real Estate Mortgage Notes and Real Estate.

Getting the drive and putting systems in place to do a high volume of deals is one thing. Finding the deals however, is a different beast. You need to develop the connections and find systems for strong deal flow. That’s where most people are lacking. Even though you may not be a big fund that can go to wholesale channels and get bulk assets at tasty discounts, you can get out there and hustle while others are napping. I did this by choosing to get out at Thanksgiving,Christmas & New Year’s while others were sleeping off the turkey and blowing money on stuff they didn’t need at so called retail sales. I found tons of opportunities in my backyard in NJ. I got out on the street, did my due diligence and made lots of offers.

My Recommendations

My takeaways for everyone reading about this experience are to:

• Hang out with people who drive you to do more
• Find people who are doing it right, and are organized, and work with them
• Find the right fit for you in investing. It may not be DIY rehabbing on the weekends. It may be investing in notes, rentals or a Real Estate Fund
• Upgrade your goals

Check out this beautiful Before & After rehab on the latest Uber Luxury flip we did

We also just put the property next door under contract and will be rehabbing that as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_Z2XA56Cgk&t=1s

Investment Opportunities

Find out more about investing in secured debt and real estate, go to NNG Capital Fund

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay