All Forum Posts by: Shannon K.

Do you have an agent? Find yourself a good agent in the area and have them set you up with automatic updates for foreclosures and properties that meet your criteria. While you're waiting for those to trickle in, start looking at houses in your neighborhood--are any vacant? FSBO signs? You don't have to just search for foreclosures--any distressed property will do if you're looking for a deal. "Driving for dollars" can easily net you 30 houses in an hour in the right locations.

Calling the bank will largely be a waste of time--you'll never find the correct person to speak to and its more advantageous for the bank to put it on the market for tons of investors to bid on when they're finally ready to do so.

The last thing I could suggest would be to look at your city's "real property central appraisal district" and you can run a search for homeowners who are in pre-foreclosure/lis pendens and contact them to see if they're looking to sell.

Congrats on getting back in the game. Have confidence in yourself and make a wise purchase! :)

Besides all of the tips everyone is jumping in here with.... Are you able to do any of the work yourself? Any general maintenance or construction skills? At a purchase price of $150-200k in California, needing to use a contractor for all the work will bite you in the butt big-time if you're not able to contribute doing some of the work yourself...

I agree its a must for people with kids... Also for myself, I am a professional bodybuilder and I currently live in a luxury apartment. The bathroom is huge and it has a bathtub, but its SO small I can't fit! Can't stretch out. Who did they make this thing for?? What a disappointment!

Its been 3 years since I've been able to light candles and take a bubble bath or epsom salt soak after a hard workout. I'm moving into my live-in flip in the near future... and putting in a gigantic freestanding bathtub!! Dealbreaker.

Did your lease even allow you to sublet the space to others? And you did it anyway? An "under-the-table" sublet sounds fishy the way you titled it and seems likely you'll be on the hook when something goes wrong.

Wiring this money and that money and then dollar for dollar back to them and pretending they're "house-sitting".... Sounds like you were not legally able to sublet this space to them according to the original terms of your lease and you did it anyway, so I would expect you'd have to be held responsible if they trash the place. You want to go after THEM in a small claims court battle?

I'm not a judge, however you illegally subletting your apartment and admitting it seems like it waives most of your rights of suing them for damages when you acted irresponsibly and illegally. Yikes. Time for an attorney.

This is one of the crappiest things I've heard in the REI industry thus far. Very scary to think about how easy it is to manipulate these things over email. So sorry to hear about this happening to you! I do appreciate you sharing it for others. I will certainly remember your story for future deals...

Some people advise against borrowing against your primary residence. If you haven't done flips before, how comfortable are you that you can complete the flip? Will you be working on it yourself or do you have a good set of contractors to work with? Does your bank allow a HELOC to be used for investment purposes? There are a lot of questions to answer before putting your primary residence on the line for an investment property.

I am currently rehabbing my first "live-in flip" to pull a HELOC in the spring/summer. I have done flips with other teams before and I also have a partner that flips 50-60 per year at his job, so I am comfortable using a HELOC on my primary residence knowing that we can complete what we've set out to do. As Brent said, make sure the numbers work before making a move!

Lots more Buffalo people showing up here lately! Welcome!

@Russell Brazil and @Account Closed, the wooden box was an old round egg timer actually... which my partner thought it was hilarious when he rolled it down the hallway at me and yelled "bomb!" while I was scraping off old flooring, hahaha...

Here's some fun things I found in my new flip house:

*Candy thermometer from 1942.

*Full bottle of 1968 nitroglycerin.

*Unused toothbrush from 1980.

*Betty Crocker pumpkin streusel cake recipe.

*Yellowed sports section newspapers from 1973.

*A rechargeable battery for the exact drill I own!

*6 dollars in pennies.

*A ticking wooden box.

*A chimney hidden in my bathtub wall.

Anyone else ever find anything cool? Haha.

I'm not mixing emotion with anything. I don't rent out properties. I only flip so I don't have to deal with tenant issues. People lose their jobs. People have financial troubles. It's reality. People have emotions. Only robots are immune. Good luck to you running your business like a prison. I catch more flies with honey :)