Found a junker? With a motivated seller? I bet the price looks great. So much lower than comparable properties. Seems like a no-brainer, right?
Whoa, Tiger!
Whether you’re buying real estate or wholesaling it, you will want to know the rehab costs. Huge construction costs can turn what seems like a great deal into a total loser.
Most real estate investors are not construction cost experts. Especially cost experts for all the different trades:
-
Framing
-
Roofing
-
Electrical
-
Plumbing
-
Landscaping
-
Sheetrock
-
Carpentry
-
You get the idea
To really do your due diligence, you need to solicit a bunch of bids from a bunch of different contractors. Or make your project more expensive by hiring a general contractor (GC) to do the bid for you.
The bidding process can sure take a lot of time. And for good deals, time is not on your side. Good deals don’t have a habit of sticking around for a long time. There’s a reason investors write ‘Sell Your Home FAST’ on their ads. Motivated sellers want to dump their problem as fast as possible.
Maybe you have other projects and are willing to give away some of the profits to a GC to do the bids for you. Many of us don’t want to give the profits away, but we do want to find a quick and easy way to solicit bids for our project.
Goodbye General Contractors, Hello Bid-By-Phone
Technology to the rescue. We have found a simple app that can give you 3 bids via your phone:
-
Without having to search to find contractors in your area
-
Without making multiple phone calls
-
Without meeting with multiple different contractors
Just put the ‘GoSmith’ app on your Mac or Android cell, and you are ready to start the bidding process.
Once you open up the app, you can click on ‘Start a Project.’ The screen will then have a spot for you to upload pictures, video and/or written details about the project.
Obviously, the more details you add, the more likely you are to receive an accurate bid.
After all your information is uploaded, you should receive three bids for the project in 24 hours from contractors in your area. The contractors can come back to you with three responses:
-
A dollar-value bid for the project
-
An ‘average price’ for a similar job, with notes about assumptions (materials used, what they find that can’t be seen in the bid, etc.)
-
A $0 estimate with notes saying they will have to come out and see the project to give a better bid
There is also a chat feature in the app that allows you to message directly back and forth with the contractors. That way you can ask questions about their bid before you accept one.
If you do like one of the bids, you can set an appointment directly through the app. The appointment can be linked directly with your calendar software.
Where does GoSmith find its contractors? Mostly from contractors who register for the app. The GoSmith app says that it screens its contractors, but it is always wise to do some kind of background check on the contractors just to be sure. It may be as simple as Googling them to see if there are any complaints.
Or you may want to head on over to Angie’s List to see if they have ratings there as well.
The contractors on GoSmith will have ratings as well. You can check them out if you click on your city at the bottom of the homepage and scroll down the list.
GoSmith charges contractors $8 to go out and meet with you, so it is in their best interest to just send you an initial bid over the app. Plus, they don’t want to drive out to every bid just to lose a lot of them.
By using this app, the contractor has a pretty good idea that they have won a bid before they ever come out to meet with you. Consequently, they are much more interested in following through.
Once you have selected a contractor, you pay them directly. There are no fees you have to pay to GoSmith, and the contractor pays no further fees. There is really no mark up to use this service.
When the job is finished, you can rate the quality of the job on the app. Rating the job will:
-
Give other people an idea about the quality of the contractor
-
Provide data to GoSmith’s algorithm for matching contractors to jobs in the right areas
-
Send you a $10 gift voucher
There is also plenty of customer service support either via online chat through their website, a phone number (scroll to the bottom of the page) or email.
Technology is helping investors every day to cut down the amount of time it takes to get in, get out and get paid. GoSmith, friends, is yet another one.
Bidding Advice?
If you have other ways to drop the amount of time it takes to flip or wholesale a house profitably, we’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
Move Fast – Great opportunities are rarely convenient. Have everything in place before a great deal comes along. Then you’ll be ready to pounce.
Perform Your Due Diligence – Make sure the numbers work before you pull the trigger. Otherwise, you might learn an expensive lesson in why you should not have done that deal.
Learn About Contracting – Whether you are wholesaling, flipping or managing rentals, you need to know what rehab costs. Become familiar with costs in your area so you don’t get scammed.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.