All Forum Posts by: Jacob A.

You've included most everything in your analysis so that looks good. Obviously, I can't speak to the accuracy of your numbers (and I'd want to know what is included in your holding costs number) because I don't know your situation but I'm sure you did a pretty good job with that. Why go into your first flip with the goal of not losing money? I get the idea of you wanting to gain experience but why not choose a winner to gain experience on? I know you are excited and eager to get into it but keep doing your due diligence and keep looking at properties. Guess what, you'll need experience evaluating properties as well so you might as well use this opportunity to gain experience in that area until you find a winner. Best of luck!

@Ophelia Nicholson

That's a great idea. The only caveat I potentially see with that is you having to design the house yourself as opposed to the staging company doing that for you as part of their services. Still I can see after doing a few houses and getting a feel for what people like that this could be a much more cost effective route. Thanks for the advice.

Hey @Account Closed

It's been a little bit slow for the past couple of weeks. It has been bone chillingly cold and snowy here though and things tend to completely shut down around here when the S word (snow) is thrown around. We had a second showing scheduled but they cancelled at the last minute due to scheduling conflicts and have said they plan on coming back out but not yet. Hopefully, when this cold spell clears out we will see some more traffic. As for your observation about the spread on Zillow, that very well could be the case. We haven't heard anything about it in our feedback, but then again I'm not sure that we would. I'm just trying to stay patient and hopefully soon I'll have some good news.

Personally, looks too tight to me and that's assuming your ARV and rehab numbers are spot on. I don't see any interest payments on financing either. Were you planning on financing the whole deal with cash?

@J Scott

I didn't even think about the effect of the staging on the appraisal, I like that thought.

I'm tossing this idea around. The first two months were included in my staging fee that I paid upfront and every month after that they charge me 15% of the staging fee per month. I already have pictures on the MLS with staging done, it would just be for people coming to showings at this point. What have some of you done in the past when you have had a home sit on the market for a little while?

@Harvard Hill

Congrats on the flip! The one thing that stood out to me in your post was the lesson learned about relinquishing control and trusting those around you. I had a big problem with that on my first flip and I think I might have drove some team members up a wall at times. There's a real close line between managing people affectively and being an overbearing boss. Thanks for sharing.

@Marty Mason

Well done! I'm a Campbell grad so I'm all too familiar with Lillington and the surrounding areas. Sounds like you've found a nice little niche down there. Good luck to you!

The phrase "Happy wife, happy life" is suddenly rushing to my mind...

No but seriously, this something you guys will have to work out together. If you can get her comfortable with investing the extra money go for it by all means. But, if your biggest supporters stop becoming supporters then you really don't have much at all. Run the numbers on both of the scenarios and show her the long term impacts and I'm confident you guys can make a logical decision. Good luck.

When you're doing something like this for the first few times I think it's monumentally important to get a very experienced contractor that knows exactly what he's doing every step of the way. Unless, you are someone like J Scott with ton of experience adding square footage can be a mountain of a task by yourself. It's almost like it's own tiny little new construction project. The devil is in the details and you can very quickly get bogged down in them when adding square footage. Good luck to you.