All Forum Posts by: Craig Drummond

I’ve been in Rod Khleif’s multifamily coaching program for over 4 years and it’s been one of the best investments I’ve made. The coaching itself is solid, especially with the recent overhaul, but the real value is in the community with a true abundance mindset.

Rod has built an incredible group of investors (called Warriors in the group) who genuinely want to help each other, share, and lift each other up. It’s not all about multifamily either. You’ll find Warriors with experience in assisted living, self-storage, flex industrial, hotel conversions, development, and more. Whatever the niche, someone in the group has done it.

Twice a year, Rod hosts Warrior-only events where hundreds of members come together to learn, connect, and do deals. The energy is incredible and the networking is unmatched.

If you're on the fence, I highly recommend attending one of Rod's bootcamps. It’s a low-pressure weekend packed with value. Rod shares a ton of knowledge, Warriors talk about their journeys, and best of all, there’s no high-pressure sales pitch. Attending a bootcamp is what got me started.

Being that Rod is also a certified high performance coach he brings a ton of passion, energy, and inspiration to the program. If you’re serious about real estate, I highly recommend it.

@James Gates This post is out of state investing GOLD!  I'm sure your lender & David Green appreciate all of the referrals.  I'll be PM'ing you for the lender referral.  ;)  Thanks for sharing your experience as I'm sure all of your thoughtful responses took quite a bit of time.

After quite a bit of research I too landed on Huntsville to begun my OOS investing journey for all the same reasons you stated. BRRRR is VERY appealing to me; however, I had some cash saved and decided to go for a buy & hold in order to test the waters and build the team. I closed on a 4-plex in January. NOT the 4-plexes near Ascent Trail but in a nicer area of S. Huntsville. As you mentioned, MFR is difficult to come by in Huntsville. On Monday I'll be closing on a duplex in NW Huntsville that should cash flow nicely. Now that I have 2 properties and am more comfortable with the area & my team I'm definitely interested in BRRRR'ing.

Have you had any difficulty obtaining financing as your mortgage count increases?  

@Jay Kadlec  -  Hi Jay - Thanks for the comment!  I use MS Office daily for my W-2 job so that's what I'm comfortable with.  All of my analysis was done in Excel.  The final property report & before/after was PowerPoint.  

Hi @Breanne Lemons!  I was looking real hard at a fire damaged home earlier this year but after reading some of the forums on BP I decided that it was a little too risky for me so I passed.  While evaluating the property I was working with Statewide Fire Restoration and was impressed.  I was working with Peter Jones and he was very professional, knowledgeable about the process, & responsive.  I can't personally vouch for their work but they do have many decent reviews online. 

I'd love to learn more about your project!

Good luck!

Simply awesome!  Very inspiring and I loved the detail provided w/the doses of the hard realities peppered in.  Thanks for posting!

Awesome script!  Thanks for sharing!

Well, my very first flip FINALLY sold!  What a journey!!!  Ultimately the project went much too long and had many cost overruns.  Fortunately for me appreciation vs. my initial estimate helped to offset much of the overrun.  My biggest challenge was managing the contractor.  He started out very motivated but as the project wore on his motivation waned.  It turned out that he really enjoys decking, framing, and rough-in but despised painting and finishing work and it showed in his work towards the end of the project.  My key areas for growth are definitely in this area.  Some ideas I have are to implement an incentive in the ICA for completing the project before the completion date.  I was thinking a 5% bonus.  Along with the incentive I will add a fee for going beyond the project completion date.  I'm not sure if that would be a flat weekly fee or a % of the project total, similar to the incentive.  I'm open to recommendations.  I've also added a few additional questions to my contractor interview sheet such as "what work do you typically enjoy?" and "what types of tasks do you dislike?"  I figured this will give me an idea as to which areas a contractor may excel in and which areas I'll need to keep a closer eye on.

The other key learning I have is specific to the process I used to create my SOW and my material list.  Because of the way I structured my Excel file it started to become difficult to track material purchases and the area of the SOW they were associated with.  I spent WAY too much time reconciling what was delivered to the home vs. what was on my material list vs. what I had planned for in my SOW.  I have already begun work on a new and improved Excel template.  :)

Thank you for all of the support and comments!  I hope that posting my experience has helped other 'newbies' better understand the process.  I thoroughly enjoyed this process and am excited for the next project (TBD)!!

Below is the final report that I've prepared that shows the final totals for the project.  

@Jessica Wygal  -  thanks!  I'm in contract (again).  This is the 3rd time.  The previous 2 fell out because they decided the drive was too much.....it is quite a drive so I knew it would take the right person.  Finger's crossed that this one sticks!  I'll be sure to post the final #s.

@Marvin Ong - My timeline before taking the plunge on my first flip went something like this.  The company I work for went through a huge round of layoffs ~2 years ago.  That was a wake up call and I decided that I had to do something to help supplement my income.  I've always love the idea of real estate investing so I started reading....A LOT.  I read a lot of BP forums, articles, books, audio books for the car, etc.  It was very overwhelming at first since there are literally 100s if not 1000s of ways to go about investing in real estate.  I found myself in analysis paralysis mode.  I decided to take a step back and document very clearly & specifically my short-term and long-term goals.  This helped tremendously to give me focus.  Short-term I wanted to generate capital and longer-term cash-flow & wealth.  I looked at the options for short-term capital and flipping and wholesaling seemed to be the most feasible for me.  That's when I began researching financing for these endeavours and talked to several HMLs and then decided to try and pitch for private money and ultimately found a friend of the family who said yes.  I did that before searching for my first deal.  The deals move VERY fast so you must ensure that you have the money ready to go at a moment's notice.  It took me ~3 months of searching and evaluating properties to find my deal.   So, all-in-all it took me ~18 months from the time I decided I wanted to learn more about this to the time I landed my first deal.  This can definitely be done MUCH faster but I didn't feel pressured since I have a good paying job, maintain a low overhead lifestyle, and could afford to move at my own pace.

Now that I'm starting to see the potential in this I'm getting more excited about moving faster....much faster.  :)

Good luck!

@Marvin Ong - Here is a list of the books that I read or listened to via audio book in preparation for my journey. Some are not Real Estate related but were great for getting me into the right frame of mind. Many of these books are sold here on BP. One thing I'll point out is that many of the REI books that I've read do a great job of giving you just enough information to get you thinking on the right track but can also lack specific actionable advice. I think Brandon's book below was great about giving very specific how to advice and the book and The Real Estate Rehab Investing Bible gave VERY specific how to instructions and also provided all the excel & word templates that they use online for you to download.  I used & modified many of these in my own practice.

Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant - This was the book that got me incredibly motivated towards setting financial goals and real estate investing.  

The Richest Man in Babylon - Great book for getting your head straight regarding personal finances & goals

The Book on Rental Property Investing - Great all around book.  I made my offer based on the advice given here.

The Millionaire Real Estate Investor - Again, great book for getting into the frame of mind of thinking like an investor.

The Real Estate Rehab Investing Bible - GREAT book that goes through every step of the rehab process in extreme detail.  Even how to manage and group the accounting.  This one resonated with me the most and I've now been through it 3 times.  I used many of the principles in this book in my rehab.  I followed this process for creating my SOW and the contractors that bid my project were blown away with the detail provided and all said that it would make the project much smoother.  Too bad that I chose the contractor that kept forgetting to refer to the SOW!!  ;) 

Long-Distance Real Estate Investing - I'm on my 2nd listen now.  I want to take this leap in the not too distant future.

The Book on Flipping Houses - Good book with some actionable advice.  Personally I gravitated towards the Rehab Investing Bible as my guide through my flip.

The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs - Good overall book for what to look for and how to estimate the cost of repairs.  This book reads more like a checklist for the various areas of a home which is the intent of the book.  It was a good reference while I was evaluating different properties.  I found this to be the most difficult part of the process since it felt to me that the costs in California don't really align to the books I've read.  

Finding and Funding Great Deals - good book with many creative ways to find & fund deals.  Ultimately I found my deal by chance through Zillow so I have not tired the marketing and SEO strategies yet.