All Forum Posts by: Tracey Hamilton

Hi!  Newbie investor (flips) and newbie real estate agent.  Got my license to further our rei activities, and had a buyer client fall into my lap wanting me to be his agent on a 203k rehab, hopefully streamlined.  I'm about to dive in on Google, and try to get up to speed with it all, particularly what my responsibilities will be as the agent, but figured I'd ask around here on the forums first.

Have you guys successfully completed any 203k projects?  Out of your team, mortgage broker, buyers agent, etc, who did what?  And in what order did things happen?  Who found the contractors for bids, and did you get bids before or after you made the offer to the seller?  Did you get a full home inspection before the bids?  And, who tells you exactly what the lender will require for final loan approval, in terms of rehabs needed?  My buyer on this is a single guy, very handy, who would gladly live in and deal with house in as-is condition, and do rehab himself later,slowly.  How do we know what lender will require, specifically, to sign off in the end project?  Floor coverings, new roof vs non-leaking roof, siding vs plywood exterior, etc.  

And what about foundations?  Will they allow you to rehab a foundation under streamline, if it still comes in under $35k? Or does that switch it to requiring a consultant? 

And finally, any resources that you'd recommend for me to get educated on thie 203k loans and the investor version of the 203k?  

Thank you! 

Scott,you can go on meetup.com and check the calendar for the meetup group.  There will be a meeting this Friday night in Medford, I think discussing financing options.  I haven't been to one yet (I live 80 miles out), but soon we will be attending regularly.  

That makes sense!  Thanks Steve! 

My husband and I have an LLC for our general contracting company, whose sole client will be our flip business. I am thinking we need a separate LLC for the flip business, but should the flip business be the full owner or an LLC member of the contracting business, or should they both be separate businesses, and we just are the owners of each one?

And to make it more fun, I just got my real estate brokers license, and am currently set up as a sole proprietor with my brokerage.  Will there be any big drawbacks to leaving that as-is, besides self employment tax on any commissions?  

My head is starting to spin a little with all the different entities.  Thanks! 

My suggestion would be to take it to the local title company and pay them the $100 or so to assist with filling it out and filling, since it's a new type of document for you.

The title company down here in southern oregon has always been very willing to help educate me and make sure I understand the whole process when I'm doing new things, so I pretty much always hire them the first time I try something new.  

Hope this goes well! I would also consider a new title search to ensure that the husband hasn't encountered the property without your sisters knowledge. 

We are getting started in Oregon doing flips, and we also have a contractors license here, under an llc.  

Would you suggest a different llc to hold the flips?  There will be little to no outside contacting (ie contracting jobs for other homeowners) going on, just us working on and managing our own flips. 

Thanks.

Tracey in Oregon

Hi! We are gearing up to do our first flip. We are in Oregon, and have our contractor's license. At this point, my husband is intending to do the bulk of the remodel / rehab work on our first flip or two. He has many years of experience as a residential contractor and civil construction, so that's not a concern for us. Eventually, we do intend to shift to using another general, once we get more experience with the whole flipping process, etc. (Also, in our area, it's extremely difficult to find reliable and good contractors right now.)

We have also always planned for me to get my real estate license once we got going on all this. We went ahead and purchased the state-required education course, and it's going well.

However, I had a good friend who used to do flips caution me that being both the listing agent and the contractor who had done the upgrade work on the home, would cause serious liability issues and that I should definitely reconsider. In fact, he had already taken his state exam to be an agent, when he figured all this out and declined to ever activate his license, instead just staying as the contractor, and hiring a listing agent.

I can see that there are disclosure requirements, but at this point in my education and research, I don't see anything very serious or major. Mostly just that it needs to be disclosed that property is owned by the listing agent, and I haven't seen it in writing yet, but I expect that it will be required to disclose that listing agent / owner is also the most recent general contractor to work on the home. Not shocking, and we intended to make that clear, as well. In fact, we had hoped to make it a selling point, as we completed more flips in the area, and developed a good reputation.

Anyway, do any of the more experienced flippers / real estate agents here have any insight into all this?

THANKS!

Tracey in Oregon

Hi!  We are gearing up to do our first flip.  We are in Oregon, and have our contractor's license.  At this point, my husband is intending to do the bulk of the remodel / rehab work on our first flip or two.  He has many years of experience as a residential contractor and civil construction, so that's not a concern for us.  Eventually, we do intend to shift to using another general, once we get more experience with the whole flipping process, etc.  (Also, in our area, it's extremely difficult to find reliable and good contractors right now.)  

We have also always planned for me to get my real estate license once we got going on all this.  We went ahead and purchased the state-required education course, and it's going well. 

However, I had a good friend who used to do flips caution me that being both the listing agent and the contractor who had done the upgrade work on the home, would cause serious liability issues and that I should definitely reconsider.  In fact, he had already taken his state exam to be an agent, when he figured all this out and declined to ever activate his license, instead just staying as the contractor, and hiring a listing agent.  

I can see that there are disclosure requirements, but at this point in my education and research, I don't see anything very serious or major.  Mostly just that it needs to be disclosed that property is owned by the listing agent, and I haven't seen it in writing yet, but I expect that it will be required to disclose that listing agent / owner is also the most recent general contractor to work on the home.  Not shocking, and we intended to make that clear, as well.  In fact, we had hoped to make it a selling point, as we completed more flips in the area, and developed a good reputation.  

Anyway, do any of the more experienced flippers / real estate agents here have any insight into all this?  

THANKS!

Tracey in Oregon

The husband and I are looking at the market and getting ready for our first flip deal. We intend to get a HELOC on our primary residence (paid off) to mostly or completely finance the first deal.

My questions are, what factors are the appraisers looking at, how are the different factors weighed, and what are the top things I can do to max out my appraisal value? 

Initially, of course, I will be looking at appraisal value on our current home.  I already anticipate issues, because we live very rurally, and comps will be few and far between geographically, with huge variation in the properties they can find.  

Also, how much of a factor will current employment be in a heloc?  My husband is on a,layoff right now, receiving unemployment income.  

Thanks to everyone in the bp community!  The blog and forum are invaluable to us! 

Tracey in Oregon