Many people are intrigued by and interested in the business of flipping houses, which is the buying of a property at a low cost, renovating and fixing them up, and then reselling them at a profit. However, most people don't realize the unique set of skills and knowledge required to successfully manage a flip project.
This week on my Ask Christina First Radio show, I had the privilege of interviewing Stephen Mckee. I interviewed Stephen last year and you can read the blog post from that interview here. This year however Stephen was kind enough to come on my radio show and discuss he and his partner Todd's Community Restoration Group which is a group he created to teach young flippers how to get into and manage the flipping business.
Stephen McKee is a partner in Community Restoration Group (CRG) and one of the hosts of Inland Empire Real Estate Investment Club. The goal of those organization is to educate new real estate investors and bring capital to joint venture deals. Stephen has been in the real estate business since 2002 and has been actively investing since 2005.
Stephen says CRG actually came about as a result of being pigeonholed as a "flipper" after 14 years of flipping houses. No one was teaching on flipping, well, outside of the programs that cost anywhere from $20k-$70k. Most people aren't capable of implementing what they learn there so they looked at those and other hard money lender joint venture programs and it didn't make sense for he and Todd as lenders to do that. So, after people kept asking about it, people who didn't want to use out-of-pocket money, we decided to start CRG.
People don't realize that flipping houses is a small business; every house you buy is like running a small store. People look for magic when it comes to flipping, it's purchasing for 75% minus repairs as a formula, but that only tells you want part of the project. Stephen wanted people to be able to listen to what he was teaching and immediately be able to start working on their property, present their work to a mentor or lender and have their due diligence already done. He wanted people to take the outline and plug the numbers in when they see flip deals on TV and understand whether people profited and if not, why.
Stephen and Todd agreed that it's boring to be rich and alone so they decided to teach people so they could enjoy their success together as a group. He says they started the Inland Empire Real Estate Investment Club with the sole intention of raising money from investors and unexpectedly a community was born. They realized that people valued their level of experience and now, with 130 or so people at their meetings they enjoy the teaching and helping to change people's lives.
Now, Stephen and Todd give away content that gives people the tools to find and analyze a deal and to figure out if it's something they enjoy doing. There are people he says who excel and realize you can use real estate to change their lives in any direction they want.
You can find out more at Communityrestorationgroup.com and access all the free tools and content he and Todd provide. You can also call CRG at 951.777.9966 or email [email protected]
