Live & Flip

Scope of Work

Sorry about the delay in posting.  I thought I would share the scope of work as I give it to my contractors.  I always ask for an itemized bid.  For the contractors I hired, they are paid on a weekly basis.  I pay for work completed each Friday. Here is the scope of work. Post Scope of Work Big picture items -replace kitchen -gut and replace master bath, half bath and full bath -replace windows -create mudroom from main floor bedroom and move washer and dryer there. -remove carpet and r...

The Big Haul

Trash haul that is. Jen, her mother, and I spent most of Saturday cleaning out trash left from the house. 25-30 trash bags so far and we haven’t even started on the basement. 4 sofas, 2 desks, a baby crib, a bed frame and other assorted junk left behind. I probably made 50+ trips up and down the stairs. Pfff, who needs a stair master, I’m a rehabber. The property already looks better. It’s amazing what a bit of elbow grease can do. My very wise Realtor also put an addendum in the contr...

New House Photos

Wordpress was kicking my tail the other day. Here are the new house photos. Ok...so wordpress is still kicking my tail.

Finally Closed

We closed on Wednesday on our new home. Step 2 of our plan to free and clear in a home in a few years. The house was a short sale home only 5 blocks south of where were currently at. The difference in neighborhood is night and day. So here are the numbers. Purchase of 176k. First lien payoff was 170k and 2nd lien was 6k. The sellers agent got them down from above $8500. The sellers paid half and we paid half. The house is 3900 sq ft 5/2.5. Its a monster. Its far more home than we nee...

Refocus

I had a great mastermind call with my coach last week. He could tell I had the wind knocked out of my sails a bit. I was so ready to do my first solo flip, that I almost took down a bad deal. Still, my nature absolutely hates losing. The good news is I would have lost far more had I done the deal. For you baseball fans out there, think of it as a pop fly to advance the runner. Yes I took an out, but it wasn't a double play. I am still at bat and this inning aint over. Moving forward I...

Tree times no more

Well, I am officially no longer under contract on the Tree Times house. A sad situation arose out of backing out of the deal. The sellers agent, who has been pleasant to work with so far, turned ugly. My agent called to tell her the deal fell through. The lender simply did not come in high enough on the appraisal. She proceeded to cuss my agent out and accuse him and me of doing this intentionally. (Yeah, I love giving up $1000 earnest money, just for fun) She also threatened to turn him i...

Bittersweet Symphony

Good news and bad news.  The good news is, the short sale personal property 2nd lien holder(say that 6 times fast) approved for 6k.  We are under contract and set to close on October 5th.  The 2nd will have to be paid for with cash.  Our total closing costs will be at about 10k counting that 2nd.  Not to bad for this property.  Hopefully we can get back into the property in the upcoming week and get a better repair estimate.  This should make a really nice house for us for the next 4-6 ye...

Umm Opps

Well, I made a bonehead move.  I have been waiting on the title company to set the closing date on my flipper.  Sent emails directly to the sellers agent asking for the date, had my Realtor ask as well.  Turns out it was set all along on the addendum the bank sent.  None of us caught it.  Opps.  My original contract said 44 days after MEC (Mutual Execution of Contract).  I think we all assumed that left the closing more or less open ended to be set at a later date.  The closing is set fo...

Property Manager part 1 “Finding New Property Managers”

Many of us have chosen to utilize property managers for our rentals. Its a pretty big industry that has a surprisingly low barrier to entry. This means that just about anyone can be a property manager. So how do you find them and pick the best one. Here is a small list my agent and I came up with. Its certainly not exhaustive. Finding a new Property Manager There are two main and very obvious ways. Google and word of mouth. Google can be very useful when finding information on pro...

Contractor Bids and Hard Money

I have been in touch with contractors on the Tree Times house. So far I have taken two contractors through the house. 1 just for electrical and the other for the entire job. I'm still waiting to hear about the entire job bid (broken down into sections), but the electrical bid came in higher then I wanted. I will need about 3 more whole house bids before I make a selection. Here is a copy of the scope of work for anyone interested in a sample. This does not include time lines or cost. Tree...