Alan Levinson: Flipping Homes in Jacksonville

Tracy Hayes  45:44  Hey folks, welcome back to real estate excellence Podcast. Today, I have an entrepreneur in the studio with me from the first time I met this agent and in home flipper, experienced home flipper, I saw focused and motivated, up and coming superstar in the real estate business here in Northeast Florida. He has flipped 25 homes now, so I think I can say that he's an experienced flipper. I am hoping he could share some of that successes and challenges with us today. Best of the Best in flipping is our topic, and I want to welcome Alan Levinson of roundtable realities of the show, Alan, thank you. I'm so honored to have you on. And you know, ever since our good friend Brett introduced us, I always felt Alan, that you were you were very focused on what you wanted to do. You didn't always divulge everything you wanted to do, but I could tell inside you, you had a focus, and you weren't going to let anyone, you know, get in your way. And I really want to dig in today, because, you know, flipping homes, everyone's seen it on television. Everyone thinks they can do it. It's, you know, no brainer. And we want to dig in a little bit. You've flipped enough homes that I'm sure you've done some things you hope never to do again, and obviously, experience some things that you run with on every flip from that experience. But I want to first shout out to our sponsors, stage of cell. Stagers, they put the studio together for us, the artwork, the furniture here. Stage of cell Realty, want to thank them for that their full service. Stager have a huge warehouse here on Phillips highway in Jacksonville to do a full consultation. And whether it's 10,000 square foot home, or you got your little 1900 square foot three bedroom, two bath, they can make it look great and obviously help you get top dollar. And I'm sure Alan could share with you the importance of staging can really aid in making sure you get top dollar in your sales. Oh, absolutely, yeah, for sure. So Alan, let's, let's go back a little bit. Where are you from?

Speaker 1  3:08  
Where'd you go to high school? So I'm from Fort Lauderdale, originally South Florida. I went to high school at North Broward prep. Went to college in Fort Myers at Florida, Gulf Coast University. I thought it was gonna be a lawyer. That's what everybody in my family, they're all lawyers, so go to law school, and right? So that's what brought me to Jacksonville in 2014 and did one semester, and was like, This is not for me, but I had a lease that went through the end of the year, so I figured, and I also had met my now wife, girlfriend at the time, not even girlfriend. It was just a girl I knew in law school. I'm like, I wanted to be your wife. I wanted, but I said, I need to figure out a way to stay just through the end of the year. And my parents weren't going to do that unless I could, you know, make some money. So I said, let me try real estate. And that's what kind of led me to get my

Tracy Hayes  4:00  
Wow, interesting. So you're, you're at what, 23 years old right now. I mean that. I mean that now

Speaker 1  4:06  
that point I was, yeah, 2023 Yeah, wow.

Tracy Hayes  4:10  
And because real estate would give you that entrepreneur, you know, that freedom and obviously has a low entry. I mean, pass the test. You figured you could do that. It was

Speaker 1  4:18  
something I can do. And, you know, I think it was like a two or three week course, I'm not the best test taker, so I thought it was something that I could, you know, I could do enough times that I could pass right? And really, I just wanted to have a get into business. I thought law was that avenue. And it turned out that I didn't care what the avenue like, what the vehicle was, but it was the business behind it. And then I fell in love with the real estate after that, you know, way after that, once I got the license and figured it out. But, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  4:43  
that's, that's interesting. Yeah, dove right in. So because you didn't have any relatives that were real, no one, no one that no one really significant, that you could feed off of, no, not at all. You just saw the opportunity. Course, at 23 you can do things like that. Yeah.

Allan Levinson  4:58  
I mean, it was. Time to take risks, you know, because I had no overhead, essentially at that time. So I said, why? Let's try it.

Tracy Hayes  5:06  
Because my one of my first questions here, I said, What was your first possible career job? Well, I guess that was law. Yeah, that was your thought of that career. But really career

Allan Levinson  5:16  
stuff, it really would be realistic. I did little things before, you know, in college, but career stuff.

Tracy Hayes  5:21  
The first actual career job was, was very rare, but taking that test and going, so you're with round were you, have you been with round table Realty your whole time? Or how did you not come up with Howard?

Allan Levinson  5:32  
And so I got licensed, and I didn't, didn't know where to go, or you know how to get leads. So I joined the team to actually recommend, if you're in that position, joined the team at Keller Williams, did that for like, maybe a year, and then went off with my partner at that time, Cody. We met at that team and that we basically just started doing our own sales at Keller Williams, and then we did a deal with Howard eventually, and became friends, and then I moved

Tracy Hayes  6:00  
over there Howard flash and broker, very popular Round Table Realty, and he recruits you over that. That's, that's so interesting that I don't know if you want, I just wanted to use the word, you know, the guts to do that as as a young person. And then now you, you stuck with it. So how many years now you Where are you at now? Are you 30 yet? I'm 3131 wow, eight years now, yeah, and you dove into, you know, somewhat of a road less traveled, because I think the average, although I've met other, you know, young people who have graduated from college and gotten into real estate, but I kind of felt like they just, well, let me just do that, because they have another source, maybe their parents are supporting them, or whatever, like that, yeah, but to dive like right in, because you had that entrepreneurial spirit in you, and you saw that as the, you know, the real estate to be that entrepreneur. And then now, now Cody, your partner. It seems like you guys, could you guys do the flips together?

Speaker 1  7:02  
Not anymore flips. We kind of just do them, you know, he does them with his family, and I'll do them a lot. We'll still

Tracy Hayes  7:09  
do one, but kind of you guys see eye to eye a lot. Oh, yeah. So you were working off each other and had that partner to kind of lean on a little bit in getting going. Wow, that's interesting. So Howard's probably going to listen to this. So what is the real reason why you made that jump from Killer Williams to round table? What was round table offering you that you thought was the ticket?

Allan Levinson  7:30  
So I had no intention of leaving, because at that point we were we had enough. You get a lot of transaction experience on a team. That's one of the benefits. So I didn't really need too much. I didn't think, yeah, I didn't think I needed too much that we met Howard, became just friendly for a while. It wasn't like a hard push. Just became friendly. And I started going to him for advice, and, you know, asking him, picking his brain. And then finally, I was like, you know, why don't I just go over there? It's right, if everything's caught, like, why not? And then best move I made, though, honestly, because there's nobody more supportive than, you know, Keith and Howard, like, I mean, you can get them 24/7, literally, it's, it's

Tracy Hayes  8:07  
and he and we talked about that when he had was on the show, I would, I would say, just listening that story, it sounds like Howard was more kind of feeling you out too, a little bit to see, you know, are you sticking with this? What's your level? Because he, he puts out there that he doesn't hire anyone, or not hire. You're not really hired. I mean, he doesn't allow anyone just to be part of his team.

Allan Levinson  8:26  
Because of how small and boutique it is, they don't have the platforms that some of the bigger companies have where they can just run them. They it's him training. Yeah, it's keith ordering the paper. So they have to, you know, they're going to invest in you. They want to make sure that, you know, you're somebody that is not necessarily having a lot of experience, but like minded, and they're going to work with and want to work with because they're the

Tracy Hayes  8:45  
ones doing it and in a positive way, take advantage of his knowledge, because he wants to share it

Allan Levinson  8:50  
with you. Absolutely, he very much. Does want to share it. Nice, great teacher.

Tracy Hayes  8:54  
So when does the or was this always there from the real estate side, in the sense of the flipping. When does this become something, and when do you start looking at your first flip here?

Allan Levinson  9:07  
So when I got licensed, my my thought was not to be a realtor. That wasn't like, I didn't know how exactly I was going to make money doing it, but I investing was what I envisioned. And then I found the sales stuff just by I was like, Well, I can do this to make money just become a sales agent. So for about a year and a half, that's what I did, was the sales stuff. Basically worked on that team. And then in 2016 is when I flipped the first home. And basically since then, you know, kind of some years more, some years less, some years I'll hold some selling later. But that 2016 was the the first year I

Tracy Hayes  9:41  
did it, my wife and I got married in in May of, oh eight. We were in Little Rock, Arkansas. At the time, I was working remotely. She was working for altel, which obviously got bought out for Verizon, and their big corporate office was there. So we go and we buy a HUD home. It had been on the market for a while because initially they want to sell it to a primary residence. We're investing it and had all intentions of flipping it. And, you know, we don't, never done this before, right? Yeah, you know, we don't have the house inspected. It does say, the HUD report says something about a water leak and why? Whatever. Right? No big deal. Turns out, you know, this house is like Florida. It's on, it's on a slab, yeah. And so we come in, we go in and we remove the nasty carpet, because the place was just it was, and we was, it had nasty carbon say, the house was nasty, but the house, it was older, 1970s had the green, olive green cabinets and all that. Yeah, we tear out the carpets. First thing that's the easiest thing to do, right? Cut out the car. Boom. We come in one day to work on it, and there's a big puddle of water in the middle of the living room, yeah? And, well, we already noticed that there was like, this concrete patching going on there. Turned out the water leak was a line that went from one end of the house to the other end, where the master bedroom was, to the master bedroom bathroom. Luckily, and it's a another story for another time, luckily, through just some trial and error, turn the water on, we found out, I think, I think it was the hot water line had a leak on a cold water line. No problem, yeah, there, because we shut the water off with the hot water heater, no problem. And so we ended up rerouting it, you know, up into the attic and, you know, insulated the line and brought it back down in the bathroom. So luckily, a few 100 bucks, whatever, we solved that problem that could have been a major disaster, and then trying to dig into the slab. Oh my mess. Yeah. So I want to hear you know, you, unfortunately, don't have time to talk about every flip you had, but give us, give us some. I know you've had some horror stories, and then we'll talk about the we'll finish with the positive, yeah, but give us some of the things that like you went in. You're like, oh my god, I can't believe this. Or I'm sure you've probably lost money on a home or two. Yeah?

Allan Levinson  12:00  
Well, so if I'm going to lose money, I still own it. It becomes rental, right? So I haven't lost money, but there's properties that I intended to flip, that I still own. Those are my worst flips. So it's kind of a strategy. I use words Yeah, and also, and that we can get into this. But like a lot of you know, obviously I don't just have a ton of cash, so I use, you know, a lot of private money lenders. So it helps to have a plan B and make sure, you know, then you can really make it pretty much. You're not going to lose money. You might have to wait for your money. So that's, but, yeah, there's definitely been horror stories. AC is getting stolen, break ins, oh, my goodness that. I mean, that happens, you know, and having a vacant house, there's, it's things that happen, and not only in, you know, in all different areas, not even, you know, in areas where you would assume that what it's all over, tenants that didn't want to move, you know, not, haven't had to do an eviction, but a lot of Cash for Keys. I had, you know, basically, like, the whole staff of Waffle House literally living in one house that I bought that I didn't know that when I got there. And it was like, literally, everyone that worked at Waffle House was just hoarding in this house. Hoarding in this house, like it was the

Podcast Intro  13:05  
craziest thing. So, you

Allan Levinson  13:07  
know, they it worked out. But, I mean, just you do run into, like, it's fun

Tracy Hayes  13:10  
Cash for Keys, if everyone understands that he basically is paying them to move out.

Allan Levinson  13:15  
You can, you know, you can pay for an eviction, or you can give it to them and they move out. It's typically a lot quicker when you you know if they're gonna go themselves, yeah. So yeah, all sorts of things.

Tracy Hayes  13:24  
But on the house that we flipped, the actual electric meter was stolen off the house because it was shut off. Their meter was shut off, so they went and stole the meter off this house so they could use it on their new house. And then, I don't know how whatever, they tracked that whatever. But luckily, we had someone at the a good friend that worked at the power company. He was a senior guy. He came over and got the house all hooked up, and didn't cost us that, you know, having to

Allan Levinson  13:54  
put that was it a flip, or hold it as room, or

Tracy Hayes  13:57  
no, we ended up selling it. Probably eight, nine months later, at least, may have been, may have been, may have reached a year, we used it more as a tax deduction. Both of us were making, making, you know, good money. So what we spent on the house and the airway? Yeah, we did that test. So it wasn't like, hey, we we bought it for 100 solder for 75 and, you know, put 20 in our pocket type of thing. But after we went through all the bills and all things that we spent on it, yeah, a we had a learning lesson, and we got it this, you know, discounted our taxes.

Allan Levinson  14:36  
Yes, that's strategy, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  14:38  
from that standpoint. But so so when you go and evaluate a home now, are you actively searching, or you got people feeding you? How are you finding

Allan Levinson  14:49  
in this market? Also any and always you can. So I do look for my own deals. I also partner a lot on deals. So they'll bring me a deal. Sometimes I'll bring the money, or I can bring. Contacts or vice versa, right? So it all different ways, but you can still get them on the market, right? There's, you know, homes that you'll see that are distressed in nature, people, you know, typical buyers can't get financing. Maybe you can still get them on the market. It's been tough for obviously, in the last two, three years, when everything gets multiple offers, no matter what it is, right? You can also get it from going direct to the seller, you know, like people that need in a position where they they can't put on the market, or don't want to put on the market, need quick sales tax issues, condition issues, inheritances is a big one, too. People that don't want to deal with the market and fix up the house, so always, you know, but all different ways.

Tracy Hayes  15:41  
Now, I know you've been, last time we spoke, I mean, you were kind of working in a certain area town, yeah. Are you looking to expand out, especially as the Jackson greater Northeast Florida, I should say, you know, the expressway connects over the river and so forth, looking out at some of those older areas like green Cove and Palatka. Are you kind of you're wide open?

Allan Levinson  16:02  
Oh, yeah, just put one under contract. Action green Cove, which will be the first one, but, yeah, open all areas. I liked the Murray Hill area for rentals, so I was keeping a lot of them there. I've sold a lot of them because the market since we last spoke has gone through the roof, right? So I've sold a lot of them just because of the timing and, you know, kind of re gear. But all over Jacksonville, I think is just a great market, even to get stuck with the

Tracy Hayes  16:23  
property, right? There's a ton of new construction, yeah, we work with it, with a large builder here. But there's a also a lot of, you know, older homes that were built, you know, post World War 250, 60, green Cove springs that those who on air don't know it, or those locally have never been to green Cove springs. I was told by someone who's lived there a very long time that, you know, they considered green Cove springs, post World War Two, the Detroit of the South, because the Navy was discharging the sailors there, and they were buying Ford automobiles and driving them home, interesting, and so, and then, of course, obviously, you go way back, green Cove was a heyday when the steamboats were because they go down the St John's River. Right then, when the railroad Flagler put the railroad in, it bypassed green Cove, so went to so it's had its heyday a couple times. I think green Cove springs and Palatka are in the next decade are going to truly explode. There's a lot of open land out there, inexpensive, from the standpoint of buying a reasonably priced home versus obviously, St John's now is out priced, you know, for the average person type thing. So yeah. So there's a lot of older homes out there that can really I had, I had a gentleman who spent a couple of years now, he went down like bought up, and he lived in and I forget they have a term for that on the podcast, but he bought a four Plex, and he lives house hacking. That's the word yes, he's he went in there. I don't I maybe he's bought another one since, but he lives in one unit, runs the other three out. And those opportunities are out there,

Allan Levinson  18:04  
those so, especially if you're willing to live in the property, that opens up a lot more opportunities. And I help a lot of people with that, just because most of the people I talk to are friends, they're like, they're interested in that the easiest way, if you want to get into real estate investing is to make it a primary that's what I did with my my own house. Now, you know, that's another way you can do it, because you get the best financing for it, right? It's got to be

Tracy Hayes  18:27  
decent shape, right? Because it's low, lower, the primary residents are going to less, less money

Allan Levinson  18:31  
down on a house, right, right? And that that is attainable for most people, and that's a great place to start to where, then you have a proof of concept, and then you can go and look at the more creative ways. But that's I recommend that

Tracy Hayes  18:42  
everybody, and if you did that a year ago here, put 5% down, or three and a half percent with FHA or something like that. Now you've, you've got some equity. Now you could possibly sell it, and now you have a little bit, depending on what you how much

Allan Levinson  18:55  
I got. Yeah, finance it, pull cash out, and then go buy property with it. Exactly.

Tracy Hayes  18:59  
This is the, probably the biggest question for those listening that are up from the flipping side in knowledge. Tell me a little about your thought process when evaluating a home. Someone says, Hey, or you've identified a home when you go and look at it, what are you evaluating? You know, is this? Is this a worthwhile investment? Yep.

Allan Levinson  19:19  
So obviously the first thing is the general area, you know, and you like, if you give me a zip code, I kind of know what we're talking about for the most part. You know, if it's a single family house, so the area is going to be the biggest thing. And then, pretty much, without even seeing it, I can get a general range of what it'd be worth in good condition before I even step foot. You see what kind of price they're looking at. And if there's a decent discrepancy, will look more intuitive. There's not we could still help them sell, but I don't put that the flipping hat on, like going in there to try to see if it has there has to be a discrepancy an area you want to be in, meaning an area you want to, you know, commit six months and your money into, or more, and discrepancy between the price that there. Asking for, and what you think you can actually get on the market if there's, if that's not there, there's not, there's

Tracy Hayes  20:04  
no more you can now, how important is it? Because I think a lot of people, as my wife and I did, we went into this house and we said, Oh, yeah. I mean, the obvious things are, you know, cosmetic. We'll put new flooring in. No brainer that could be done, you know we're gonna we're gonna paint it. There was one wall to open it up in. Taking that out, please do not take out walls unless you know what you're doing. This wall just happened to be a load bearing wall. Luckily, we go down the lows or Home Depot, whatever, and it had a nice pillar we could put in there. So it was a quick fix. But if you take out a load bearing wall, you may have some problems. So if you're not, if you're not a licensed contractor, especially in our litigious society, and getting permits to do certain things and on your home and so forth, when, when you talk to somebody this, they learn that obviously you flipped homes, like, oh, yeah, I want to do that. Yeah. And I'm sure they ask you questions, like, we're doing here today. But what are some things are like, you're probably not ready for just yet.

Allan Levinson  21:14  
I mean, that would be structural, you know, like, I don't for your first one. They think

Tracy Hayes  21:18  
you could do everything themselves. I mean, well, that's, so that's,

Allan Levinson  21:21  
I don't I'm not handy at all, right? I don't do anything myself. So I'm definitely not the person that is going to go in and put your sign in the front yard. I put, I run the numbers. Put it this way, if you have to, if you have to do the work, it's not a deal you should be buying. It's too thin, yeah, you know, it's just, it's too or unless it's for your own you know, you want to do it because it's home you want to live in right? But if you're budgeting yourself doing work to save the 10% or 20, like, let the professionals do it, you're going to get more money anyway, because it's going to be done right, correct? Plus, most of us have a day job that you can but you're better serving. So I don't recommend doing much work other than like painting or stuff you like doing, like that, but so I don't do any of it myself, mainly because I'm not skilled at all in any of it, but it's about running the numbers. I'm with you, brother. But if you can, if you can run the numbers, and you know what you're going to sell for, and you have, you do know the general cost of those things that, once you do them enough, right? Especially because you're using mostly the same vendors for all these you can, you can put the pieces together and let them do it and kind of treat it as like a business.

Tracy Hayes  22:19  
Do you have that, that kind of that contractor you go to most of the time, you assume you have some backups.

Allan Levinson  22:24  
So not that's tough. Actually, it's very tough to find good, reliable contracting at a reasonable price, especially when you're working with thinner, you know, thinner margins. But I have a lot of subcontractors like, or the actual like, an AC technician, a plumber, a roofer, you know, I have kind of, like the people I call, and then I have one general handyman that can do, two of them that do most of the interior painting, flooring and that type of thing, right? But not one person that kind of handles it all. I wish that'd be nice, right?

Tracy Hayes  22:53  
So when you go evaluate this property for the first time, you're looking at it, going, okay, you know, yeah, they're, they're offering, you know? Well, what they want to sell for is low enough. If I fix it up, this is what it could this house could get in this in this neighborhood, for this amount? Where do you start budging what the renovation is going to cost? I mean, do you start bringing in these guys to give you some numbers?

Allan Levinson  23:15  
So it depends. So if I'm, me say the first time I'm seeing the house, or, like, I have a general price, I can pretty you can ballpark what it's going to be, and then once I have it under contract, usually, you know, one or two day inspection period, it's usually on point, then I'll have them come in. But I don't, a lot of times you have to move so quick that you can't get all the answers. Like, you know, like an itemized report, you have to take a little bit of risk, which is why you need some room there, because there's going to be the unseen things like you had on your property. It happens. Oh, right, not that exactly, but there will be something that happens. You're gonna open a wall, and it's gonna be something's gonna happen, termites, falling out. It's not if it's just what it is on this property, but it's a ballpark. And then you kind of get get your numbers. But if you're doing like your first one, I would recommend having at least somebody who has a Gen like a handyman at least, that can give you a ballpark quote with you, right? It's the safest way to do it. When you get into the property inspections, you i if you're not going to have somebody come in with you that's going to quote the work, then I would recommend an inspection for sure. If it's a primary that you're turning into a flip or a rental, definitely get an inspection, because that's, you know, you don't want to get surprised in something you're living in that you're not budgeting a flip for. So I would recommend always getting inspections and a contractor or one of the other if you don't have the time for both, if it's like a, you know, something that's really competitive.

Tracy Hayes  24:35  
Now, I assume, you know, a lot of people watching, you know, maybe have never flipped it, never sold a home. They're not in the not in our industry, and they have to realize, you know, if you I assume you would agree with the statement, demand on these contractors right now is so high that where you may think, oh, that we can knock this out and we can turn this thing around in 60 days. You. Nah, yeah, unless you are a contractor, but that means you're not in our business, right? So to do these contractors showing up on time, you know, in getting it done on the time, you start running too, too tight a schedule. Have you done that before? Kind of kind of rain yourself, like, I need to sell this in so many days. And yeah, it's just not gonna it,

Allan Levinson  25:18  
just, yeah, that definitely is probably the busiest they've ever been. So I mean, you need to budget the appropriate amount of time, especially because most of the if you're doing a flip, there's some cost to the amount of time you're holding it, whether that's the loan that it's on, the taxes, the insurance, all of it goes up every month that you're holding it. So that is something to add into your line item. When you're saying, I made 20 well, you held it for nine months, and you ended up paying another $7,000 you know, you know, you have to put all that in there, but this is the busiest they've ever been, some of that. But that's why, recently, what I've been doing is working with other investors that have their own crew. They have a bigger operation than I do, so I find the deal, partner with them and let kind of offload that part. And that's what I've been doing a lot this year. Still have some that I've been piecing it out, but it definitely was getting harder to get reliable contractors of if, especially if you're not using them all

Tracy Hayes  26:04  
the time, right? You're not going flip the flip to flip. You don't have the next house waiting to have them full. So they're Yeah,

Allan Levinson  26:10  
to get that type of, you know, effort, I guess.

Tracy Hayes  26:14  
Quick Question from the audience, have you had contractors that think you don't know anything because you're not as handy as them and take advantage of the situation. What's your attitude towards that?

Allan Levinson  26:25  
That can definitely happen. So second opinions will be your safest bet. But again, if we're going in this market that sometimes, you know it's not realistic. So you know you have to and by doing some just because I'm not handy, I have a general idea of what each thing should cost, which you can find by even asking other contractors, you know, even if they're not there, and if they, you know, they're quoting a re pipe on a 1200 square foot house, and they say it's going to be 10 grand. And you know, you can, you know that by talking to other plumbers it should be five. Then I would put a hold on that and not commit to them, but you want to get a second opinion, at least verbally, and that they're usually going to be in the same general range, but that's a good question.

Tracy Hayes  27:04  
And the question for the office of the podcast, if you didn't hear my Daniel reading that off, because he does not have a mic over there, was take contractors taking advantage of you. So I want to kind of expand on that question a little bit from the standpoint of time frame, because obviously, you don't want to make that next mortgage payment. You know, every day is costing you money that you own that home and you want to flip, it's taking out of your profits because you're paying taxes or paying the next mortgage payment. Do you build in incentives to say, Hey, if you finish it by the time you tell me you're going to finish it in 10 days, I'm going to pay you X amount, but every day, do you kind of put some parameters in there

Allan Levinson  27:46  
depending on the relationship I have with that vendor? I recommend doing that because of the demand right now, it's going to be a lot more. Hey, this is what we want to get started type of a situation. I definitely wouldn't give more than 30% upfront. You know what I mean, like, try to keep the you know, if you're not, if you, if you can't do it by a time specific way, at least do it in tears. So they have an incentive to finish, just to get the majority of the money right. That way. We do it a lot, but, yeah, if you can do it where, hey, if we're done in six months, I'll bonus you this much, because I'm saving, you know, X amount, that's

Tracy Hayes  28:18  
a great way, I would assume, especially for maybe a little bit more intricate renovations. Yeah, obviously someone coming and put an AC unit. Yeah, they're coming in and putting the AC unit as fast as reason.

Allan Levinson  28:30  
Yeah, so, and if you're just starting, I would shy away from the really big renovations, or partner with another investor, still get in on the deal, but let them help you through the process. That's another great way to get started.

Tracy Hayes  28:42  
So all right, so that segments me into something we talked about a little bit earlier. And because Alan does have this experience, he even knows people that are been more experienced than him, that he partners with when he feels maybe you're over your head or whatever, but you got the deal. So if someone you might be out there in green Coast springs or Palacio right now, where you're not traveling on a daily basis because you're up here in Jacksonville, but they have a house, or listen to shows. You know what this might be, a house you may want to flip. How does you know someone referring you that home? Maybe they're, they're, they're just want to say, you know, hey, I got this opportunity. How do they, how can they make some money, just just being a referral?

Allan Levinson  29:24  
So a lot of ways, actually. So if, if someone said, finds a deal and they want to learn the process, then they they can be a partner. I mean, if you have the deal, you that's a that's That's it. That's the hardest part. So they're one of the ways you can do it is we both purchase the property, or they can get an incentive for it on the back end, when they when it closes as an owner, and then they get kind of a front row seat to how it's flipped, without using any of their own money, worrying about the contracting, worrying about anything. But they're able to kind of go through the process and still flip the house, and then maybe on the next one, they can do it themselves, because they've seen it. They're doing it themselves.

Tracy Hayes  29:58  
All right, you said something there to just. Cut my thought. So, for instance, someone has a home, maybe, you know, they just, they don't have the cash. Yeah, the house needs a lot of work, but obviously it's fixed up. There's enough margin in there to make it worthwhile to be a flip for you. They call you and say, Hey, this is what I would like to do. I'd like to get x, sell you the house for x, but I'm going to, I'm calling you because I know you could sell this for more, but I don't have the finances or the whereabouts to fix it up, right? Can you cut that? You you buy it from them for here, but you're going to turn around and sell it for there. Could they actually, you know, work with you to get a little finder's fee, maybe an extra few $1,000 because they're, you know, you're working out with them

Allan Levinson  30:46  
before it. So you're, like, kind of get a little fee. But like, Hey, here's the deal. Mark it up a little bit to me, kind of thing. So you can do that. It's like, a wholesale deal. You have to be right wholesale. That's the correct, yeah. You have to be careful how you do it, though. So if you don't have a real estate license, it's tricky to get paid legally like that. So there are ways to do it, like they can do an assignment of contract, but that's a little more sophisticated of a way to if someone's just kind of not really knowing what they're doing. But then assignment would work if they don't do that and they just bring the opportunity, then they can get paid. And, you know, out of the back end of the deal, you know what? I mean? Like, they can become a partner of it, but there's a lot of there's a lot of ways they can do it. It just has to be structured, right? So they bring me a deal, we say, Okay, what's your goal? Is your goal just to get a few $1,000 and be out. Then this is how we do it. Is your goal to learn how you want to be part of the flip. Then we'll do it this way. But if you've had the deal, you can kind of get what you need, as long as it's, you know, there's enough there for you. To get what you to get what

Tracy Hayes  31:41  
you want. So there's plenty of creative ways that you that in your experience, for those out there, you know, look at you may have down the street from you a house you know, may be in this situation where, in, like I said, there's plenty still in St Augustine, especially in Old Town, where they're they're still going into areas of Lincolnville, these houses are literally, I don't even understand how they're even still standing, but they're still flipping one by one by one down there and so forth. Ton of, I think there's ton of opportunity on the other side of the rivers and then, and obviously downtown, the older areas of downtown Jacksonville, to call Alan, get him to come out and consult you on the on the deal. Maybe you inherited this house that was grandma's, and it just needs a total gut or just give advice.

Allan Levinson  32:29  
I mean, if you just want advice, I don't mind even talking you through it to see you know kind of what right, best route is. I mean, it's like Hobby,

Tracy Hayes  32:35  
yeah, yeah, because there's opportunity everywhere, whether that that deal, or someone you know learns from you and then can refer you something else, or maybe you they call you to represent to you on sale when it's done, and to kind of get some money back on the consultation and your expertise. You obviously talk to a lot of people. You're in the in the flipping. How important is that? Is it to have either a good day job or cash flows coming in or some savings? Because I talked to a lot of people from the lending side, where they want to buy a flip, but they want to they want little no money down,

Allan Levinson  33:16  
yeah, yeah. So and you can get into flipping with, you know, less money, but that's going to be on the partner route somebody has to have is bringing the money. Though, even though you're getting a loan, typically it's like 20% and that's, you know, 20 to 30% depending on the type of of loan you're doing, if it's not a primary, you know, if you're doing a primary. So having a w2 helps a lot for that, you could be self employed, as long as you're, you know, showing everything that you need to you need to have income to get the loan, at least initially. And just from a cash flow perspective, you're talking usually three to probably my average is about seven months from purchase to sold. So you need something to get you through those seven months, you have to have the rehab budget already there. You know, you don't have to be waiting on it. So budgeting appropriately is crucial to keep you going.

Tracy Hayes  34:10  
Basically, you have to, yeah, I've gotten over the years in a lot of calls, and there are situations, there are some renovation loans out there that you can definitely purchase a home with and do something. But the FHA has theirs, you know, intending which one you go with. It's more restrictive than others. It won't. There's certain things it will do and won't do. But we're right there as the lender, we got to go out and inspect and all this stuff. So if you're trying to do it for actual cash, return and flip it in three months, or something like that, or six months, or whatever it may be, I think you would agree it's probably best to, you know, consult someone like you, who knows some of these, what we call hard money lenders are looking short term. Can, you know, turn around and flip it? Maybe the first couple you just get a you become the partner, yeah, and get your get your cut to kind. To get a feel for what's going on and learning the business, especially if you don't have any money in your pocket today. Yes, primary residents are harder. If you don't have a lot of money down, you're putting a little bit of money. Yeah, if you go and spend all do all this work and invest the money, yeah, the house will be worth that much more. But that doesn't mean you have all this equity. You just spent all this you just took the extra money out of the loan to fix the house up the way you want to live in it. Yeah, there's no profitability

Allan Levinson  35:26  
per se. Yeah, you want to make sure that if you're going to do a primary, you know, especially like a renovation loan, which I tried doing one once, and it was so difficult that I just said I'm not doing that anymore. Just went to a conventional which is where I live now, you want to make sure that it's worth doing, that you don't want to buy a house just to have it put into it what it's worth on the market today. So you always want to make sure you're getting a discount. Unless you plan to live in it and you love the neighborhood, you're gonna be there long time, right? But for if you're thinking for investment purposes, I wouldn't do it just thinking it's gonna appreciate like, Oh, you want some margin, because it's a lot of work and you need to be compensated for that time, or you're going to feel like it wasn't worth it for a short flip, like a short like, I'm going to buy it and sell it under a year. I would go with a hard money loan. I would partner on a deal, which is what we just talked about, or I would use private funds, but that you get once you have experience, because that's that's going to be the best terms, the best everything. But typically, you need some experience with it, which you can get by partnering experience, then you go do it yourself, and it snowballs, and that's, that's how you can really catch fire.

Tracy Hayes  36:27  
So what is just on a typical situation, and I'm sure, different hard money lenders, you know, you probably haven't, you know, know, a handful that have slightly different criteria. But what's, what's kind of a standard that they're looking for when they're doing

Allan Levinson  36:43  
this type of thing. So for a hard money loan, typically you're going to want, they're going to want to see experience, which is the toughest criteria, because you're like, Well, how do I get experience? If nobody, you know, everybody wants experience. So having something that shows that you've done it before. Not all of them, you know, recently, they've loosened up, because, you know that people are just trying to get their money out there, but you want some experience, usually 20 to 30% is what they want. Down still. So it doesn't change, it doesn't change the amount down that you need. That's not why I'm recommending that. It's the qualifications that you need are pretty much, that's it. So you need to have a decent credit score, like 620, or higher. That's, you know, not nothing crazy. You need to find the funds which they don't care if it's your funds or someone else's funds, by the way, for that. But you do need the 20 or 30% down.

Tracy Hayes  37:29  
They need to know, if you walk away from the deal, they got 20 30% equity in the house, yeah.

Allan Levinson  37:34  
So there's, they're safe, but, and then it's all about the deal. So it's much easier to get that than it would be to get, like a renovation loan, for sure, but that's pretty much what it's going to be. And then you're looking at an interest only payment while you hold the property. Averagely, between 10 and 13% is for what you're paying per month with about one to two points up front, that's what you can get right now.

Tracy Hayes  37:56  
So what is the typical turn time that they want that money, or is they judge it on the property and the size of the project and the return that they may get

Allan Levinson  38:04  
all of that. So it depends on the on the particular hard money loan. You can kind of negotiate this. But the longer it goes, you know, usually there's some type of penalty if you go over their timeline. But one year is typical. I don't like the six month ones. It's too That's too short. If anything goes wrong, you're at you're gonna end up having to rebuy in, which means you got to buy the points. You got to do the whole thing. Technically, they can foreclose on it. So if you have a predatorial type situation. So I like one year. That gives you some room. If you have to rent it and refinance it, it gives you the time to do that too, to where you can, you know, you can get them that first lien off the property. So I like one year or more.

Tracy Hayes  38:38  
That's a surely safe play, because I know a lot of people, dream is as me, my wife says, Oh yeah, we'll turn this around in 3060, days a year later, we sold that home, and there was things in that area, and I could go on, but I'm telling you, you got to go with your eyes wide open. But I think most importantly, you need to call on an experienced person like Alan, who's here on the show. He's going to give his phone number, you know, reach him online or whatever, however we get there, but consult him, and he knows people even smarter him that you may not have access to, but he does, because he's done this. You've done this enough time. You are, you know, a seasoned guy from the standpoint of, the standpoint of flipping, so if it's something you're looking to get into. So what's a good number that they should reach out to you

Allan Levinson  39:26  
to call my cell phone, 954-802-1305, you can shoot me a text, and I'd be happy to give anybody advice on it, because it's really a passion

Tracy Hayes  39:36  
of mine. Excellent. So he's willing to teach. We got a question.

Speaker 2  39:40  
Yes, two questions, what about flipping land? Flipping land? Have you? Have you had much experience with that?

Allan Levinson  39:48  
So not me. Personally, I'm not a big fan of flipping land because there's less variables you can control, so you're pretty much making an appreciation play. I like that as one aspect when I'm buying like. Is this area going to go up in value? I don't like that to be the only aspect I have, because if it doesn't go up, you're not that's your that's your only that's really for

Tracy Hayes  40:07  
someone who's just, hey, I need cash now I'm willing to sell it for half its actual value because I don't want

Allan Levinson  40:12  
to check right now. That's the only way I would do that. Yeah, it's got to be severely under market, because you don't have a lot of ways to offload it. I mean, you're it's a particular

Speaker 2  40:21  
buyer a two fold question, and it says, What about putting a property on that land and reselling it?

Allan Levinson  40:27  
So now, so now you're talking about development that's a different that's a whole different thing if you have the connections. Now, that's a very sophisticated play that you definitely need to do your research on before you do that. But if, if you have the connections to develop and the price works for the area, then I'm then go for it. That's a different play. But buying land by itself, I'm not a fan of some people do

Tracy Hayes  40:47  
that, putting putting the house. I would think is someone would have already done that. I mean, there's plenty of money around, and that's the thing. There's no like, sure you would agree. There's no There's no these big golden nuggets laying around, because there are plenty of people that in this area that have your experience or more, have cash. They have the contractors. They can stroke the check, boom. You know, I had a experience with one of my teammates years ago, one of these down in Lincolnville would there, I mean, would be artwork in some place, because it was so old and whatever what was left of the house that was that was there they were, they were going in. And, of course, it was a renovation loan, because they took the, what was this read, basically built a whole new house around it, and we're going to use it for an Airbnb. There's people like that that have that kind of money, that can pay, you know, 100 plus $1,000 for that lot, because that's really all it was there. Was that dwelling was there, yeah, so there's really no good so to have land, put a house on it and and sell it, yeah, I guess the the cost to construct, but right now, cost of construction is so high, you know,

Allan Levinson  41:58  
you have to just, you have to really know your your numbers for that, if the numbers work, go for it, because it's why not? Yeah, there's money. Yeah, so And

Speaker 2  42:06  
last one says, Out Alan, how many investments have you done so far? Are they all the same kind of deal? Also, Howard says, what's up?

Tracy Hayes  42:15  
Okay, so the type of deals that guess that he's worked with. They all been similar.

Allan Levinson  42:22  
For the most part. They've been, I mean, they're all in Jacksonville, so they're all localized. I haven't done anything really that I've been a part of outside of Jacksonville. Not all exactly the same. Most, mostly single family homes, older homes. I think most of the homes I bought are from the 50s, 40s and 50s, because they're all in the Murray Hill, Avondale, a lot of those in Arlington, a lot of older areas where, typically that's, that's where the issues come up. And, you know, people need, they're in situations where they need to sell, yeah, so for the most part, that's been the deal, and I would say probably in the 20s, maybe 30, as far as deals, I've even either flipped myself or with with different partners, and then obviously, a lot of just transactional deals, working with buyers and sellers, probably close to 100 I would think of those. So I've seen a lot. I'm not the smartest guy, so if I've been able to figure out it's definitely you can do it.

Tracy Hayes  43:15  
I mean, some of those older homes that you experience, I mean some of these you're going in, you're you're replacing plumbing, yeah, most some of the sewer pipes, I imagine, if they are attached, you're having to do those. There's a lot of things that you need to really consider,

Allan Levinson  43:28  
which is kind of what it's kind of relieving to buy an old house, because you can kind of just say, okay, you know, we're gonna have to reply it. We're gonna have to do the so you got, you just factor that in. It's not this big mystery, but you you should assume on those houses, especially when they're when there's a lot of deferred maintenance, they probably didn't touch the plumbing, the things you can't see, right? They probably didn't, you know, it's a lot of them have knob and tube wire, you know, electric going on. So it's just things that you can learn, you can easily learn, and you get, you know, good at quick and you can analyze the property and and, you know, make an educated decision on it.

Tracy Hayes  44:00  
So I just want to wrap up. So in from this standpoint, call Alan. Okay, if you're thinking about flipping home, you may have a house, you know, he has no problem consulting you. If you're already on the front end of the deal, he'll consult you. If you want to partner with him, he will partner. Or, I'm sure if you don't want to partner, maybe you have someone who would refer to partner with them, or they need is that someone do money sources,

Allan Levinson  44:21  
that's that's a big one too,

Tracy Hayes  44:22  
utilizing me as a passion about flipping and obviously a bunch of insight. And again, like any of us, we don't know everything, but he does know people that probably know some of those areas that he doesn't know, to fill in the fill in the gap. So want to go to my two minute warning questions. You're just generic. Have fun here. Is it more important who you know or what you know? I actually

Allan Levinson  44:45  
think who you know? Yeah, it just in my experience, the majority where I've gotten the furthest is through people that are you know, been able to teach me or better than me at and I've definitely excelled more with the people that and

Tracy Hayes  44:58  
then making the connections like. Having these hard money lenders who you know. They don't just fall out of the tree.

Allan Levinson  45:03  
Someone introduces you, it kind of snowballs. So I would say, who you know.

Tracy Hayes  45:07  
So you're out on the town looking for something fun to do with your wife, jumbo shrimp or the Jaguars. Jaguars. Okay, yeah. What's on your travel bucket list? Besides Colombia, Mrs. Wedding is Mrs. Destination wedding in Colombia because of covid. Yeah.

Allan Levinson  45:23  
So we do want to go. I have family that's from Colombia, so we, we definitely want to go to Columbia. When kind of things cool down Europe, you know, we want to do Europe. My wife's family is planning the Alaskan cruise trip, a
forward to. Yeah, I definitely want to, you know, glad you mentioned that, because that's, you know, we talked about the cruise I'm taking at Thanksgiving. But you know why the kids are young, you know, now they're, they're old enough, or, you know, getting here in the next couple years to, you know, get out, because there's some adventure, whether it's hiking, there's a lot of the cruise lines got some interesting things up there. And obviously we visit Alaska, you know, although I do watch that show, well, not Naked and Afraid, but it's out in the middle of nowhere Alaska, where they're like, yeah, they're so far north, inside the Arctic Circle, yeah, outside chez I find that interesting, how they live up there, but Alaska Cruise is definitely something on my list. But I talked before the show. I've got, I've even got his original book. Ryan sir, hand here his big money energy as a gift. I don't want to clip my wire here, but there we go. Big money any Ryan sir, hands a great read. So is your gift for coming on the show. I appreciate it, and I want to, you know, even if it's a yearly basis, come on and tell us some stories about some recent flips that you made, done some some obstacles. You know, everyone wants to know that, but I'm, you know, the one thing I didn't ask you is the rewarding part of it, when you actually finish that home. And I can only imagine when prospective homeowner now, you're showing the home, yeah? And they walk in, and for a lot of them, this is their first

Allan Levinson  47:07  
home, yeah? I mean, most of them, yeah, are in that first home buyer price range, right? Yeah, right.

Tracy Hayes  47:13  
And they've got a home. It's got a new, typically, a new AC unit, new appliances. You know, it's up to date with all the latest stuff after the flip and I would imagine, is that one of the most rewarding parts of it

Allan Levinson  47:26  
definitely, yeah, especially knowing where it came from to what and like, you know what it is, and that that doesn't get old, so that keeps you going. Because there are definitely challenges. I don't want to paint

Tracy Hayes  47:37  
it like now I'm going to give you can I don't know if there, this may be out there. I don't know if it is, but because I obviously always like to research, I want to see if there's something I didn't know about you online. So, you know, LinkedIn didn't seem to have you on there. Straight to real estate, your your Facebook needs a little freshening up. Yeah, what I would, I would just recommend, whether it's Instagram or I would Instagram and Facebook, yeah, is to put those photos on there. How you because I think, you know, facts, tell, stories sell and those, those photos have stories. And I think would explode your business. Hopefully people on here are going to call you because they're they need consultation, or they want to partner with you. And obviously it can mean more business for you that that would be my because I was looking for stuff like that. I was thinking about hitting Man, these great stories of these houses and the great things you've done with them so but appreciate you coming on today. We got his number right. One. Give it one more time. 954-802-1305, get a hold of Alan. Get consulted on your on your next flip. Thanks, folks.