It’s one aspect of the business that I absolutely hate, but it’s a necesary evil if you’re fixing up and flipping houses.

This past week, I’m talking with a guy named Phil that finishes hardwood floors for my latest rehab and I tell him where the house is.

He responds -”I know where it’s at… I did the roof on that house about 5 years ago.”

We agree to meet the following day to let him give me a quote.

I arrive around 15 minutes early to find a leak dripping in 3 places.

Irony at its best….

I walk outside to cut him off so that he doesn’t see the leak just yet and I said – “Is this the house you put the roof on?” He responds “yes”.

Then, I opened the door and said well take a look at this leak.

(HEHE – I’m thinking I just busted this guy’s bubble).

This guy starts telling me about the hail damage that had been done to the roof and that is why the roof is leaking and that “unfortunately” his warranty is only good for 3 years…

(To sum it up, he was shooting me a line of bull shit for a half assed job done to the roof)

Now, keep in mind, he’s there to give me a quote about refinishing hardwood floors – not a roof.

While, he’s figuring a quote – he starts asking questions about my business.

Then proceeds to say…

“Well, you’ll make $20K -$30K on this house”

Excuse me- did I tell you what I paid for it?

uhh No.

I proceeded to inform him that the one thing that pisses me off about contractors is some are more worried about what I make than doing the job right in a timely fashion.

Sorry – but I’ll not be using Phil.

And there are guys just like Phil in your market.

So here some rules for dealing with contractors when you’re fixing up to flip a house -

Don’t let’em shoot you a line of bs.

Don’t believe everything they say.

Get a second opinion. Ask for referalls at your local investment club, from other investors, from other contractors, and from the home improvement stores.

Ask to see 5 jobs they’ve done in the past year and if you can contact the owners for a reference.

And keep a good list of the contractors that work out.

This list will be a continued work in progress.

Start small.  Use your new contacts for small jobs to see how they do before handing them a big project.

Don’t tell anyone who you’re using or else word will get out and then it’ll be harder to have them work jobs in.

And never, ever reveal what you paid for the house to any contractor or else they try to gouge you.

And lastly, don’t be afraid to let ‘em go.

There’s more to come as time permits…

Derek

But I didn’t, so I’ll try to explain it the best I can.

When I first purchased the house, I realized there was a ripple in the roof. It looked like there was something rolled up underneath the shingles.

At the time, I didn’t know what it was – I just knew it would have to be addressed.

Anyway, the roof was only 7 years old and was leaking more than any of the high profile CIA leaks….

So…

I made my rounds this morning to make sure the crew was on time in getting started.

Anyway, while they were ripping off the old shingles, I realized what was making the ripple look to the roof:

A Shitty Contractor!

Sorry to be so blunt, but these guys royally piss me off.

See, the contractor that had done the job 7 years ago, just hammered new decking over the old instead of replacing it.

In other words – the decking was un-even, because the contractor had just hammered random pieces of decking where the roof was soft, and then placed the shingles on top of it.

This was one of the big reasons I was able to get such a good deal – the lady couldn’t afford to continue to make repairs and didn’t know why the roof continued to leak.

Amazing…

So, if you’re going to do the whole fix-n-flip thing, then you’ve got stay on top of the contractors.

Because, contractors will get attempt to get by with as little work as possible.

The famous phrase I’ve heard time and time again from these guys is -

“I can’t see it from my house.”

In other words – they don’t care because it’s not their deal.

Stay on top of it or else it will get out of hand.

Got it?

Realize that there’s more ways to make a whole lot of moolah without dealing with contractors.

And your smart to stay away from this fix-n-flip thing until you’ve done a few deals.

If you’re looking for more creative ways to do deals, then I recommend you check out my Free Training Videos at

http://www.reimastery.com

Talk soon,

Derek Pierce

I like tenants because it creates more deal opportunities. If it wasn’t for tenants, there wouldn’t be so many landlords throwing their hands up in complete disgust to become motivated sellers. And as a result, you’ll inherit some of these tenants for your house flips.

You gotta know how to light a fire under that ass to get them out without risking your investment. Make the wrong move and they’ll trash it like there’s no tomorrow, leaving you thousands of dollars in the hole.

Here’s a short video of one of my recent dealings with tenants that involved pot, cats, and more.

Learn to wave the carrot – you’ll see. Check it out…

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Click Here for the story.

Prime has hit the lowest since the Spring of ’05.

If you’re able to borrow money to buy houses, then realize the money is extremely cheap right now. But don’t solely rely on the banks to fund your deals because the bank can put a stop on your line of credit at any given moment for no apparent reason.

Ask me how I know that…

Instead, look for more creative real estate methods and private money to fund your deals.

With the rates dropping and the amount of deals increasing, focus on flipping your deals to other investors. Many long term real estate investors (landlords) see this turbulent time as an opportunity and you’ll see many of these guys scooping up as many deals as possible.

A few months ago, a Realtor calls me up about a property that I should take a peek at. I’ll not go into the details of the deal itself, but I decided to make an offer on the property. The house was a Fannie Mae foreclosure. So, we write up the contract as usual and submitted the offer to the listing agent. The next day my agent calls me to inform me that before my offer is submitted, I’d have to sign off on some new addendums.

OK…

Apparently, Fannie Mae is trying to crack down on some of the fraudulent flippers.

So, the addendum was a deed restriction that would prevent the buyer from selling the property within a 90-day period from the closing date. This restriction would be placed in the deed, therefore there’s no way around it.

I was pretty surprised by this, but go figure.

Heck, instead of enforcing the laws we already have to cut down on mortgage fraud and illegal flips, let’s create some new ones!

Now, for those of you that are wholesalers, this hurts in a major way because the first 90 days are make it or break it, so consider offering less to figure in your holding costs.

Gotta go meet a seller and send a short sale offer,

Talk soon
Derek Pierce

Ok, you’ve heard all the hoopla about flipping houses. Flipping Houses has become some “buzzword” that everyone seems to want to get involved with. The fact is five years ago, if you’d said flipping to anyone outside of the real estate investing community, they’d looked at you like you were crazy. Now, it’s become a household phrase. The funny thing is – even sellers know about flipping houses as a seller asked me point blank – “are you planning to flip it?”. But everyone’s idea seems to be that you’ve got to fix then flip the house. In other words, you’ve got to make the repairs to the house to get it sold.

And that my friend is BS!

Take a good look at the check – it’s over $10K and I didn’t do one thing to the property. No fixups, no cleanups, NADA…

Plus I had very, very little money tied to the deal. I gave the seller $500 and I was suppose to close within 30 days.

I placed a sign in the yard, ran 1 classified ad, and within 7 days, I had 2 offers for close to my asking price, thus netting me over $10K on this little deal. The Proof is in the Pic!

Sold it “AS IS”, “Where Is” with 7 days of negotiating with my buyer.

Now, don’t feel sorry for the buyer because they got a killer deal, too, because I left plenty of equity on the table. Not a bad deal for a few hours worth of work – what do you think?

I’ll upload some more pictures and more details in the next few days to show you this gem of a deal.

Let me know by posting your comments below

Take Care,
Derek Pierce

This picture above was taken after the new roof was installed
and my plumber was doin’ a little dance for the camera… Personally, I think
he should stay under the house covered in shit…

Here’s the house after the painter finished the first coat on
the brick. Now imagine what this will look like with a new door and white trim.
Below are more of the progress of the inside:

Next, we’ll start putting this junker back together and makin’
it look like a home. I’ll shoot you an update in a few days.

Take care and talk soon,

Derek Pierce

It’s pretty amazing just how much you can accomplish once
you set your mind to it and start taking action. Just take this house for
example, in less than a weeks timeframe, I’ve already bought a house,
got my initial crew to do the jobs, and started the demolition process. I
wanted to share these pictures of the updated project.

First things first, I had the dumpster delivered and got a crew
started immediately on the demolition. We’re now looking at just studs
in the house. Take a look:

Next, I discovered there’d been a leak in the bathrooms
and the floors had started to sink a little, so now, I’ve got to have
someone jack up the floor to make it level, plus contract a plumber to see
if I need to replace the copper pipes with new PVC. Now, would be the time
to switch it all out with new plumbing since the walls are ripped out, however
this isn’t cheap and was not included in my initial budget. I told
you anything could happen on this deal and you’re seeing it firsthand!

I’ll keep you posted within the next day about the progress
with this deal

Take care and talk soon,

Derek Pierce

PS – If you’re enjoying spying on my business, then share it
with someone, just click the link below to send this post to a friend or bookmark
it with your favorite social bookmarking site.

Does this Sound familiar?

Is this your thought process?

Do you have believe that no one in their right mind would deed the property over to you, someone they hardly know?

I remember back in the year 2000, after I attended my first real estate convention; my wife had the same thoughts. And after months of struggling and beating my head against the wall with no deeds, I began to buy into this line of thinking myself – that no one in their right mind would do such a thing.

Well, buying properties subject to is not that complicated.

I decided to stop making such a big deal about getting the deed and the paperwork and started acting like it was just part of the process. In other words, I acted more confident. I took the bull by the horns and led them to what they should do and would eventually close a good percentage of the sellers I spoke with. Plus, I started focusing on my seller and targeted my marketing to attract highly motivated sellers.

Now, if you’re dealing with just someone that wants to sell their house, then its going to be a battle to get them to just deed the property over to you. And in all honesty, probably will not happen. However, as an investor you’ve got to be on the prowl for the seller with motivation. In many cases, the seller with motivation, has either some personal issues that’s causing him to sell or there may be some issues with the actual property. Either way, if there’s no motivation for the seller, then chances are the seller will sit tight until they get the offer they’re looking for.

So, in order to flip a house, buy a property subject to, or even get a deal for a deep discount, you’ve got to start looking for and find motivated sellers.

Take care and we’ll talk soon,

Derek Pierce