All Forum Posts by: Corey Liepelt

That sounds awful. I'm with you - when I goes from "let me tell you how I can help" to "you can't possibly succeed without me," I check out, too.

I'm afraid COREE is always the first Tuesday of the month. Sorry I'll miss you, but hopefully your wife will make it.

You're on the right track adding names. Type @ and start typing the person's name. You'll see a box PPP up below the text entry field with options to select.

Some local networking groups definitely do invite speakers who pitch their products. COREE is one, and I'm guessing your experience was at the last meeting when they hosted a prominent flipping "guru.". However, I have been a COREE member for almost 2 years because of the people I have met there. If you can look past the pitches and use the opportunity to get to know other local investors, I think you will find it worthwhile. if you come to another meeting, I hope you'll find me and say hi.

@Travis Boyer, that would be awesome. If you will PM me your email or cell, I'll send you photos. Thanks so much!

Rob, when you say $30K for a major restoration, are you including the work involved in stripping walls down to the studs and replacing drywall, or are you just talking about the remediation services? I'm assuming the former?

I'm looking at a house later today that says it has mold "present."I have no idea whether that means there's a bit of mold in the corner of the basement or that the ceiling joists are hairy with it. However, assuming that it's serious and needs professional remediation, can anyone who has dealt with mold removal give me a ballpark cost to hire a pro? I realize it's going to be based on my specific case, but am I looking at $5,000 or $30,000?

Thanks,
- C

Kevin, you might want to try COREE. Meetings are the first Tuesday of every month. Like Steve's meetings, there are lots of people of varying experience levels.

I can save you a bit of homework on the REIA/meetup front. I like COREE quite a lot and have been a member for almost 2 years. Unfortunately last night was the September meeting, but come check it out the first Tuesday in October. There are also a few meetups in town. Steve Baldwin just started an evening meetup again, and Brian Hayes had a Saturday morning meetup going for awhile. A little searching in the forums should reveal the details for those.

Hope to see you at an event soon!

Welcome to BP, Jennifer. I would agree with James about the people you want, but not necessarily in the order he listed them. I would suggest starting conversations with people in your circle of influence to see if anyone they know might be interested in becoming a private lender. You don't phrase it quite so directly, but that's a topic that's broad enough to have its own thread—in fact, I'm sure there are already several in the forums.

Good contractors are hard to find, and that's who I would look for next. I like J. Scott's idea of going to Lowe's at 6:30 in the morning with a box of doughnuts and just hanging at the contractor desk. The guys who are there that early are usually the ones who are for real. Strike up some conversations and see who you meet.

As for having a Realtor, you might use them to help you find leads (although leads on the MLS are slim pickings these days), but you definitely want them when it's time to list your property after it's been rehabbed.

I would also add a CPA to your dream team. A good CPA can help you determine the right entity to use as you start your RE business and devise a tax strategy with you for the future.

Good luck with your flips. If you have any more questions, post them here on the forums!

Just looking at Zillow's report of sales in the area in the last 12 months for houses roughly the same size, $70,000 seems reasonable as an ARV. Numbers are all over the place because of the number of houses that have sold in the area that are not repaired and that cannot therefore be included in your comparable sales. Of course, a Realtor could come up with true comps for you that would be far more accurate. But let's play with your $70,000 ARV for a moment.

If you're looking to fix and flip, what do you estimate the repairs to be? If we use a very basic $20/sqft number to roughly calculate repairs (a back of the napkin place to start if you're rehabbing for retail), you would get a repair cost estimate of $22,000. Which means if it's worth $70,000 after repairs, you shouldn't pay any more than $27,000 for it if we use the 70% rule. If you're going to wholesale, you need to pay even less to account for your profit and still have a deal for your buyer.

Now I will admit that's a lot of rough numbers. The $20/sqft estimate and the 70% rule are only lenses through which to quickly look at a property to determine whether you should spend some time analyzing it more closely. If you think it's still worth looking at, go plug your numbers (real numbers, not guesses) into the BP Flipping Calculator and see what it says.

@Marco Stack-Simone, it's true that retail purchases/sales slow down in the winter. However, investors are working year round. If you have a good deal, you should have no problem finding a buyer. A rehabber will probably have to account for a little extra time to sell the property, so you may want to figure that into your wholesale price. But I know I'm perfectly happy to work on a flip over the winter so that I can have something to list to retail buyers when the weather warms.