All Forum Posts by: Jamie Morris

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome!

@Bret N. I would love to get a REI Club formed in this area! It’s much needed. Let’s make it happen!

Thanks Ryan!

Sure, I’d love to share about the rehab.

I feel the first mistake was us doing all the work ourselves. We also based the rehab cost on that so we only had “material” cost…not any “labor” cost. With three of us working only evenings and weekends it took us a year to complete the work. WAY too long for a rehab. A decent contractor with a crew could have had that completed in a month or less. We lost so much time with our family, friends and other RE deals while we were laying tile and putting up sheetrock. Second, we didn’t have insurance on it. We shopped around locally for insurance but no one around here would insure a vacant home. While it was sitting on the market, the A/C unit was stolen and a punk kid tried to set it on fire. Luckily it only damaged the small front porch and door area and siding….which we fixed ourselves. After the fire we dug deeper and found insurance from a company out of state. The third issue is the price of the home. The ARV market value for this home is right about $65,000. In our area we are finding out people looking for homes in that price range are having a hard time getting financed. It’s a smaller 3/1 home with an extra flat lot next to it. People with a down payment and able to get financing are looking for bigger and more expensive homes, even if it’s their first home. Forth issue and possibly the biggest…we funded this 100% with our own money. Even with all the issues we still come out ahead but this is defiantly a lesson of what NOT to do. I just hope someone can learn from our mistakes.

Hello….is this thing on???

Hello BP universe! My name is Jamie Morris and I live in the Charleston, West Virginia area. (For those who may not know it’s WEST Virginia, not western Virginia. A separate State since 1863) J I started looking into RE around 2008 when my older brother told me to check out a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. He had wanted to get into REI for some time and I guess this was his way of introducing me to it. I was immediately intrigued. Our farther is a retired electrical engineer and has a wealth of carpentry knowledge. He built the house we grew up in and flipped a couple houses back in the early 90’s. His father had some rental property in the 50’s and 60’s. Real Estate was in our blood. J

In October of 2011 the three of us started Morris Preferred Properties, LLC and picked up our first distressed property to rehab. It was a foreclosure at a great price and the numbers looked great. Doing ALL the work ourselves was only the first mistake of many but we did learn so much from it. Since that time we have been trying to find and absorb as much information and knowledge as we can find. We even attended the “TV Guru's” seminars and almost went for the multi-thousand dollar mentoring program but later decided against it. After looking around on the internet I stumbled upon BP site. As I began to read the dark clouds parted and the choir of angels started singing. This was what I was looking for. I ‘m excited to have found this site and look forward to learning from all the people who make this site great!