All Forum Posts by: Tom McGivern

@Ted Gibbs I'm surprised nobody replied to you within the last year...

The waiver is in the Texas property statute, chapter 53.  There're 4 forms, and information on holding 10% for 30days in case any subs come knocking because they weren't paid by the GC.

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PR/htm/...

I'm not a lawyer, and certainly can't give legal advice... but, my advice is, take this to a property attorney and get your plan together on how your business will deal with all future contractors.

Jeremy's right... if they can't grasp why you need an invoice, find someone else.

If you're holding the money, they'll learn soon enough.  An example, as Jeremy pointed out, is a great idea.  Many may be intimidated by the formalities they think you may be looking for, most are probably used to working for a GC that may not require it, they show up, slap paint around, and collect some cash.  GC takes care of the interfacing to the owner.   

You may want to provide them up front, the list of what you're expecting to be completed.  Then they just check off what they've done.  You may have to provide them a new copy each week when they're paid, so they have something to work from.  Just a thought.

Do you have them sign lien releases as well?  That'd be the time to do it, although in texas they would be notarized, which may complicate the transaction.

I'm interested in a Plano meet-up  anytime is fine, shops at Legacy is fine.

John, the $125-150 budget, is that your down payment, or your purchase price?

While zillow isn't reliable for an appraisal, it's not bad for filtering and searching communities at the 30K foot view..  If Zillow says the house is worth 350K, it could be off by 10s of thousands.. BUT, if the area is showing all the homes over 300, while it's off, you can bet it's not a 125K neighborhood.  To the East, you need to go east of US75 to find those numbers.  North, look at The Colony, Lewisville, Farmers Branch.. but, if you're looking for "move in ready" at that price, you're probably being pushed further toward Denton..

I don't venture south of Dallas, or West of I35E so can't help you there... (if I've helped at all)..

Tom

@James Harper One thing to consider is with that many properties on the market is that the quality of the homes vary dramatically. ARV isn't an average of the homes sold, it's an average of the top-quality homes sold. (Assuming your personal residence is in top condition), then review pictures of those sold in your area over the last 90 days, basically, do your own analysis, and provide that to the appraiser. You're ship has probably sailed on the appraisal just completed, but if you were to use another lender and pay for another appraisal, feed them information. They're not going to rely completely on what you give them, but they also shouldn't completely ignore it. You've done some of their home-work, guide them to the properties you consider to be real comps to your own.. Otherwise they've got a pool of 837 to maybe find some that work. If they look at what you've provided, they're still obligated to make up their own mind, but, it doesn't hurt to lead the horse to water..

Tom

While I fully agree that the Internet is full of free information, and sites like bp have a lot of successful people to vet the information, there's value in the high dollar classes for some people. I did not take Than M.'s course, so that program may not be worth the price, but I paid over 30k in training to another guru, and I feel it was worth it. Here's the difference between paying for education, and working through the school of hard knocks. Time, and knowing even what questions to ask. I was 52, had several hundred K in savings/401k. It took me so long (36 years) to build that up, I didn't want to risk it like I did earlier in life "day trading". I couldn't "start over". What got me to pull out my wallet was this: think of it as a franchise fee. If you're going to open up a fast-food restaurant, I could go to the Internet and start searching for how to open a restaurant, how to get permits, how to find the right location, how-to how-to how-to. 6months later you THINK you have the information you need, and maybe find you're location selection was horrible because it wasn't all about price.. OR, you could buy a franchise, pay a lot of lot of money to an entity that's walked that path before, crams your head full of training with things you'd never thought about, scares you with real stories of why deviating from their tried-n-true methods is a bad idea, they show you a road map for permitting, why paying more for B/C locations is worth the extra cost over the very cheap D property. They are there for questions when you are approached by your first health inspector, what to do, and NOT do. If you're going to dabble in real estate investing and can afford to make some mistakes, then there're obviously a lot of people here on the forums who are claiming success without paying a dime. But, how much did they overspend because their emotions got involved with what is a business transaction, and they over rehabbed, or didn't make the ARV target because they didn't know how to get a decent ARV estimate and their RE agent just showed them a typical CMA report from the MLS? I could probably find all the information that was presented to me right here on BP, but the amount of information we got over a couple weeks about melted my brain, now (IMHO) --I'm better at finding deals quicker, (and quickly identifying if a deal is really a deal, not just what the bird-dog's numbers say) --I'm able to manage contractors better. --I'm able to avoid wasting time looking for the awesome deal in a part of town that will have a huge DOM waiting for a buyer. --I know multiple methods to find money to fund the deal --I've gone through multiple scenarios showing the pros and cons of borrowing money to fund a deal --I can identify market trends across the country, and read the governments FHFA reports see when markets are turning, before its on the nightly news cycle (Granted this isn't something I've used, but would you even know to ask the question on BP?) --I learned about syndications of commercial property --I learned about being a hardmoney lender, and make money off you folks who are doing the real work. We also learned about state and federal usury laws to avoid jail time :) --I learned what ARV even meant, how to calculate NOI and CAP rates etc, and what they mean. --shown more things than I can remember, but have a phone number and email to use when I have questions --we were shown a path to build wealth, not just millions of dollars. (Yes, at 52, I didn't know the term "passive income". Now I'm addicted to it) My teachers catch phrase "retire younger vs. older, richer vs. poorer" Lots and lots of free information, but do you even know the questions? Are you going to go cheap and open "Tom's burgers", or buy a McDonald's franchise? There's a reason those franchises aren't cheap, they (if used properly, and you choose the right franchise) help you succeed quicker, avoiding costly mistakes. Tom