All Forum Posts by: Valerie Hiscoe

Hi @Michael Dunn

I'm in Vancouver too.  It's too expensive for me here so far so I've invested in Phoenix. It's just recently that I've started communicating on the forums but I've been following Bigger Pockets for a while (webinars etc) and it's great.  I heard about it from a course given by Ozzie Jurock at REAG, an investment club.  You look familiar and I was wondering if I'd seen you at one of their meetings.

Hope you continue to gain inspiration as I'm sure you will.

Hi Jared

I was surprised you didn't get any responses as well.

I'm not an expert and I don't know anything about Florida but I was curious about your question.  Maybe I just didn't understand.

It's not that often that a regular person can buy real estate cash - what am I missing that you haven't approached lenders?  You mentioned that your credit was OK and that you had some cash so even approaching your own bank doesn't seem to be ruled out.  You could get a letter of pre-approval or, if you want something even more firm (so you don't have to put 'subject to financing') you can ask them to take it a step further (can't remember what that letter would be called).  I think you'd still want to write 'subject to appraisal' though, just in case.  Subjects can be your friend, both to protect you and to use as a negotiating tool sometimes.  If you're thinking of auctions etc contact them and ask for their specific recommendations. The biggest problem with banks is that they might not want to finance a property that needs a lot of work and they're highly unlikely to agree to finance the rehab portion.  I think Center Street Lending is a sometimes sponsor in Bigger Pockets - they finance the purchase and the rehab and they base much of it on the strength of the investment itself.

There's also a book on Biggerpockets.com/store where you can buy Brandon Turner's book 'How to invest with no or low money down'.

Your question was a bit too general to answer more clearly than that but I hope it helps.

Just a small warning:

In some areas, as soon as you pull a permit, all systems in the whole house must then be brought to code.  Everything, everywhere.

Also, it's incredibly difficult for an inspector to approve work that he can't see - be prepared to tear down drywall to expose wiring (and is the insulation fire code approved?) and to break through the concrete to expose the plumbing 6ft down.

Be careful.

@Angela DE Borja has read/is reading some great books.  Attn: @Christian Sifuentes - many of the ones she's read, and specifically the one(s) by J Scott that you mentioned, are at www.biggerpockets.com/store.

In my experience, which isn't a lot, but definitely enough to run as far and as fast away from this deal as possible - an estimate from an inspection is not reliable. The least you'll need to do is get a qualified contractor to do an estimate. Someone honest with enough experience will probably do a quick walk thru and tell you it's not worthwhile to do the work. My guess is, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for you to even find someone to do the work (if they know what they're doing) because they'll already know that there will only be more and more problems and why would they sign up for that. Do not be fooled by the price drop and, even if you could get it for less, I promise you that you will never regret just walking away.

Considering that @J Scott wrote 'THE book on flipping houses' and 'The book on estimating...' I would do just about anything he recommended, but in this case, you should be sure you have someone to sell this to before you think of buying it. Do you already have those contacts.  If you're SURE you can sell it, then make the 45k offer and hope they dont accept it so you can walk far far away and not look back.  You WILL find something that will work better for you. Don't mess yourself up before you even start. It's really really hard to recover when it's your first time.

Best of luck.

Some realtors are too busy to give you the time of day if you don't have your financing in place so, unless you're going to make offers and look for partners once you've tied up a good deal, I'd look into financing. On a recent podcast, Brandon Turner recommended using the deal analysis tool to make a nice presentation to a lender. Maybe just use a sample property to get the ball rolling and the lender will tell you what they're going to need.  A lot of time can pass while you're waiting for financing, especially with a rehab involved (banks don't really like them).

After my experiences with contractors, I'd look for referrals beforehand because they're quite pivotal to the success or failure of your investment.  They should also be familiar in dealing with the grade of property you're looking for.  They are so important to your success, especially if you're new and are not that familiar with rehabs, that I'd say they are the most critical factor in your success next to the price you pay for the property. Thousands of dollars difference between competence and reliability and the other.  As well, it will be more or less a waste of time to look at a single property unless you can estimate the costs fairly accurately.

You're in the flipping forum so I'm going to assume you're not buy and hold otherwise I'd say property management as well if you're not able to do it yourself.

Best of luck and I hope you don't need to learn these things the hard way as I did.

You must be able to get carpet really REALLY inexpensively (virtually free for carpet and install), to go thru a whole rehab and then finish with carpet. Anywhere.

If it's a buy and hold at a loer price point and tenants are relatively easy to come by, I'd keep the parquet. Something you might try with the black mark is bleach and water. Maybe 4 spoons water to 1 bleach and only on the stain.  Dry naturally and repeat.

If it's a flip, I'd source wood look laminate or the above mentioned tiles. Sometimes you can get some really good deals on the laminate and install is pretty easy - no expertise needed (except read the directions and stagger the joints)..

Hope your rehab is a great success!!  Good luck.

Hi Scott. Welcome to BiggerPockets.

You mentioned that you'd been studying to get your real estate license but you didn't mention what kind of research you've done into real estate investing. Others have mentioned about ensuring your numbers 'work' when you analyze deals but that presumes that you're already familiar with the formulas referred to. Having a contractor in the family is a fabulous advantage but would make it all the more tempting to jump into flipping without a clear understanding of the fundamentals.  Calculating your Dad's labour as 'free' might hold a lot of appeal as well, but won't tell you if you're really profitable and will make you completely dependant on him for any future partnerships. Parents always want the best for us but sometimes at their own expense. Lol.

Anyways, seeing as you didn't mention your background or research, I thought I'd make sure you knew about the analyzing tools (under 'tools', what a surprise) as well as www.bigger pockets.com/starthere and ...com/learn and 'The Book on Flipping' (from ...com/store) as mentioned above. You may already have received the info in response to one of your first posts and you may already know this stuff backwards and forwards but I didn't want to assume.

Wishing you both the best of luck.

Do you know yet whether you want to be a shark, a flipper, or an investor?

I have a triplex in Glendale.  Are you thinking of investing close to home?

Have you been to www.biggerpockets.com/starthere yet?