All Forum Posts by: Chad Clanton

In a nutshell and not putting too fine a point on it owing to legal considerations, stay away from this contractor. He passes himself off as a licensed general contractor, offers fantastic prices, and is generally a very likable, smooth talker. I've been trying to get him to finish a 6-8 week project for 8 months (I know, but long story short, many excellent lessons learned on this first time rehab...i've got sooo many great clauses to put in my contract now!), and he has essentially lied to me at every turn; of course, he covered much of it up so well that I knew no different until the last month or so. In any event, he has now "disappeared" with about $75-100K in unfinished work from myself and about five other investors who I know. A number of things point to him still being active in San Antonio, though, so I don't exactly buy the "disappeared" part.

The purpose of this post is to give an FYI to investors in the San Antonio area. Mr. Gonzalez is a member of the Alamo REIA in San Antonio and advertises his company in the newsletter. If anyone reading this knows him or of him, please contact me; if not, please be aware of the risks and find a reputable contractor. Good luck and good investing!

@Ross K. , thank you for your response. If you happen to know folks in the Alamo REIA, could you please give them a heads up on this and/or ask them to contact me? He is currently "disappeared" with about $75-100K worth of unfinished work for myself and about six other investors that I know of; I'm not going to go into details here and now, but please put out a solid "Caveat Emptor" to anyone you happen to know who may be doing rehabs in the San Antonio market. Thanks Ross, and happy investing!

Good morning BP! I'm looking for feedback and preferably contacts who have dealt with Bob Gonzalez of Pleasant Renovation and Remodeling, a construction contractor in San Antonio, Texas. My colleague and I are, to put it very mildly, having significant issues where he, his work, and his business practices are concerned, and were wondering if anyone else in the BP community has ever worked with him. If so, please feel free to contact me publicly or via PM or email, and I'll get right back with you. Thanks all, and good luck with your investing!

Bryan and Jeff,

Thanks for the responses in regards to the LLC; that actually makes a great deal of sense, on all counts. Good pointers on the assessment, too. As always, the input is much appreciated, and thanks to all who responded!

@Bill Gulley I think I'm going to have to parse your latest comment further when I'm a little more awake tomorrow, but I think I got the gist. I'll definitely ask if I have any questions; thanks again for the input!

@Bryan Scott Question regarding your LLC suggestion, likely a silly one. I've been told I overthink things on occasion :-P In any event, when the investor purchases the LLC, rehabs the house, and then goes to sell the house to a homeowner or what have you, how does that work? I don't imagine the homeowner purchases the LLC, so does the investor sell the house out of the LLC and then just close the LLC, or...? Thanks for the input by the way, seems like a pretty good way not to confuse the title.

Everyone, thanks again for the unprecedented amount of information (unprecedented to me, anyhow). I love learning how these things work, and you guys really help. Take care, and happy investing!

Hi all, thanks for the great responses. My current strategy is rehab/resale, so I'm not up on all of the wholesaling language. I kept hearing the term, and I like learning the method of function behind things, so I figured I'd ask. It seems my nomenclature was off a bit; thanks again for all the fantastic information! I keep learning new things on here...

Hi all, quick question which has probably been answered already. I'm looking into the mechanics of wholesaling, if you will, and am just wondering how the investor purchasing from the wholesaler, then the wholesaler purchasing from the original owner portion does not create a clouded title situation? Obviously it works, I'm just wondering how. Sorry if this has already been covered, I just haven't found it. Thanks!

Hi Zoran, welcome to BP! Some sense of nervousness can be quite normal, especially with family money. The only input I'd have is to make sure that your contractor doing the foundation work is properly bonded. Foundation work can be a little tricky, and some rehab insurance policies don't much like the foundation aspect of the underwriting. Details beyond that I can't provide, as I'm pretty new to all of this as well :-P As has been stated above, due diligence cures almost all. Also, you may want to make sure you have a buffer in place for any surprises. Above all, be smart with your due diligence, stick with it, and just adapt as you go. Good luck, and let us know how it all works out!

Hi Lisa, thanks for the reply! I'm using the standard BiggerPockets interface, though I'm completely open to alternate recommendations, as I'm clearly not having much luck with it so far (though I'm thinking operator error...). I've never gotten into blogging previously, but I'm rapidly becoming convinced that it would be beneficial to start documenting what I'm doing on the REI side; we're about to put our first rehab on the market, and I've gotten so much out of the process I think it would be a good idea to write it all down. That said, if I'm going to put it out there on the public side, I'd hate to give everyone a headache from the formatting on top of the headache they'll surely have on account of my writing style :-P Thanks again for your response!

Good afternoon everyone! I'm finally trying my hand at blogging, and after creating my first entry, it appears all run together, with no breaks between paragraphs, etc. I've edited it a few times, as well as changing a couple of sentences for grammatical reasons, but none of my changes are showing up. Has anyone else run into this issue or anything similar? I've tried clearing cookies and restarting, different computers, etc, and same general issue. I'm running Explorer and Safari. If anyone has any input, it would be much appreciated. Thanks all, happy holidays, and happy investing!