Archive
Paperwork is a memorial Peter Fortunato, one of the greatest real estate creative deal structures I know, always says that your paperwork is a memorial of the meeting of the minds. What he means by that statement is that when you make a deal with someone, you are both making a set of promises. And your contracts, notes, leases and other paperwork are meant to memorialize what the two of...
The price of doing rehabs We just spent $100,000 on a rehab that we thought would cost $60,000. That means we went over budget $40,000. How do you like them apples? To be honest, we were shocked that we went over this much, especially since at the time we calculated our offer to purchase I was thinking I overestimated the rehab. This house was a three-bedroom, one huge bath...
Fat deals looking slim Being able to track your rehab numbers is a crucial skill as a real estate investor. The reason for this is if you don’t know how much it will cost to fix the house, you can’t make an accurate offer. To show you what I mean by that, let’s talk about a real deal that we have on the table right now. This particular lead came in from an agent whom I’ve...
Are you handy? Do you have construction skills? If you do, that’s great. But just because you do, does that mean you should work on your rentals yourself? For me, the answer to that question is ‘yes’ … most of the time. Now that may come to you as a shock, especially since I just wrote you last month in a column titled “Should you do it yourself” where I left you with the conclusion that it’s...
Pay your friends and family If you are new to real estate investing, one of the biggest questions you may have is, “How am I going to pay for my first deal?” I know it was for me and Ashley when we started. Truthfully, we had no idea where we were going to get the funds to close on a house if we got an offer accepted. That’s because we were two broke kids, with a mound of student...