All Forum Posts by: Ian Barnes

Unbelievable you found a  MHIC licensed contractor to work for 10% profit margins, after expenses he made a 7.5 percent profit margin? Doesn't even make sense, unless you just used an unlicensed GC, and this "GC" said he was the head of the crew and added 5K?

@Michael Goad, did you use an MHIC licensed contractor? if you went through 5 contractors, then you either did one of two things, used unlicensed subs(if someone wants to be paid hourly, they aren't licensed) or went as cheap as you could, instead of finding a quality MHIC licensed contractor.  You have no one to blame but yourself. You also, let me guess, never showed up to oversee the project or did once a week?  I've never heard of anyone going through five MHIC licensed General Contractors on one small job. Again, don't blame anyone except yourself if you want to go the cheap route.  A car whose oil gets changed ever 15k miles won't work as well as a car whose oil gets changed every 5k miles, same goes with real estate.

What is a contractor fee?  Did you use a project manager or something?

Would only do south of Washington Blvd and closer to the stadium, rest of Pigtown is for the suckers.  You get caught in an economic downturn in Pigtown, your in trouble. Ridgley's Delight is much better option if you can find something there.

I'm a flipper, landlord, and run a construction company in Baltimore City, MD, by no means are people just plucking mls deals everyday and making a fortune.  Most of the 70K+ houses you are talking about have serious structural issues, mechanicals have to be fully redone, and permits take time and money.  Most of the time if someone is buying something for 70K it needs 80K+ work done to it, then you have to include closing costs 11%-12% in Baltimore City do to high tranfer taxes, and a 3% subsidy(seller help, its almost guaranteed in Baltimore), and 5% commission, then you have lending costs, property taxes, etc.  Then you have to deal with the work from most GCs which is crap, unless you pay up for a good GC, which never happens as investors always go for the cheapest.  I get calls almost everyday from out of state investors who are stuck cause GCs ripped them off.  Everyone I know, looks at out of staters as the suckers that buy everything no one else wants.  If you don't have a great, honest team on the ground you are screwed.

@Jason Chan Nothing has changed other than uninformed investors buying up properties in Brooklyn because of the price tag.  It still has tons of crime, drug dealers, junkies etc, that is one of the few places I avoid investing in along with Winchester and Sandtown. Now Brooklyn Park in Anne Arrundel is a lot nicer but the prices are higher.

In Baltimore, the tenants have all the power, if you can't get used to that, don't invest in Baltimore.

There are maybe 5 or 6 GCs in Baltimore that truly understand the Chap Process and do it well.  Without using one of those GCs you will get smoked cause its a very unique process. I work with one of them, pm me

@Ned Carey, what a joke this redevelopment is in the city, its called get the out of state suckers/uneducated investors, get them to put up all the money to redevelop, raise taxes, five years down the line developers are out of business, city takes back properties, amazing.

I'm not sure why everyone is so multi-family, blah, blah, blah about Baltimore. Makes people sound so amateurish. You make a better cash flow with sfh unless your buying like 15+ units at a time.  No one wants to live in a 2 or 3 unit, they are just there cause they can't afford anything else, most people want a home of their own.  If you have an attached townhome and you make two 2bd/1 bath units, expect to only get a 1bd voucher for each, 2 bd voucher holders can easily get whole houses now cause of lack of vouchers.  So basically you get $1650 a month total from 2 vouchers, but you have to do 2 times the rehab, or you just do one rehab and get 1300-1400 a month, the math speaks for itself.