Not so fast

After getting framing up quickly and siding done soon after, it seems like it has taken forever to get to the next steps. Looks like cabinets going in this week, so should have alot more to share soon.

That was fast

Our subs don’t mess around. Framed, trusses placed and roof completed in three days!

Now, that most of the trucks will be off the lawn I need to switch into landscaping mode for the next two months. Oh yeah, and I almost forgot about the backyard. Lots of work to do there as well.

Raise the Roof!

The roof, the roof, the roof.... has come off! After delays in permit approvals, sub contractor availability and scheduling postponements due to weather, the renovation has begun on the flip house. Now if the Fed would do me a favor and ease mortgage rates like they have talked about for this fall, we should be looking good.

Next up: trusses craned onto the second floor and presto!- our little cape will be a colonial.

We’re Really Doing This?

Sitting upstairs at the Hudson, OH Welcome center in front of the architectural review board, I feel like the members of Delta Tau Chi Fraternity as they went in front of the Dean to plead their case not to be kicked off campus in the classic comedy “Animal House”.

You see, all plans need to be given the approval of the board and our town is not really big on change. Thankfully, we stuck pretty much to the recipe: Colonial, Hardie Board siding, stone that wraps to an inside corner, etc.

The one wrinkle was the window accents. If you want to place decorative shutters, they need to “look” as if they could actually cover the windows- never mind that they don’t “actually” cover the windows. Not liking our choices for those types of faux shutters, we adjusted on the fly for awnings instead. With that, we were given the blessing of the board and three weeks later we had our building permits.

Getting Started

“Why don’t we build a spec home?” That was our first thought after we realized what it cost to build our first home together in 2020 and what we realized it was worth at the end of 2023. You see, my wife had been working for a builder for years and doing renovations on the side for her own company, A & D Construction Group and I had been dabbling in real estate investment beginning with turning my previous home in CT into a Long Term rental. During the summer of 2022, I got bored with long term rentals- I had been doing it for 10 years and grew tired of trying to get tenants out at the end of leases- and got excited about Short Term rentals. We purchased a condo on the beach in the pan handle of Florida off of Route 30A after selling the CT property and I entered the world of Airbnb as a host. After a year of figuring out how to market and manage that property, not to mention the lessons I learned in financing a STR with a like-kind section 1031 exchange, I figured I am pretty good with numbers and real estate finance and my wife has the experience and a network of sub contractors, so like two great tastes that taste great together- who better than us to develop homes?

So, armed with some money from a HELOC on our primary residence, I reached out to real estate investors- hard money lenders- and told them my story of how I was an amazing real estate investor and my wife had 10 years of experience building and renovating homes and we wanted $500K to build a spec home. I’m not going to say they laughed in my face- I did email them so I luckily it wouldnt have even been possible to tell- but all said the same thing: Three fix n flips in my own LLC name and then we can talk. Well, that’s just the first three firms I reached out to, surely the next 10 will be different when I explain the level of expertise we are bringing to the table. Yeah, no. We were dead in the water before we started. However, like all success stories, we just needed to adjust and pivot. Step one- the formation of the Thompson Development Group.