All Forum Posts by: Bob Hank

If your looking to buy in bulk you can get huge discounts on stuff if you buy in bulk in the US with a lot less trouble. Most of the stuff we buy we get by the truck, pallet, case, bundle, or how ever they sell it. We do have a loading dock and a ware house and that makes a big difference.

A last months we got 20 washers, 20 dryers, 25 fridges, 18 dishwashers, 22 microwave / hood vents, 10 hot water heaters, and 12 ranges. The brands were mixed, all the kitchen stuff in black, not the newest model, and we paid a little over half of what retail is delivered to our ware house.

We get unfinished 3/4” oak flooring in most of our rentals and flips. The same grade and brand at the big box stores is twice as much.

We shop the Lowes web site on line and email the contractors desk a list of what we want with the pickup dates. It takes them a few hours but they will email a price. Most of the time it's about 15% cheaper.

We also do a lot of in store pickup Lowes using there website. Discover card gives me 5% cash back for this. I just shop on line at the job and when I get to the store it's ready for pickup. Some stores are better than others on having the items in stock like the web site says they do. Some stores suck when it comes to getting the orders right so always go thought them all.

We have our own ware house so we buy a lot of bulk.

Get to know your store managers most of them will “help” you out from time to time.

I don't think much is going to change from this election. Where I’m at the better contractors are turning down jobs and are booked for the next 60 days.

Our current president told us he make stuff better in 3 years or he would not run again.

Truly I think we need to get some third party into the government that get voted on by what they do and not what party they are attached to.

I feel that in the next 10 years one of two things will happen. A large group of states will secede or we will have a another civil war.

SC started the first group of seceding states and if you look back into there history they don't give a date on when they became a state again.

I'm in a different city and can not look up most of the info I need through GIS and the city web site.

My city charges for going to there office and getting stuff printed. At one point they changed it to $5 for the first 10 pages and $.25 a page after. Each tax ID starts the $5 charge over. I walked out with a $62.75 bill once.

I now print off right to know paper work with the tax ID on every property I need something for. To get around there printing fees I would make them read off the info I needed and would stand there and fill my spread sheets. After I stood there for 5 hours one day getting them to look stuff up they dropped there fee to $.10 a page.

I'm LD (learning disabled) and I graduated high school with a 6th grade reading and comprehension. When I say graduated I say that as in I walked with my class and my diploma has a silver seal not a gold seal like the rest of my class.

I took a different reading class then the rest of the kids. When it was test time I would have to get the teachers to read some of the stuff to me out loud or they would pull me out of class and a random teacher would read the questions. At the time you did not need a second language so I was good on that.

I did do some collage, but could not get over the reading stuff. I did great with computers and math. I ended up as one of the top kitchen, bath, and floor people around at 25.

I think of student loans as STD's. There is not much of a difference and once you get them chances are slim you will find a way to get ride of them.

Every time I hear about a question like this I think about cultures of people. There are some cultures that have no common sense and can not work with there hands, but there are also cultures that have common sense and can work with there hands. In the last few years I have seen a culture of people that would make great door stops. With the “no one left behind” that is being pushed in schools that are creating a culture that is unable to take criticism.

I told my kids I would pay 300% for any tread school they did, but would only pay 50% of any non trade related classes.

Ohh this is a different story. This is a case of hostage by tree roots.

Who's tree is it?
Why do you or they need to get to the curb stop.
Who do you buy the water from?
What state are you in?

The reason I’m asking is there is an authority regulation utility that you need to get in contact with and file a complaint.

It would also be time to get a complete copy of the water departments agreement and read it inside and out or find a lawyer that has already fought them over a close issue.

With a chain saw, air shovel, and some good clippers I'm sure I could get to it in a few hours of work.

Most of the time it is the home owners responsibility up to the meter. When the meter is in the house then most of the time the responsibility is up to the curb stop.

The only 2 issues that I can think of for you going past the curb stop would be a size upgrade or new service. Where I’m at a new service is $4,500 for a 3/4”; they put in the curb stop and a meter pit. New codes say you have to have a 3/4” water service or larger, I have seen a few old 1/2” water services.

Justin
That was not for any one person. I don't look at a house the same way you'll do and I don't know what all the abbreviations you'll are using. I might of asked the wrong question. I'm more instead in your companies debt to equity %.

What is your company’s loans to net worth (I know there is a better term) %?

I have read a lot where people are buying house for cheap, fixing them up a bit, and refinancing for more. I once did this also and it's a great way to get cash flow and this is where investors suffered a few years back when the market went south. When the market went south last time we were trying to keep our loans under 50% of our net worth. Currently we try to run our business with out any loans. There are times that we do take out loans for larger projects or bring in partners for projects, but even then do our best to keep it under 10%.

I see some big changes that will be coming after the next election and I don't want to hit bottom.
Our current president got voted for by some because they would get a free cell phone, they would no longer have to pay for gas, they would get free health care, and so on.

Rob you forgot that some plastics have asbestosis in it.

With today's economy what debt to equity % are you running your business on?