All Forum Posts by: Buddy LaRue

You mentioned in your first post "I have been looking to see if I could get funding for the project but seem to keep running into a credit issue." You also mentioned prior to that you're a beginner. I have nothing against a person dreaming big and shooting for the sky, but before you attempt to do a large deal like this, you may want to get your feet wet on a couple of SFR deals. A little experience will help you go a long way.

I've partnered in flips before. I've always kept my commissions on both buying and selling sides.

We all brought something to the table when we went in on the properties, some had more money than time, others had more time than money. We all worked on it, and in the end if I hadn't listed the properties they would have been listed with another agent.

Black. Paint 'em black! :-P

I would give the cabinetry a good cleaning, lose the valances, and stick with neutrals for the countertops.

Color is very personal and can easily turn off tenants.

Keep Realtors out of your wholesaling equation. A Realtor's job is marketing, which is essentially what you're going.

I can't say that any of mine have come in at 50% expenses. BUT if you use the 50% in your initial evaluations and the numbers are good, they just get better if you don't have to spend the 50%! WOO HOO!!!

Fannie Mae HomePath properties can be as good a deal as any other, if you are careful.

I've done a number of deals with HomePath in the past. Fixers were priced appropriately so that I could find properties where I was able to get a 100% return on capital gain and a 10% cash on cash return. Then suddenly in January 2012, it seemed that Fannie was pricing all the properties at market value, regardless of the condition. This made finding the best deals from them a bit more difficult, but if you review them carefully you can still get a decent deal.

If you are going to look at HomePath properties, I would recommend that you go to their website www.HomePath.com and view them there. The properties have to be past the "First Look" period in order for an investor to bid on them. The "First Look" period is usually the first 15 days the property is on the market, and sometimes they will extend that if the property goes under contract then comes back on the market.

One more thing you need to be mindful of when dealing with a HomePath property is that the inspection period begins at the "acknowledgement" of the offer. In other words, once you get the VERBAL acceptance of the offer is when the inspection period begins, not the execution date of the contract. This has only caused one headache for me so far. I got my "acknowledgement" from Fannie Mae, had my inspections done, then they came back two weeks later saying they wanted to renegotiate and gave me a counter offer. All in all, it took six weeks before I got a fully executed contract, and only 2 weeks to close. I was very glad I have an excellent lender who was able to get everything done in time.

As for the "noob" questions....we were all "noobs" at one point. Be thankful that Bigger Pockets is here and you can get questions answered. I wish they were around when I first started!

This sounds like you're trying to flip the house.

Always let your numbers do the talking. Is putting vinyl on the house going to raise the value enough to make it worth your while?

Sounds to me like this guy is saying "Hello, SUCKER".

I wouldn't do it for him unless I was getting paid at closing time.

Dropbox is my favorite. You don't have to share all your files with other people, you can choose which one's you do. It's quick and easy to setup and best of all you can't beat the price...FREE!!!!

Good morning Ismael!

You're certainly in the right place for information! This site is LOADED!!!

I'm working on putting together a BP networking group (No selling or presentations, just a group of investors getting together to network). At this point it looks like we won't get the first meeting going until January at the earliest (many are showing interest, but don't arrive in town until December of January). I'd love for you to join us if you're interested.

Let me know if I can help in any way. I'm just down the coast a little bit in West Palm Beach.