Ten Things I have learned about Real Estate

I just finished purchasing my twelfth property in the last six months and here are some of the things I learned along the way: The price banks are willing to sell a property for usually have no relationship to market value As we target properties sometimes agents have us look at...
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House #3 is SOLD!

We purchased House #3 on October 24, 2008.  Just under 4 months later we just closed escrow.  This deal turned out to be quite profitable for us.  All of our repairs where right on budget and we ended up selling it for about $5,000 over our appraised value. Before After Before After Before After The...
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Permits are no fun!

House #4 is beginning to becoming a major pain!  The inspector keeps adding what seem to be new requirements. Once we pulled the roof off, he forced us to re-inforce the existing rafters. The existing footers needed to be re-inforced. And now for some reason, he does not like a...
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Buying Short-Sales… why we don’t

As you may have noticed we focus on buying REO’s.  Early on we tried our hand at short-sales and became frustuated very fast. The Cons: Typical response time is over 4 weeks, if you get one.  In a declining market 4 weeks can mean -2% of ARV. Counter-offers take the same...
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Flip this House… are these guys for real?

I enjoy watching the show Flip this House and regularly Tivo it.  After flipping properties I think a lot of the stuff they do is very unrealistic and staged for TV.  Some of the featured flippers are better then others. Armando Montelongo is my least favorite and seems to be extremely...
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The Roof is Down and it’s raining!

Well, yesterday, we had a minor complication with the inspector.  This house was built in about 1880 and has had numerous additions including 5 layers of previous roofing.  After we finally got it all off, our inspector stopped by and said we are going to have to get an...
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Bringing down the roof!

We have had a massive crew working at House #4 over the last two weeks.  The pour and inspection are done for the addition (footings) and we should have a completely new roof on the house by noon Friday.  When it is supposed to start raining again. Roof and Addition The previous...
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California Hard Money Loans

If your an experienced investor you have probably heard people talk about hard money.  I am going to provide a brief explanation of what it is, and who it is best suited for. Hard Money in terms of Real Estate is basically a private loan against real estate.  Typically it is a single...
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House #6 Complete!!

It has been a little while since I have updated… again!  Sorry. We have been working really hard and we are happy to say House #6 is complete! Before After Kitchen Main Bathroom We still have about 35 days before we can sell it to an FHA Buyer, but we have listed it anyways. At...
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Back from Vacation…

I spent the Superbowl weekend in Las Vegas and had a great time.  Now it is back to work! On our drive back from Las Vegas we stopped by House #6 to visit our stucco crew finishing up their job.  The guy we hired gave a great price but had been a little flakey.  We where very happy...
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