All Forum Posts by: Gabriel G.

@Jacqueline Segui I would say that asking for referrals is key. I ask my my floor guy if he knows a good electricians, I ask my attorney if they know of a good accountant etc etc... After that it will take some trial and error until you find the people you are comfortable working and can communicate/get along well. Anyhow, best of luck and if you would like to talk further just PM me.

@Ned Carey are most of your tenants section 8?

@Justin Donohue so I would just have them sign a new lease that states the new rent amount (I'm not an attorney though and you should check with one just in case). However, I recommend improving something in the property before increasing the rent. It could be something silly like paint or a new microwave but I just always make it a point to show the tenant that I take care of the property and keep making improvements and that is why I am increasing the rent. There are a lot of slum lords out there that don't take care of the property at all and keep trying to increase rent and eventually force the tenants to leave. Thats just me, I like to make my tenants feel like they are paying a little more for a great product. 

@Account Closed thanks, and that makes sense... I am definitely getting some other guys out here to check it out and give me their opinion.  

@Justin Ouchley thanks for the feedback. Underneath is drywall... Not sure how prepped it is but there isnt any texture. We will definetly need to redo all the trimwork and outlets. It seems like it would just be a headache. 

@Steve Vaughan thanks and oorah to you my friend! This is a blue collar home, nothing high end. 

@Russell Brazil that's what I was thinking... I was thinking they just were being lazy and didn't want to remove the wallpaper. 

So I am curious, a friend of mine and I are working on a flip and some of the rooms have wallpaper all around. One of the contractors we spoke to mentioned that it may be cheaper to just put drywall over top instead of removing the wallpaper. I would have imagined that removing the wallpaper would have been cheaper... @Ned Carey @Russell Brazil @J Scott Any thoughts? (Some pictures below)

@Jerry Rubinow I am a Realtor myself and I would honestly tell of my clients to never use a realtor for finding/screening a tenant. $600 is A LOT of money but unfortunately that is still cheap for what most Realtors charge (usually it's a months rent). A realtor is going to put your house on MLS in order to find a tenant and MLS is going to feed to all the regular sites like Hotpads, Zillow, Redfin etc. You can easily do the same for free using postlets or even better, using craigslist (you'd be surprised how many great tenants I've gotten from craigslist).

Then for the second part, the tenant screening... I have used both *********** and vertical rent ($47 and $30 respectively)  for the background, eviction and credit check and these are usually paid for by the applicant. Needless to say, this is not all encompassing and you should still verify all the references, but you can get most of the info you need to do your due diligence. 

Hope this helps...

(@Martin Grizzanti check out vertical rent, I think if you get a premium account the price drops significantly)

So for whoever is following this or might see this in the future. I (somewhat) got my first deal under contract... Why "somewhat"? Well the long story short is that the deal is a HUD property and I can't bid on HUD properties because my broker is a HUD listing broker. Still I knew it was a good deal and so I spoke to a fellow investor and represented them as their real estate agent and submitted their bid for them. So technically it is not my own personal deal but it is my first deal as an agent and on top of that since the investor lives a little ways away, I will be helping her in managing the rehab. Not to mention that I will hopefully be listing the property too.... So enough yapping about me and on to the numbers.

We purchased the property for 122K the rehab is going to be about 40K and the ARV is going to be around 230-240K. I am confident that after all the holding cost, commisions, closing costs, etc this investor will be hopefully walking away with 30-40+ in profit. I'll be walking away with the commission on both ends of the transaction and the experience of managing a flip which I will be able to use for my own rehabs when the time comes. I know it isn't as impressive as doing my own deal but it's sure beats getting 100% of nothing.

Are you selling this? If so, do you have anymore details?