All Forum Posts by: Nancy Zhao

You need to talk to a lawyer. It won't cost much for a consult.

Tax sales have a one year wait period because the previous owner can file to have the sale rescinded within one year. I wouldn't bother unless it's an incredible deal.

You need a real estate attorney. NY has disclosure laws and you might be able to file a claim against the seller and/or the title insurance company.

I would find the closest comp and adjust for appreciation.

Real estate in general and flipping specifically is very local, gurus that travel around selling their system are almost always a complete waste of time and money if not outright scams.

The best way to learn is to do a flip, document everything, and analyze your deal afterwards. IMO this forum is probably a better resource than most mentors, post your flip on this forum and people will give you good quality feedback on it.

 This is spot on. Anything below 500-600k to buy is so ridiculously competitive you pretty much have to be a contractor yourself to make a worthwhile profit, but the deals get progressively better as the numbers go higher.  I was recently outbid on a project that probably would've grossed a good 250k+ in profit... but you needed over $1.3m cash just to buy the property.

 Sure. My last project was 770 acquisition cost, 70 reno+staging, 45 selling, profit before tax 140.

Just curious to see if my numbers are better or worse than the average. I'll start, on my last 3 flips it was 9%/5 months, 17%/3 months, 16%/4 months. This is on total project cost with no financing, before tax.

A minisplit should not cost you anywhere near $26k for a 1200 sqft house. I did a similar project to yours last year and it cost me 6.5k to put in a 4 zone system+ vents into bathrooms.

Price out your system online, find installers willing to quote you a labor only price. When you find that one honest HVAC guy, hold onto him and never let go. In my experience some HVAC guys are worse than used car salesmen. On the same project I've received quotes that were over 150% higher than what my current installer charges.

Here's my dilemma. The property is built on the side of a hill with panoramic views of below. The windows are 20 years old and aluminum but are actually double pane, and hasn't been taken care of in their entire lifespan. Most of the windows still seem to be intact but have a lot of cosmetic issues and the style is also quite outdated. 

Replacing all the windows with the ugly arch design intact will cost $1400 per window + labor(second and third story installs, maybe 200 per window). If instead I redo the window frames and restucco/drywall so the window openings are a standard a rectangular shape, the cost of each window falls dramatically to only $500. There's half a dozen of these large arch windows, plus regular rectangular windows, plus 3 large patio doors.  I'd be looking at $10k to replace all the windows and patio doors, or nearly $15k if I keep the arch design.

The other alternative is of course to simply not replacing the windows, unfortunately one of the main selling points of the house are the views and the ugly aluminum windows get in the way of that.

The property itself is one of the largest in the neighborhood(3500 sqft), the closest comp is considerably smaller(2800 sqft) and not freshly renovated sold for nearly $1m last year. The lot isn't quite the best, but I think the ARV is in the 1-1.05m region. This puts me firmly at the top of the range unless I go out a bit further and compare with more upscale homes selling for 1.2m+. My margin here after selling/holding costs is roughly ~200k, of which I expect to spend 60k on renovations excluding the window replacement.

What do you guys think? Here's a picture of what the windows look like, sorry for the poor contrast on my camera. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!