All Forum Posts by: Milind Shastri

@Matthew Nosal it's been quite a competitive market in the past couple of years. Just to give you a couple of data points, I'd made 26 offers @ ~10-20% above asking price to close the 2nd last flip, and my last flip closed after just 2 offers and @$2.5k above asking price.

So it really depends. But I agree with what @Darius Ogloza said 100%.

 I'd say more like: (1-2-3 book + YouTube)* 2 to ~20 hours --> sketch out my plan --> (talk with at least 3 contractors. progressively improve vocabulary & understanding & refine plan) --> decision.

Also, a lot of contracting work is commonly split as rough and finish. For example, rough plumbing & finish plumbing. You can always pick one and contract the other. Start with a small section, say changing a sink drain's p-trap OR replacing a toilet commode, and slowly & progressively taking on bigger sections of work. 

I will also say that things have almost always taken me 2-3x longer than I planned, but the learning from putting in the sweat has been uncomparable and helped me scale up in the last 3 years. I contract out most work now, but I know every single detail of what work is being done and how much effort($) it really is.

@Nicholas Field, @Greg Dickerson, @Nik Moushon, @Alex Grosvenor, and @Evan Polaski thank you all for your inputs! 

Helps me set some expectations for this project & another project I'm just about getting started in McKinney, TX. Excellent suggestion, Greg; we are all human and I completely agree that genuine human connections go a long way.

Hey guys, 

We just acquired a flip project in Dallas. An architect told us that the city of Dallas is backlogged by 8 weeks for approving addition permits. I understand, we as a city, have though a lot recently but this is a waste of time! God alone knows how long we'd have to wait for an inspection.

Any one experienced with this and found a way to navigate better through this permit process? I really wish we can start work before the plan gets approved. 

Thanks,

Mil

I agree with @Nicholas Smith about kissing toads. I've done 5 flips and kissed at least 50 toads before each.

Hello Michael, welcome to this forum and to your journey flipping homes. 

Firstly, medium-sized capital can mean different things to different people. Something easier for anyone to understand would be $5k, $50k or $500k and at each one of these stages, you will have different options. 

ARV calculations are essential when taking out loans. For example, most hard-money lenders will loan up-to 70% of ARV.

Now, formulas do work. But you need to understand what they represent. A formula cannot tell you what the temperature in your city is going to be 3 days from now; you can get a range of possible values and a likelyhood; but no 100% surety. The formulas are made by other people like you & me to make complex and completely non-linear calculations simple and quick to do. They are not right nor are they wrong, they just provide a benchmark value but the risk will be yours.

That's awesome, there's potential to learn & earn a lot.

Now without any information of your experience, city, property, I'd say just set your upper limit for the project, and for reference, it takes about $75 -$150/sqft in Dallas, TX for new construction. You can use that as an upper limit to what your expenses should be less than for the total square footage of the house. 

And if you are not contractors yourselves, I'd recommend 2 books that can come in handy. Home Improvement 1-2-3 by Home Depot & The Complete Visual Guide to Building A House by Carroll and Lockhart.

All the best. Make mistakes and learn from them.

Not sure about Grand Rapids, but quite likely it will be something like the flowchart here: http://paducahky.gov/permits-c...

For the 1st inspection, you'd need a structural engineer + MEP (mechanical electrical and plumbing) engineers plans. Oftentimes one company can arrange for all. For example, I got a reasonable quote of $2.5k for the floor plan, site plan, elevation plan, framing plan, roof plan & electrical plan on a flip project in Dallas which included adding an additional 200 square feet. 

I've used Meet-up in pre-COVID times. Most of the meetings were about selling something, but I'd just ignore that. 

I can't comment on what is code in your area. 

I will recommend using an easy-to-use app to make your floorplans because it will help you try our various scenarios while keeping all spaces to scale. I use Magicplan.