All Forum Posts by: Darien Miller-Gowan

Hi Everyone, come July/August I am going to be getting into flips for the first time. With that said, I am actively undergoing a home renovation at my primary residence and have a solid team around me but I want to continue to grow my contractor/GC contact book to ensure I have the best in the business/am receiving fair pricing. In general, I want to begin to create longterm relationships with contractors or larger GC's that can handle several flips in a given year. 

Does anyone have any great GC's or contractors that you have used in the past for something as large/complex as an entire house flip that you would recommend?

Thanks for all the help! 

Darien

Hi JP, some different website skip tracing referrals would be great. Thanks for the info and the help. 

Overall, I am trying to specifically get phone numbers of owners across my local market in both single-family and large multi-family properties. I have utilized LeadSherpa's Skip Trace tool but have not found it to be awfully reliable. Does anyone know a more reliable way to find phone number information for owners? Fee's or costs are not a problem as I am looking for the best option. Thanks for the help! 

Thanks to both of you guys! This information was extremely helpful. Do either of you know anyone in Denver, CO by chance who does this type of creative financing that I could get in touch with? 

@Brady Hales & @Chris Davidson 

I have a couple questions regarding seller financing after you complete the deal: One, if you have a balloon payment say at 5 years how do you properly refinance into a conventional loan if that is the path you want to go? If I go to a bank and say I have a loan out with this specific individual will I be able to retrieve a loan from the bank (with the right credit, Debt to Income Ratio, etc.) that will assume the rest of the loan from the initial seller financing lender? Does this person who financed the house to me initially then get a full payout of what is left on the loan (Interest/Principal included)?

Secondly, can you use conventional HELOC's or Lines of Credits on properties owned through seller financing? If not, can you seller finance HELOC's? Has anyone ever had experience with this in the past?

Thanks for all the help   

Hi Ben, thanks for the information and feedback! I have already gotten a couple quotes that range me about 20 to 25K to convert the garage so I see it as a very cheap investment that will not only improve my rent when I move out but also increase the property value. From what I can tell, making this addition would add roughly 600 to 800$ a month in rent and therefore could cover my investment in the best case in 2 to 2 1/2 years. On top of that, I would secure a HELOC (as a primary residence) prior to changing my primary residence with more equity then if I did not do the addition. I will look into those resources but that is my thinking. Thanks again!

It is my primary residence now and that is great to know! Thanks for the feedback. 

Hi All, I currently own a single family home and am going to be adding an extra bedroom & TV room in the near future to this property to increase equity. After the rehab, I will want to get a HELOC or line of credit on the house and utilize the increased equity to purchase another property. From my understanding it is harder to acquire a HELOC or line of credit on a non-primary residence and my question is if I would be using this HELOC to purchase a house-hack/my new primary residence will that have an impact on my HELOC (On My First Property) or would it still be considered a primary residence even though I would be moving out and renting? Thanks for all the help.

I don't have a perfect answer for this given situation but I would typically advise staying away from bathrooms as a form to improve a house or the value of the house unless it is very cosmetic. Plumbing is expensive and rather focus on homes where you can easily/cheaply add square footage -- i.e. converting a garage into a bedroom/more square footage, converting a shed into a 2nd rental, etc. 

The only piece I would add here is that you can not have more than one FHA Loan (3.5% down) out at one time. So if you purchase a property in June of 2023 with an FHA loan and then want to purchase another property come July 2024 with 3.5% down/FHA then you will need to convert your old FHA loan from the June 2023 property into a conventional. Otherwise, Steve is spot on with the timing piece as refinance terms have just most recently changed from 6 months to 12 months at minimum. Go listen to episode 751 of the BiggerPockets podcast for more details!