All Forum Posts by: Sid Leibowitz

I would only do short turn around SFR flip and watch out for changing housing climate with Washington DC on edge and drama.

In years past, I always did full blown gut rehabs until one investor that I had introduced me to the quick flip. I liked designing and selecting finishes and I did make money on it however, my investor was a real money hound. his concept was to flip one every 90 days. He was a money man and not an artist with vision. Since he was funding that one, I said ok. let's do it your way. just a reasonable clean up and no frills. It went against my love for esthetics, He said lets sell it cheap and quick. take the profit and move on. Take emotion out of it. If they want glitz they can do that themselves. This is not a TV show. Its real life. Well, he was more than right,  we purchased a house with a decent comp and to my surprise  we made the same profit margin that we would have made if we did a full gut rehab and saved  months of interest, labor, material and taxes. i guess I learned something new. You do not have to park your investment for a long time to make turn a profit. Just do a really good job of clean up and get the smells out, whatever that takes. 

Matthew. I usually locate the properties myself and do the project management. More often than not concentrate in Nassau. I find that there are too many areas that are grey areas for luxury buyers that require transportation to the city. Suffolk is problematic for me to manage and spend too much time in traffic working those areas. If you want to partner a deal and have investors interested, perhaps you could manage the group. I would not be in as a prime investor in Suffolk. Thanks    

Diane. If you are flipping then you should be aware of tax tactics and how to make the flip work for you instead of you working for the flip and tax man. You can role the proceeds into the next property. The trick is to make the flip a 90 day turn around. If you stall the rehab you will be paying more taxes than necessary. 

Hello Jack. It sounds like you would be a perfect candidate as a hit man. You just find a victim. Take aim, Shoot and leave. No emotion and just a clean hit. See different places and leave town. Interesting work and no back talk. No arguments. Just shoot them in the head and vamoose. LOL

You should have umbrella policies anyway. That is insurance. LLC oar for limiting liability in case of liens from i.e any contractors that may work on the house and make a claim that you owe them when you don't. A slip and fall of child or hi earning person where the insurance does not over the cost of the injury or possibly a death, they could come after you personally. a car or plane crashing into the property that would be in excess of the insurance that you purchase. Some people view all insurance as frivolous and do not care. They are gamblers. Some people lose everything in cases of major failure. In any case you will pay taxes no matter what. No one escapes for free and lives to talk about it.

I just flipped a house that had the same problem. The house was brick and concrete basement, The gutters were clogged with the silt coming from the roof shingles that were installed over a year ago. There was a drain at the bottom of the stairs and there was a pipe running from the back of the house to the street sewer two drains in the pipe line in the basement. Over time this silt went down the rear drain and worked itself the length of the house and whenever there was a rain the pipe was insufficient to drain the water the the sewer. Eventually backing up the water into the basement and sucked up water like a sponge.  We had to first get a good drain cleaning service (plumber with a big auger on their machine. and they cleaned the sand out of the pipe. There was a lot of sand. It took some tile to unclog the pipe. Then we had to cut the sheet rock at  24" from the floor as it was all wet and install new sheet after the studs dried a a bit. Then on the outside there was a i/" gap between the concrete driveway and the house that we had to back fill with foam and fill with type "S"concrete. and then seal all windows that may be on the side of the house and there are gaps with urethane and not silicon. the urethane comes in colors. Check any exposed brick for signs of requiring pointing and re-point.  I have before and after pictures of our mess if you need. 

In my opinion. No, no, no. and NO!. Unless you like losing money. 

Does your lease say No Dogs? If so, the lease is the deal you are expecting. A puppy is not a service animal. It has a whole new spin on numerous liabilities. 

I would do New with warranty for sure.  If you have a resale number that may help in obtaining a professional discount. I liked Sears Kenmore and have bought from them for years. However; the Sears of yesterday is not current Sears. They sold out and the new owners are really a real estate company not a retailer. They like the properties so they are closing many softer side of Sears department stores for the property value has more potential than the store. Kenmore is not the same either. It was a well made product and lasted a long time. Not now. The best thing today is just purchase for the warranty at the best price like a disposable. Expensive units do not make them better. The repairs are just more costly. My experience. You do not make any more with cost effective appliances over expensive ones in rentals since you are not selling unless it is  a very high end rental.