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This Old House did a show from Hawaii… total boondoggle. It looked pretty nice. :D</p>
<p>And did I mention that I did two separate dump runs today? Very glamorous. Trying desperately to get the back part of the yard presentable without the piles of debris. But, the pig pens will get it full of debris again by tomorrow afternoon :)</p>
<p>Here is my thoughts that an experienced flipper like cb can do to make a living. </p>
<p>At the opening thread, cb had mentioned that she spent $4000 to learn from a mentor about the business. I think now she can be the mentor after all these years. It does not have to be as flashy as flipping as we all know flipping is NOT a business for the fainted hart Or for a part timer. The business can be just teach home owners how to do a larger home renovation project.</p>
<p>This thread has been sobering – really clear that this is not a business for a hands-off, part-timer. I really appreciate all that our flippers have shared.</p>
<p>As I noted before, you CAN be a hands-off, part-timer in the flipping business, if you are a risk taker that are willing to INVEST in larger home flipping funds and let the operators run their flipping. These funds get 10’s of Millions of funding and are flipping houses every day. The last time I checked, return to the investment runs more than 10% a year. In that, beats CB’s hands on flipping business. The risk is less and rewards are about the same, if sweat equity has been accounted for.</p>
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<p>You did a splendid job…Everything on target in my book… :)</p>
<p>Gee… a Helper ONLY wasted 2 weeks? Music from heaven…</p>
<p>You don’t even want to know I am over budget by 25K on a 40K…</p>
<p>Thank you for the kind words about the budget. I had even put in a $7,500 contingency (10%) but that went out the window real quick! So I used up the contingency and then another 15k! </p>
<p>Regarding investing the money vs actual flipping. We moved my husband’s IRA to a self directed IRA which I highly recommend to others who want to have some adventure. I invested it into a private real estate investment fund. I had to make sure that they would never buy properties in my region:)</p>
<p>At first they were flipping houses in Las Vegas but that market got crazy like the others starting last year. They have switched to hard money lending . but the bottom line is that it really only brings 12 to 15% a year on the investment. Not much better than mutual funds this year.</p>
<p>If I can do three flips a year I can get between 22% to 30% on my investment. But, I do it as my living so I don’t really compare it to investments.</p>
<p>coralbrook, I think you should be proud of the fact that you do quality work with integrity. You devote at least as much attention to what doesn’t show when it is all done as you do to what shows. And you have good taste and pay attention to aesthetics.</p>
<p>I think that a lot of people who do flips do shoddy work and take excessive profits. I’ve seen plenty of places where the eventual buyer could have done at least as much work for less money if they had their wits about them. In your case, I don’t think that a “civilian” could have completed the renovations for the same money that you put into it. I think that your buyer is getting a good deal…at least in the context of your real estate market! :)</p>
<p>Coralbrook, thank you so much for sharing this process with us. I have huge respect for your hard work. And I must say, the finished product is GORGEOUS!</p>
<p>BUSINESS OVERHEAD:</p>
<p>In the spirit of full disclosure I wanted to share my business overhead costs so that they can be calculated into the full cost of this project. Some of the items were mentioned above but there are actually a lot of costs involved.</p>
<p>Mileage - For tax purposes I have to bundle my mileage into a separate business expense. They aren’t calculated for each project. One of the reasons is that I spend a lot of time driving hundreds of properties during the year. However, I view daily mileage out to the project the same as going to an office each day for a regular job. I still keep track of it for tax purposes, although I admit I am not very good at keeping the mileage for the massive amount of runs to Home Depot or the dump 
</p>
<p>Workman’s Comp</p>
<p>Umbrella Insurance</p>
<p>MLS quarterly fees so I can have direct access to listings and comparable sales (through my agent, she has me set up as her assistant)</p>
<p>Bankruptcy Case Access Fees (I spend a lot of time researching bankruptcy cases that are related to upcoming foreclosures). Unfortunately I admit that I get a little engrossed in this sometimes because the detailed case documents are kind of fascinating. I have access to some really personal stuff such as the fact that most of these people use bankruptcy to try to hold off foreclosure on their homes but honestly, you can see that they have massive amounts of credit card debt which is the real reason they got themselves into trouble.</p>
<p>Foreclosure Auction Database Subscriptions</p>
<p>Storage Unit</p>
<p>Office Supplies</p>
<p>Credit Card Fees</p>
<p>Payroll Service Fees</p>
<p>Employer Taxes</p>
<p>Business License and City Business Tax</p>
<p>Tax Service Fees</p>
<p>Document Copy Fees (I get copies of recorded documents free from my Title Company but sometimes I am working late at night or on weekends and I need a copy of a deed or something quickly and I can pull it at $3/copy)</p>
<p>So, the annual cost this year looks like about $8,200. If we apply 8 months to this project the amount should be $5,500.</p>
<p>TOTAL COST OF PROJECT with overhead = $392,000 + $5,500 = $397,500</p>
<p>Roof trusses are on!!! Roof sheating panels were installed yesterday. Garage walls are repaired, door on and garage is painted and starting to look cute! Photos loaded to group page.</p>
<p>Is access to the garage via a back alley? I don’t see a driveway anywhere.</p>
<p>Yes, the garage is on an alley in the back. I have loaded some more photos because our new rollup garage door is installed. Tommorrow the roof shingles go on and we will be very close to done. Just need to do some trimming and try to patch up the old siding and finalize the paint.</p>
<p>Buyer’s home inspection is scheduled for Saturday 9am - D Day!</p>
<p>Almost done! I see a few leaves on that poor tree. Hope it recovers. 
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<p>Good luck with the inspection.</p>
<p>Turns out the naked tree is deciduous and the few leaves that grew on it are now turning color and dropping. Amazing how the tree keeps leaves in California until mid-December. It will be a fully naked tree again very soon</p>
<p>Well today was another glamorous day!! My roofer was madly trying to get the paper, shingles and drip edge onto the roof today and it was sprinkling. We haven’t had a heavy rain since I started working on this house. Well, about 3pm it just started pouring and then hail. Probably 1" rain in a short 30 minutes, which is very unusual for San Diego. </p>
<p>We noticed that the entire back alley drained down towards our back yard. Then we noticed that the neighbors had built a asphalt hump/damn which caused the entire alley to drain into our back yard. I thought, well OK a lot of water is flooding into the back yard. I ran into the house to get out of the rain and about 5 minutes later the roofer starts waving his arms and yelling that the ‘tools are getting wet’. I was so happy that we had a roof on the garage to keep our stuff dry.</p>
<p>I ran out into the garage and the entire garage was receiving a flood of water off the alley. There was 3 inches of standing water in the garage and it was craziness in a very short time. Had no choice but to stand in the pouring muddy water, in the pouring rain and start digging out dirt with a shovel and trying to make a dam. It was a drenched muddy mess. Then had to try to broom the muddy water out of the garage.</p>
<p>Now it is obvious that we need to build a concrete hump dam on our side of the alley to direct water away from the property and properly flow down the alley. The whole alley is sloped towards our property. </p>
<p>It never ends, more construction needed!! My poor lead thought he was going to have the holidays off. I feel so bad.</p>
<p>Flipping is just as glamorous as on TV!</p>
<p>Ouch. My only thought as I was reading this was, “Oh, $h!t.”</p>
<p>Or maybe you need to get your neighbor to demolish his or her hump. </p>
<p>On second thought, probably a LOT easier to just build your own.</p>
<p>You need to “shoot the grade” before put the hump dam up and make sure it is not a hump that will not pass the city inspection. Otherwise, you have to grade the garage floor to stop the water, like pour a 6" concrete…</p>
<p>If the hump is too high, it might hit the bottom of a car and the city will not pass that.</p>