<p>Thanks…</p>
<p>I have tried very hard to come up with a way to buy, rent and hold properties. But, I do not have a regular day job. This is my job. It is very doable if you have another job until you can accumulate enough rental properties to survive.</p>
<p>Using my current project as an example:</p>
<p>Purchase with cash and put in $50k to just make it livable. Rent out with $1,000/month income. Have to hold 6 months until I can get 75% loan on value. Assume the value has increased enough that 75% is the total invested. Then I use the money again to buy another property with $1,000 income for 6 months before I can leverage a loan on it.</p>
<p>That means I have to go a whole year with rental income of $12,000 plus $6,000. I cannot survive on $18,000/year income. So, I am stuck in the flipping business until I can figure out a way to hold onto some rentals. I might be able to get loans on the properties quicker if I get my butt in gear and go out and try to get a commercial loan.</p>
<p>Then it is not the right house for you to rent and hold. </p>
<p>You must cast a wider net to flip or to hold.</p>
<p>I could be in the same predicament if I insist on locations like Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Forster City or Mountain View. You can spend 1 million from MLS listings and rent it for 2000, that does not work for me. The risk there is that if you keep on those margin, you will find yourself go bankrupt on leveraged money(especially on hard money) as soon as there is a down turn in the market, which is bound to happen. </p>
<p>From 2008 to April 2013, it was an exception than the rule, don’t count on it to make a living.</p>
<p>It is not an easy business by all means.</p>
<p>Geez, I have spent all morning building photo albums on Flickr. Then I researched the CC rules and they will not allow a link to Flickr. So, I loaded everything to YouTube but unfortunately it keeps showing my real name and stuff with the YouTube slide show - along to links to videos I have loaded over the years. Cannot figure out how to get my personal info off the YouTube photos.</p>
<p>Oh well, maybe I will try to make another YouTube account and start all over again. I wanted to let you guys see some progress photos.</p>
<p>You can’t put a link to flickr but you can give enough information to let people reconstruct the link. Or just tell us what your flickr account name is, if we google “flickr accountname” we will probably get a link right to it.</p>
<p>You can put your own web site URL on the personal profile and there are a lot of free web sites provide album service.</p>
<p>I want to be very careful about this because I was warned not to post photos and not to post a link to a blog. Then I made the stupid mistake above (we all know what I did) and one of the moderators had to help me out. I have read the CC rules very carefully and I can post a link to YouTube but YouTube does not give me the privacy I need because it shows my personal stuff and you can see other videos I have loaded.</p>
<p>I was able to create a photo album in Flickr with a new Group. This group is for our “CC Flip Project” we are following. It is not a blog or a commercial website, just a place to put photos for our group to view.</p>
<p>Anyone who would like to view the progress of this flip through photos, please send me a PM and I will share our group location.</p>
<p>
My son actually did water vs soap as a science fair experiment. He had people rinse hands or wash in soap or disinfectent and then grew cultures from their hands. Turns out that running hot water gets rid of most of the bugs. :)</p>
<p>
I don’t find NOI to be all that interesting for a rental, if you finance it. You need to factor in the mortgage, as this will be the biggest expense and will severely impact cash flow. </p>
<p>I don’t split out the interest from the mortgage either, because even though I am increasing my equity every month, the principal is still money out of my pocket and affects cash flow.</p>
<p>Nre</p>
<p>Noi is a way to compare deals. Not a way to measure cash flow. Everyone has its own way to financing. One may want to finance 60%, the other may want 80%. Therefore noi is a common denominator to compare deals.</p>
<p>coralbrook:</p>
<p>In the pix you’ve posted on flicker, in the photo labeled Bedroom 1, is that wall curved or is it an optical illusion??</p>
<p>I believe the Listing Agent took photos with a wide angle lens in a failed attempt to make the house look larger 
Those photos are curved from wide angle lens.</p>
<p>^ That picture looks like it was a panorama picture taken by a cell phone. Because of the varying distances involved it can make things look artificially curved.</p>
<p>Interesting thread, thanks for sharing this with us.</p>
<p>UPDATE FOR THE WEEK:</p>
<p>I look around the project and I honestly cannot figure out what we have been doing for a whole week. It’s the type of stuff that isn’t noticeable but had to be done. Here is our progress for the week:</p>
<p>1) ELECTRICAL – Removed all wiring from house, including the old knob and tube panel on the exterior of the house that had wires going everywhere. My electrician is a whiz and manages to keep 4 outlets live throughout everything, coming on Saturday to switch over to the new panel. We have our new panel, a new pole on roof and connection to the main line coming into the house. This raised the main line at least 5 feet higher off the yard since it is swinging in off the poles in the back alley and was dangerously low. New outlets, new switches, all new wiring, new outlets/light in attic. Also new cable lines throughout the house, cable in all 3 bedrooms and the living room. But the cable company line coming from the alley is drooping so low, I need to call them to remove it or replace it. I had estimated $3,000 for plumbing and electrical but I am going to be way over. Labor was $1,500 and materials $1,500 because we needed a large new 100amp panel.
2) PLUMBING – Removed all old gas lines, water lines and sewer lines. Spent a lot of labor cleaning everything out from under the house to make it pristine. Gee, those foundation guys left a mess!! The only new thing we got accomplished was most of the new copper water lines. All of this plumbing is going to be over budget because we used all the budget for Electrical.
3) FRENCH DOOR – Because it was going to start raining (very rare here in the summer), we needed to get our French door installed and out of the back yard. Spent all day today installing French Door with two sidelites in master bedroom to back yard. Door cost $900 plus labor was $380. Budgeted $1,500 so saved about $220.
4) KITCHEN AND BATH DESIGN – Because the electrical and plumbing was waiting for me to design where everything was going, we spent a lot of time chalking things out and getting some plans on the walls for them to work with.</p>
<p>It was a short week for us because I am reporting from Wednesday last week through today. Also, I had to pull my lead off one day last week to work on something at my home.</p>
<p>OVERAGE FROM LAST WEEK $500
OVERAGE ESTIMATED TO GET PLUMBING DONE $1,500</p>
<p>CURRENT OVERAGE $2,000-220 = $1,780</p>
<p>New updates on the vaulted ceilings, demolition to studs and new electrical are loaded to our group.</p>
<p>coralbrook, I hope your kitchen design has the range and fan on an outside wall or close to it and vented to the outside. (My personal obsession 
)</p>
<p>Is PEX piping legal to use in CA?</p>
<p>A lot of plumbers around here use it now, it is cheaper than copper and a lot faster to install. And you don’t have to worry about someone breaking in to strip it out.</p>
<p>Not seeing the new pictures…</p>
<p>notrich, thanks for letting me know. I forgot to move them into the ‘group’. First five are the new ones.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen anyone using PEX piping, but I have such a problem with anything ‘new’ if the buyer’s home inspector is not familiar with it. I hate air gaps on top of beautiful countertops, so we always install the new dishwasher with a reverse high loop drain which compensates so that you don’t need an air gap. This is clearly shown in the dishwasher installation manuals. But every time, home inspector tells buyers that there is no air gap and food from the garbage disposal will back up into their dishwasher - Eww!. Buyers freak out and request installation of an air gap during the sales transaction after their inspection. I have to officially takes copies of Page X and Y in the dishwasher manual that shows that installation without air gap is perfectly OK. I have started to circumvent this and actually place the installation manual, opened to the right page, on top of the kitchen counter for inspectors to see during the inspection. Since I started that, no more write ups!!</p>
<p>I cannot imagine what I would have to do to convince buyers that PEX is OK.</p>
<p>The kitchen is so small that I had no choice but to put the microwave over the range with the microwave vent. But I will have venting up from the microwave through the upper cabinet and it will have to go up through the roof (not on outer wall because sink needed to be on outer wall under window). It is technically not required to code if you have a microwave with charcoal vents, but I think it’s better to get it out of the house.</p>
<p>Funny thing is that cities have started being more lax on the ‘ventilation’ above a stove because honestly… how are they going to enforce that anyone even turns the fan on?</p>