Keep It Close....To Home

In the lessons learned category, keep flips, rentals, and your kids, close to home. Well, the first two anyway....

It is an added, and unnecessary degree of difficulty to deal with contractors and/or tenants when your investments are far enough away from home that you actually have to debate the virtue of going to the property. If you really think that you can just hire a contractor for a rehab or a PM to manage your properties and the distance is irrelevant, then you haven't learned the lesson yet.

Contractors are a funny bunch, not funny "ha ha like I amuse you" (quick, who said that in what movie?) but funny like, one day they're your friend and the next they're someone else's friend and you can't find them. They're kind of like your best friend in high school who just fell in love (lust?) for the first time and is attached to his/her lustbuddy to the extent that you no longer have a bud on a daily basis hitting you up for whatever it is he's she is short on.

Yes, contractors like you to show them the money, and when someone else shows them more, they go play in their sandbox, so the key is to keep them on the hook, do not give them too much and keep them challenged. Yes, challenged, because like athletes, contractors, good ones anyway, have big egos and like to prove they can do anything, better than anyone else, but they never want to prove they can do it for less.....

The bottom line is to use good, reliable, reasonably priced contractors who are up for whatever challenge you throw at them. And the key word is reliable. You know Bobby wasn't your most reliable friend after he met Sara at the dance and forgot your name!