There are sites to provide you with operating liquidity.
Like lendingclub.
There are also “hard money” lenders who will give you short term financing up to a year with a backstop of the property you are buying. High rates like 10 percent and points.
Developers who use these to funding sources to go forward with their project include these costs in their project plan. And see if it makes sense.
But do not let them use your home. You have rights associated with homestead provisions, these vary by state.
I really appreciate the gentle push from all of you. I think my underlying issue is that I don’t carry a contractor license so I’m just providing project management oversight at a weekly fee and the owner is paying the labor. Of course that wouldn’t stand up in any court of law because they are actually paying me to handle everything, including payroll. This is all because I fell into this situation of working on other people’s homes out of a combination of kindness and desperation to keep my crew employed.
But I do have a solution for future projects. I acquired a new employee that I 1099 outside of payroll. He is a licensed contractor, licensed electrician, has an incredible inventory of tools and is the nicest guy and a great team player. He is too shy to go out and hustle his own work so we both like the partnership. Obviously I pay him more for his skills. I actually stole him off another contractor’s crew. But, in the future we will organize our jobs under his license for my peace of mind.
I’ve already got him lined up for a bunch of work at all of the neighbor townhouses in the little community. Every neighbor comes over at least once a week to see progress and drag me over to their houses to get advice on all kinds of water intrusion issues. All of the Spanish style units are having the same leaking issues from the failed exterior stucco. Just last week I had to send 2 guys over onto a neighbor’s roof in the rain to patch a bunch of stucco that had just plain old blown off in a windstorm. The poor elderly lady was practically crying so we went into action. My job was holding the ladder as they tried to scramble up to third floor with our skinny ladder!!
“So, labor prices are going up, as of today:)”
=D> =D> =D>
“I acquired a new employee that I 1099 outside of payroll. He is a licensed contractor, licensed electrician, has an incredible inventory of tools and is the nicest guy and a great team player. He is too shy to go out and hustle his own work so we both like the partnership.”
I do use hard money loans from private investors at rates much preferred over the institution going rates. These are from friends and acquaintenances that have come to trust my judgement. But every lender, whether institutional or private, needs to see ‘skin in the game’ first. Only the big boys have figured out ways to get others to fund 100% and then they are dealing with huge carrying costs so they come out with the cookie cutter flips in under 2 months. I’m most comfortable having my own lower cost funds or savings holding at least 50%. But on that Del Monte Flip it became very dangerous towards the end with a ton of borrowed money because I was in it for over $1.4 million.
Newbies don’t understand that it takes a ton of cash to get started. They fall for the ‘buy real estate for no money down’ at those seminars. Like anything else in life it gets easier as you are more experienced and established.
I finally got some pictures loaded onto the group.
Hilarious picture of trying to overload the truck at 7pm on a Friday night to desperately clear out the garage.
His favorite things so far??? The fireplace and under counter lights that change colors and he controls them from his phone. And, he loves the steam shower but it is ridiculous because the rest of the bathroom is still a construction zone because his new toilet seat has not arrived and countertops not installed.
One of my friends has a foot operated faucet in the kitchen so you don’t have to touch the handle to turn it on and off. She loves it and it is very practical for her. (It also does have handles so you can turn it on and off with those as well, but it is handy when your hands are busy with cooking.)
NRE, I am with your wife. Why would one want to illuminate the floor? Not that my floors are dirty, but any extra light makes every friggin’ crumb and cat hair very visible!
We had to go back in today to install some things that finally arrived, including the master bath countertop. Boy, he has a giant mess everywhere. This is how he moved out of his other place… I think he emptied out all the drawers and closets into a giant heap which got transported over to a huge 4 ft high mound of clothes in one of the bedrooms. Have no idea how he is surviving. He purchased closet organizers but they are still all in boxes down in the garage because he keeps insisting he’s going to assemble and install himself.
I have no hope of cleaning the floors for him (they are covered in construction dirt and grime) because there’s barely an inch available to clean.
I keep saying ‘this is our last day’ and then he mentions that his washer and dryer need to be delivered next week and so on. Did I mention he had to run into Target the other day because he is completely out of underwear and socks?
But, the Alexa app thing is dismantled because he’s trying to get his front door onto the app but it needs some other gizmo to connect up. That is what he spends his time on:)
Now that he has all his clothes in one big pile, he can decide which ones give him joy and thank the rest and send them on their way. But the question is, will he tell you that you give him joy and try to keep you, or will he thank you and send you on your way?
