All Forum Posts by: Kuba F.

Hey @Brian Smith

I wrote a blog post about how to run comps on BP a few months ago you might like to check out: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/8814/68395-how...

You can also do a Groupon and take all the courses for real estate licensing in your state probably for less than $200.  One of the courses should be on appraisal.

$2K is not unheard of for a course/mentoring, but it depends on what you get/want to get out of it.  I like/prefer @Nate Burgher approach personally.

It’s always going to be a balance of time vs money. You trade one for the other. Door knocking is free and effective, but it takes time and is not scalable. D4D is the same. But maybe those are a good start for you if you can make it work around your f/t job to see if this is even something you want to do long term.

Nice work. What are you using for your search back end? If you plug in solr or elastic search then you can get the boring bits of search out of the way pretty quickly and then really focus on relevance.

Thanks for the kind words @Carlos Altamirano

@Jeff Diem I'm the founder of REIkit.com ...I believe we already spoke on the chat, however feel free to ping me if you have any other questions.

Look at your comps as to what you have to meet and beat.  While I look at the returns/clearance at HD/Lowes I usually plan on 1800-2100 with a bundle depending on what's available and that is about what is expected in my neighborhoods. I'm seeing a lot of Samsung because that's what what's on sale at HD.

I go with Simplisafe or Frontpoint.  They use cell service so you don't need an internet plan on top of your alarm plan, and with Simplisafe there is no commitment.

You don't need a realtor or access to the MLS, you have Redfin in your area which is as good as MLS access.

As a realtor I actually use Redfin to pull my comps because I like the interface better and then I import those into my software to do further analysis to adjust for features amenities.  The adjustment is something most realtors probably don't do when they run comps for you, which is crazy because the change in value in my neighborhoods can easily mean a difference of tens of thousands of dollars.

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If he's always talking about doing business together as a partnership then he should expect contribute to that partnership financially to get equity on the back end.

Partnerships are generally messy, so you have to structure the deal to deal with what happens when things go South.  Say he's foregoing his GC fee in exchange for equity.  Unless he's independently wealthy, he still needs to work, so what job is he going to prioritize: the one that's paying the bills now, or the one where he might see some possibly positive outcome later?  How can you fire him if he's not performing?

Keep your relationship simple, and just pay for the work.  Your partnership could be just that you will call him first when you get a deal...

Yeah it depends what's desirable and what you have to work with, but conversions are probably the cheapest.

If you have a 5 bed house in a neighborhood of 3/2s, adding another bed might not yield additional value.  If you're in a place where vacation rentals are the norm, then a conversion might be the way to go, but I wouldn't do a garage conversion in a suburban area where people expect a garage.  In general stay away from adding bathrooms as they're the most expensive to build.  If your land costs are low, then adding square footage might not be good at all,  but if you're trying to add bedrooms then additions might make sense.  If land is expensive then going up might be your only option.