You Could Have More Equity Than You Think! (How to Use It)

It’s the situation every real estate investor wants to be in: your house just appraised for more than you expected. Now, you’ve got some home equity added to your net worth, but how do you use it? Should you keep it in the property and maintain low leverage, or use home equity to scale your real estate portfolio more quickly? We’re answering common real estate questions like this one and a lot more in today’s show! James Dainard joins the show as our veteran real estate investor, owning hundreds of rental units, flipping thousands of houses, and lending millions of dollars. He started as a rookie during the Great Financial Crisis, and today, he’s sharing his hard-earned lessons so you don’t have to make the same mistakes. We’re touching on: What to do with your home equity when your house appraises high How to estimate rehab costs on a renovation or house flip Becoming a private money lender (serious passive income!) Interior design 101, even if you have zero experience in home renovations Whether we should finally kill the 1% rule in real estate (maybe it’s time) Got an investing question? Ask yours on the BiggerPockets Forums! In This Episode We Cover How to use home equity to invest (and whether you should with 7% mortgage rates) Estimating renovation costs on your next rehab or house flip (for free!) Interior design on a budget and how to build a “spec list” of what your house flip needs Private money lending for beginners and how to (passively) make serious cash flow The 1% rule explained and why it isn’t so safe in 2025 And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1148 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dave Meyer?

  Did you know that it's possible for your property to appraise for even more than you expected? Well, it can. And if that happens, you're going to have some great options on your hand that you need to think through. Today, we'll break down what to do if you find yourself in that fortunate scenario and much more.

• 0:21Dave Meyer?

  Hey, everyone. Dave here. It's BiggerPockets Forum's question and answer time once again. Today, I have James Dainard here with me, and we're going to tackle a few of the most burning questions we could find from investors and aspiring investors in the BiggerPockets community. James and I are going to talk about how to approach interior design if you're doing a renovation, whether the 1% rule is really, truly dead, how to pivot if your house is suddenly worth more than you expected, and a few other great topics. James, you ready to help the people?

• 0:53Speaker 01

  This is my favorite type of episode. If anyone has met me at BPCon, they know I just sit there and will talk and answer questions all day long.

• 1:00Dave Meyer?

  We picked some questions that are right up your alley, so I think you're going to like these ones. Should we jump in?

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Let's jump in. Let's see what the needs are.

• 1:06Dave Meyer?

  The first one comes from Katie in Richmond, who has a very good problem on her hands. She says, "I found a duplex and negotiated with the seller to purchase under asking at 340." Awesome. "I can rent it out for $3,000 a month total and project positive cash flow. Plan was to use a DSCR, which is a debt service coverage ratio loan, to finance at 25% loan to value. I just received the appraisal back and the house appraised much higher than I expected at 407." So she's got under contract 340, appraised for 407. She asks, "For those of you that are more experienced, would you change your financing or business model based on this new information?" James, what would you do? I'm sure this

• 1:49Dave Meyer?

  has happened to you in your career, where you found yourself a great deal, appraised for over asking. Does it change your approach?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  It does. You want to use leverage correctly, though. The beautiful thing about that for her is the bank will lend her more now, and you can get your cash back. As investors, we use cash as our gunpowder. How do we go buy another deal? And so I think the question would be, if I refinance out more, I don't want to take it past the cash flow. I want it to break even.

• 2:17Dave Meyer?

  Right. You don't want to take out such a big loan just because you can. You don't want to take on so much debt that you're now not going to be... Earning a return every month.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's where everyone got in trouble in 2008. Everyone was doing that.

• 2:29Dave Meyer?

  Too much debt.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Too much debt. And then it was like, well, I can take this money and go make more with it, which is true. But then once the wheels come off, you're in bad shape. And so I would say, you know, look at your monthly payment now. Talk to your mortgage professional, see how much can you pull out to where you still cash flow just a little bit. Then you know what that number is, you know, let's say you can get an extra 30 grand out of that loan. But the thing you want to think about as an investor is, do I have a plan for that money? Can I go get another duplex and buy that? Or am I doing one for the year? If I'm going to do one for the year, I'm actually not going to lever up because why borrow money at a higher rate right now? It's seven and a half percent with a DSCR, if not higher.

• 3:09Dave Meyer?

  So in that case, you just sit on your equity, right?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  I just sit on my equity because it's like, don't take the money just because you can. Take it if you can then reinvest it and make more than eight and a half percent. Whatever the interest rate is, that's always my question. What's my interest rate today? Well, if I can borrow from a bank at eight percent and refinance, get that money back out or have it. But then I can go invest it and lend money at 10 to 11 percent with hard money. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense after tax. And so if you have a purpose that will grow higher than your interest rate and you feel good about it and then you can deploy it quickly, then I would look at doing it. If not, leave it alone. You don't need the money. Don't pay interest on money you don't need.

• 3:48Dave Meyer?

  Right, absolutely. I totally agree. And if you wind up not having something else lined up that you're excited to go buy, you can always refinance and take the equity out. You can get a line of credit against the property to go borrow against all this equity that you have sitting in this property. So you have options and it's not like you have to stick with that forever. But I totally agree with James. There's no reason, just because you can, you shouldn't do it because it could be to your actual detriment instead of as a benefit.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and if I'm in growth phase where I'm like, I really want to take myself to the next level, get more rentals, really invest, you know, especially when I was a newer investor, I would always do it because it was like, all right, break even, I need, I need that money back to go buy another house. And so, you know, as long as you have a purpose, it works out.

• 4:31Dave Meyer?

  All right. Well, I knew you were the guy to answer this question. I'm glad I had you for support. We do have another question that's right up your alley, James, but first we have to take a quick break. We'll be right back. How many deals have you lost just because you didn't follow up in time? Or maybe you missed a call from a motivated seller while you're on another appointment? That's where ReSimpli's new AI agents come in. They answer your calls, make follow-up calls to leads, score motivation, and even coach your sales team automatically. It's like having a virtual team that works 24/7 so you never miss a deal again. Check it out at resimpli.com/biggerpockets. That's R-E-S-I-M-P-L-I.com/biggerpockets.

• 5:18Dave Meyer?

  I just booked a backpacking trip through Olympic National Park. Two nights out on the trail, no cell service, nothing to do but eat trail mix and stare at mountains I'll never get tired of. That's the whole appeal. But while I'm off-grid, my place doesn't need to sit empty. I can list my space on Airbnb and make a little extra income while I'm away. And with Airbnb's co-host network, I could partner with a vetted local co-host to help take care of the details, from guest communications to onsite support, so I can fully unplug and enjoy my time out in the backcountry. If you've got upcoming travel plans, you can find a co-host at Airbnb.com/host.

• 5:59Dave Meyer?

  Some listeners may wonder why their insurance quote only took 30 seconds. Some listeners may wonder why their insurance quote took 30 seconds. A better question is, how long will that policy actually hold up when you need it? At Enreg, the goal isn't just getting coverage in place. It's making sure your investment property is properly protected when a real claim happens. That's why they take time to evaluate. Evaluate each property's unique risks and build coverage design for the realities investors face. Because anyone can sell a policy. NREG focuses on standing behind it. Visit n r e i g dot com slash B P L L C to learn more. Finding a strong rental property usually takes time.

• 6:44Dave Meyer?

  Research and calculated risk. Lennar Investor Marketplace helps simplify all of that. With a free account, investors can browse new construction homes built for rental potential alongside real time data showing estimated returns, expenses, and local market insights. It's all in one dashboard, making it easier to compare opportunities and move when the right deal shows up. Go to biggerpockets dot com slash Lennar to create a free account and take a look. That's biggerpockets dot com slash L E N N A R. Sign up for free and start exploring this smart investing opportunity today. Please consult your own legal and tax advisors to help evaluate the risks of any real estate transaction. Lennar is an equal housing opportunity builder.

• 7:28Dave Meyer?

  Trying to get started in real estate investing or wholesaling? The hardest part is finding and talking to motivated sellers before everyone else does. That's why new investors are using PropStream. PropStream gives you access to over 160 million properties nationwide, plus simple AI tools that help you find better deals faster. Use pre-built lead lists like pre-foreclosures, vacant homes, and cash buyers, then let the PropStream intelligence assistant help you analyze properties and estimate opportunities in seconds. And now with PropStream Connect, you can do more than just find leads. You can actually contact them. You get free skip tracing, including LLC and corporate contacts. You can launch dialer campaigns, use click to dial with AI

• 8:13Dave Meyer?

  prompts, automate follow-up marketing, and send postcards, all from one platform. No experience needed. You'll also get accurate comps, built-in calculators, and step-by-step training through PropStream Academy, so you know exactly what to do next. Start your free seven-day trial and get 50 free leads at W W W dot PropStream dot com slash B P. That's W W W dot P R O P S T R E A M dot com slash B P.

• 8:47Dave Meyer?

  Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I'm here with James Daynard answering your questions. James, our second question is another one tailor-made for you. We cherry picked it just for your expertise. It comes from TioSam in Washington DC who said, "I recently purchased a property to fix and flip. I'm a contractor, so the renovation aspect, well within my expertise. However, I'm facing a challenge when it comes to choosing the interior design elements, such as bathroom tiles, paint colors, fixtures, et cetera. I would love to hear how you approach this process. Are there any apps or tools that you find particularly helpful? Should I consider hiring a professional designer even though my budget is quite limited? How would you answer this question, James?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Hiring a designer and cramming it into a budget that we're already tied on can be difficult. I used to do it way back in like 2009 because a designer would charge me like 900 bucks because it was so slow in the business. People would just want to work, right? Find the gaps, find when people are at work.

• 9:47Dave Meyer?

  Yeah, like you said, a lot of gaps in 2009.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and nowadays, like I remember I met some designers out in Newport Beach just to get the, and it was like $30,000, $40,000 if not more.

• 9:57Dave Meyer?

  Interior design can get expensive quick.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Yes, and they're very talented. It's a different thing. I do think they're worth every penny for what they put out, but we can't make it work for us as investors. And so, you know, the best thing that you can do, and you know, is you guys, when you're selling a flip property, it's not, I'm a firm believer, it's not about the discount broker that's going to cut your commission. It's going to be about finding the broker that you can get to do more things for you. And so, first thing is, best way to get ideas, take the comps that you used or actives that are pending or are in the same price point, go drive them with your broker and then make a spec list for it. You just have to copy whatever is selling at that point, you know, print out the photos. Worst case scenario, if you have no design, print out the photos of the house that you're using for your value.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  What upgrades did that, what tile did they use, what color cabinets, what countertops, and just do what they do.

• 10:48Dave Meyer?

  You know, if you walk into a house and you see a tile, how do you figure out what tile that is?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  You have to look at the materials. For that and for him being a contractor, but if you're not a contractor, you can, there's a lot of difference. It's important to go walk through these houses, a couple of them to go, okay, you know, what kind of flooring is here? Is it LVP or is it engineered floors? Are the doors hollow or are they solid? You know, cause the style is easy to copy. It's about picking the right, you know, material quality and you have to touch it to see it. Now I have had, look, now my eyes so trained, I can look at a picture online and go, that's LVP just based on a shimmer of the floor. Or like how it lays out, but it just go walk through the projects and look through them. And then, you know, there is a lot of talented brokers throughout the whole US that will do design suggestions.

• 11:34Dave Meyer?

  Oh, really?

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Based on you hire them. You know, our team at Heat and D in a real estate does it, but they're kind of trained that way. But many, many brokers like in Arizona, every broker I've talked to, they all have a design background here. And they're like, oh, I can help you with this and I can send you these colors. Cause I'm like, what's on trend down here? That's going to be different than the trend up in, in Washington. And so, you know, those things will really work. And then one other tip is go to your flooring and tile suppliers. Many of them will have a designer that will throw it in if you do your order.

• 12:04Dave Meyer?

  Oh, really?

• 12:05Speaker 01

  And they'll lay the whole thing out. Just make sure you bring them your allowance sheet. That's the biggest thing. I will not pay more than this for this type of floor. Or in general, and you can get free design services with a lot of these big companies.

• 12:16Dave Meyer?

  So just to recap, you basically start by doing your comps, right? Essentially copy what your competition is doing, right? You say, what is selling at the price point that I'm trying to sell for? What is my business plan? What am I, what are my layouts like? And then copy the quality and style that is working because, you know, you need to be competitive with what buyers are going to be seeing elsewhere. Right? They're probably going to tour similar houses and you want to make sure that you're essentially at least matching the quality and probably something relatively similar in style.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I will say a lot of buyers, you know, it depends on the market that you're in. I think Newport Beach, the buyers really understand product and quality almost too much. But I will say, I've sold a lot of houses where I'm like, this is a much nicer house. Like I, you know, I have one right now where the quality of build is phenomenal with what we started with. I would never put this stuff in this house if we flipped it. Buyers really look at the cosmetics more than anything else and it's about picking the right design. They don't really know if it's a dollar tile or $3 tile. And a lot of flips and that's any, I mean, and that's in a lot of price points, especially under a couple of million. You know, it's more about the design and look and how you pull that off. You don't always have to spend the most on your materials. You just got to implement it the right way.

• 13:32Dave Meyer?

  Great. Well, very good advice here again on flipping houses from James Dainard. Let's move on to our third question, which comes from a BiggerPockets forum poster named Jonathan, who says, "I've researched private lending and decided that's how I'd like to enter the real estate space. I have enough capital that I can make a few loans while still maintaining a healthy stock portfolio. How do I get the ball rolling? Do I begin by getting a solid contract from an attorney? Do I contact appraisers and title insurance agencies to find one that I could use? Since they only want to lend locally, how do I get my name out there and start my search for borrowers? I don't want to come across as not serious and waste time for agents or borrowers."

• 14:14Dave Meyer?

  James, you do some private lending, so tell us a little bit about your recommendations for getting started in what I think is a great business, really interesting lucrative niche of real estate investing to be in.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Private money lending is one of my favorite investment engines that I do. You know, I buy rental properties for assets to grow. I use private money lending for my passive income. And honestly, I keep probably 50% of my capital now in that because it does so well.

• 14:41Dave Meyer?

  And just before you do that, James, let me just describe for people what that is because they might not know what private money lending is. But basically, at least for you, right, you're lending to flippers, to developers, people who need relatively short-term loans to do a renovation or do a big project. It's sort of a shorter term loan at a higher interest rate, somewhere between 10 and 15%. You charge a couple of points at the beginning of the loan. And so you can make double-digit cash on cash return relatively. Easily. That's what you would expect as a, as a hard money lender, as a private lender, right?

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, depending on who the operator is, what position I'm in in the loan, I'll charge more and more interest. If I'm in the second position alone, I'm going to charge a lot more. If it's an inexperienced operator, I might charge more for security because there's risk with every type of deal. And that is the one thing about private money lending. It is great for passive income until it goes wrong.

• 15:31Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  And if it goes wrong, I've seen people lose millions of dollars in bad loans, especially when I remember in 2008, when there was a lot of seconds and thirds floating around, we saw just flat lines on big companies. And so you have to be careful. And so how you protect yourself, the first thing that you want to do, if you want to become a private money lender, is to go talk to a securities attorney and a real estate attorney, because the documents that you're going to create as your loan docs are what protects your money against that asset. You can take a template, but bring it to someone local in your market that really understands the lending laws, what you can do, what you can't do, and then have those documents tweaked and corrected. Make sure your documents are good. The second

• 16:13Speaker 01

  thing is, don't worry about finding the loans yet. Build the team that can underwrite your loan correctly for you. In every market that I lend in, I have one broker, because if I don't know that market that well, I have to understand, you know, if a flipper's sending me a package, I got to verify those numbers. And so you have to be able to look at the asset and find out where you are at as far as a loan to value, because the loan to value is what protects you on your money. You know, if something goes wrong, as a lender, if we have to take it back, we want to know that we can sell that and either get our balance back, or even maybe make some money. And so those are the first two people. Finding the operators, you know, there's some really cool, different data providers out there.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  They will pull you flippers in your market that have been buying and selling. And you can also see how many deals that they've done. Those are the best operators to talk to, because they've been in the market a while, they know what they're doing. And if something goes wrong, they know how to kind of mitigate that risk. And so I would start going that way. Look for the bigger guys, because the first people you're going to find, and there's nothing wrong with this, but they're going to be a lot newer. Need the money. They need to get in the game and they're going to do whatever they can to get that money. And the operator is really what's going to protect you. And so start with experience, you know, and I lend money to new investors all the time. But I can kind of look at the deal. I can look at the person. I can take their answers. I can gauge it a little bit better.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  So start with the experience once in your market, reaching out to brokers that you see selling a lot of flips in your market. Call them, talk to them. Who are their clients? Who are their bigger clients? Do they need capital? That helps the broker get a deal done. Those are great ways to get started.

• 17:51Dave Meyer?

  Awesome. Great. So just to recap, James said, first thing that you should do is talk to a relevant attorney, either securities or real estate or both types of attorney to make sure that you're getting your documents in a row and that you're properly protected. And I want to talk just in a minute about how to protect yourself and sort of the mechanisms for that. But the second thing James said was finding someone to help you underwrite that deal. James gave the example of working with a local agent who can help pull comps for you to understand what the true value of the property is today, what the after repair value is going to be after the work is all done. To make sure that as a private lender, if the operator does not perform,

• 18:32Dave Meyer?

  you have to take that property back and you don't want to be paying full price for that. That's going to put you in a bad position. You should be able to retake that property at a 70% LTV or an 80% LTV or whatever it is you deem appropriate. So that was step number two. And then the third step was going to find operators and James, I think rightfully recommended trying to focus at first on experienced operators who have a very high chance of performing before moving on to perhaps some of the riskier types of assets where you could maybe earn a stronger profit. But that's going to be just a more complicated procedure. Did I get that right, James?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  You nailed all three.

• 19:06Dave Meyer?

  Good. But you mentioned something a little bit earlier about first, seconds and thirds and sort of getting your ducks in a row, getting your documents in a row. So just so everyone knows, when you take out a loan against a property, there are different positions. So your first position loan, like if you go to buy a regular house, your mortgage is going to be a first position loan, which means that if you default on your Loan, that bank has the first claim to the asset, right? And then if there's a second loan, like say you take out a second loan to pay for your down payment. That might be a second lien or a second position loan. And they can only get paid back once the first position is paid back and so forth.

• 19:48Dave Meyer?

  And so the first position loan usually has the lower interest rate, but has less risk. Second position loan, higher interest rate, but higher risk and so on. And you talked a little bit about how you adjust your own rates, James, based on whether your first or second position. But as a new investor, would you even recommend people go into second position loans? Or should they try and do first position loans?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  First position loans are the safest ones. That's where you want to be. And I would recommend that people go that way. The one issue with the first position loans, a lot of times is some private money lenders that are lending 50 grand at a time or a hundred grand at a time.

• 20:24Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  They don't have enough to cover that whole loan.

• 20:27Dave Meyer?

  First can be big.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just they just don't have the liquidity, but they want to keep their money working. And so, you know, if you can be in a first position loan, that's where you want to be. But if you can't, that's where a lot of people have to go into those seconds. And that's also where the biggest demand and need are from investors because they want more liquidity. They can get, you know, get in a first position hard money loan from an institutional company, a lot easier. They need that gap funding in there. And so I just don't want to promise sunshine and bunnies that you're going to get all these loans because you have enough capital to cover too.

• 20:59Dave Meyer?

  For sure.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  And so then it comes down to if you have to go into a junior lien position, a second or a third. Don't recommend thirds for people, you know, try to stay in a second position. You know, making sure you understand what that first position loan is. You need to know what the terms of that loan are. What if it ballooned payments in three months and you're promising to give the guy a loan for 12 months? So, you know, to reduce the risk, you got to understand what's the terms? How long is it good for? What's the interest rate? What's the total loan balance out of that? And I like to know if it's on a construction loan. Because the loan balance could be less if the operator doesn't finish the project out.

• 21:39Dave Meyer?

  Yep.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  And so I want to know all those things. And then also, what is their default clause? Because some hard money lenders will charge 24% on the way out the door if they fall behind, which will, you know, you have to look at that. If that compounds on your balance, you can go from a 70% loan to value to 85% really fast.

• 21:57Dave Meyer?

  Yeah. All right. Well, that's good advice. Thank you, James. I, you know, I've started dabbling a little bit into private money lending. And it's a great, it's a great business. You can earn really solid returns, but I do them sort of in funds or I buy notes. I don't underwrite them myself, at least at this point in my career. But if you have the capital and you are looking for cash flow, I really recommend people learn more about it. There's actually a great BiggerPockets book called Lend to Live. It teaches you all about the basics of private money lending. And if you are looking for cash flow, really, really good business to consider. I think it's something that a lot of people sort of later in your investing career get into and just realize that it can be a really good business. And definitely recommend you check it out.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Private money lending is great if you don't want to deal with tenant headaches. Because you actually make more on your return as far as cash flow goes, but it is high tax. So you got to watch that, too.

• 22:48Dave Meyer?

  I knew these questions were right up your alley. You're just knocking these down one at a time. We got two more for you, but first we have to take a quick break. We'll be right back. For my wife's birthday, I wanted to make her a new website for her landscape design business. So I researched a lot of different options. I tried out a couple, but honestly, it was really overwhelming. It was pretty time consuming and still the site wasn't coming out the way I wanted it to. Then I tried Hostinger and everything was super simple. I asked Hostinger's AI to build a clean site for her business and it had a working version up in minutes. No coding or designer needed. Plus, its AI agent helps with SEO, website copy and email marketing after

• 23:32Dave Meyer?

  launch. You get domain, website, email, all in one account. And right now you can get Black Friday and Cyber Monday pricing through December 14th.

• 23:43Dave Meyer?

  Nag Hostinger's services at their lowest prices before the sale ends. Create your website today for just $1.99. Go to hostinger.com/realestate and use code REALESTATE for an additional 10% off Black Friday and Cyber Monday pricing. I just booked a ski trip to Park City and I've already got the whole thing planned out. Five days, first tracks every morning before the crowds show up, my knees reminding me I'm not 25 anymore by the second run, and an embarrassing number of overpriced burritos at the lodge. I don't even care. This is the trip I look forward to all year. But here's the part I actually appreciate. The practical side of my brain kicking in is that my place doesn't have to just sit

• 24:26Dave Meyer?

  there empty the whole time I'm away. I can list my space on Airbnb and bring in a little extra income while I'm out getting humbled on a mountain. And with the co-host network, I'm not the one handling all of it. You can partner with a vetted local co-host who can create your listing, manage reservations, message guests, and even handle the styling. So I get to fully focus on my trip and my place is still working for me the whole time. Find a co-host at airbnb.com/host. Investing in real estate has always been smart, but it hasn't always been simple. Now it's both, thanks to the Fundrise Flagship Fund. The Fundrise Flagship Fund launched more than five years ago with a mission of delivering

• 25:09Dave Meyer?

  low-fee access to blue-chip private market real estate. Today, the Fundrise Flagship Fund has grown to manage more than $1 billion of real estate on behalf of hundreds of thousands of investors, making it one of the largest funds of its kind. For those who believe real estate has an important role to play in their portfolio strategy, the Fundrise Flagship Fund has positioned itself as both a simple and a smart option. Whether you're starting with $10 or $10,000, the Fundrise Flagship Fund makes adding real estate's unique potential for both passive income and consistent growth. Just visit fundrise.com/pockets to make your first investment today.

• 25:50Dave Meyer?

  Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund before investing. This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at fundrise.com/flagship. This is a paid advertisement.

• 26:04Henry Washington?

  BiggerPockets Real Estate is brought to you by MOD. MOD prescribes a once or twice daily modophonal drink that can keep you energized, focused, and alert throughout the day. Here's the mechanism. Energy drinks with caffeine temporarily block eudeneine, the chemical that makes you tired. It builds up, and when the caffeine wears off, it all crashes down on you at once. Modafinil works differently. It engages multiple pathways in your brain, dopamine, norepinephrine, histamine, and orexin to achieve steady energy and alertness for 10 to 12 hours. Modafinil was invented in the 1970s, and since it's been used in the highest performers on the planet, soldiers, pilots, and astronauts aboard the space station use modafinil in

• 26:45Henry Washington?

  high-stakes situations where full concentration and alertness are paramount. It's now available at mod.com to qualifying patients. Visit mod.com, that's M-O-D dot com, for free consultation and get 10% off your first order plus free shipping with promo code BPRE. That's promo code BPRE at mod.com. See their website for important safety information, and we thank MOD for sponsoring the pod.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 27:46Dave Meyer?

  We're back with the BiggerPockets Podcast. James Danard is just crushing flipping and private lending questions right now. We got two more questions for him. So first question is from an investor named Deborah in Colorado. She says, "One of the trickiest parts of flipping houses for me has always been figuring out how to accurately estimate rehab cost. There's always a surprise that eats into the budget and profits, whether it's skyrocketing, material prices, or finding something unexpected during the demo. So I'm curious, how do you approach rehab budgeting? Are there any tools or strategies you swear by? And what's one mistake you'd tell someone new to avoid?" There are a couple of questions in there. Let's start with the first one here, James,

• 28:30Dave Meyer?

  which is just how do you approach rehab budgeting? That's a big question, but do you have like a framework you can help Deborah and our audience use to understand how to approach this?

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is probably the hardest thing to do as an investor is like really judging the budget, right? Especially if you don't have a general contractor going out there. How we've done it, and we kind of have two different tools that we built internally, where we have a spreadsheet that really breaks down standardized install rates throughout our market, because there's a lot of things that you can break down into install rates that are fairly simple and easy to get for information wise. Like, for example, if I want to install engineered hardwoods, I know in my market, it costs me $2.25 to $2.50 a square foot. From there, as long as I know what things are installed for, it's up to me as the investor to select the right materials, and then that will give me the budgeting for my whole flooring throughout my, my project.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  And so what I always suggest is kind of start with the framework is always find out what the cosmetic install rates are, like a cabinet box in the kitchen, $25. The simpler items, and then start working backwards into the mechanicals. But what we use a lot for budgeting, just for a simple fashion, is we do a price per square foot, where we just allocate a price per square foot for cosmetics. Like, we know in Seattle, we can do a house, if it's just the cosmetics, that's paint, millwork, doors, trim, we can do that for about $20 a square foot.

• 29:57Dave Meyer?

  That's not bad, actually, even for Seattle?

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's just, though, for millwork, paint, trim out, door handles. And so it's, it's fairly affordable at that point. But then, from there, we just kind of go with standard blocks, like a kitchen, $10,000, and we look at for the averages. And for new investors, the best thing you can do is go to your meetup groups, go to the BiggerPockets forums, talk to investors in your area, because my pricing is different than it is in California, or my pricing is different than it is in Ohio. And, and costs, and labor costs different. But talk to your local investors that have done projects, and many of them will even send over a quote to you if you ask, and you can start working a quote backwards on a price per square foot.

• 30:39Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  And then allocate it per year bill eras, because the older the house, the more variance you're going to have.

• 30:44Dave Meyer?

  Oh, interesting. So like, if you got a quote... For the same kind of work on a 1950s era house versus 1920s era house, the 20s house is obviously going to be more expensive.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so for us, like when we run our price per square foot, based on the averages of collected data from our projects or other investors, on a 1920s house, we run that at a hundred and $10 a square foot to take it to studs and renovate the whole thing. For our 1950s, we run at $80 a square foot. For our 1970s, we actually run it at $70 a square foot. And the newer the house, the less major changes. And so that's what brings that square footage down. So we actually do it in blocks of the era by about 20 years, give or take.

• 31:26Dave Meyer?

  Are there other things that you would recommend for newbie flippers to avoid to reduce that variance? Cause you said that earlier about variance, and I think that's super important, right? Like you can come up with this general rule of thumb for how much it's going to cost per square foot. And you're probably relatively close, but there are all sorts of things per the question that are going to throw that off. So the age of the house is one. Are there other things that perhaps new investors should avoid because it carries some risk that it's going to take you off your budget?

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and to avoid that variance, always add a contingency in. If it's a project I've never done before, or it's a little bit newer for me, I throw a 10 to 15% contingency on. If it's a newer house that we've done a lot of, I throw a 5% contingency on. And so always have that padding on there. That is probably the biggest thing, but the thing that crushes investors the most on their budgets is when they misjudge floor plans. Where, you know, they may be looking at a house that's a three bed, one bath, and their comps are three bed, one bath, but the square footage is weird. The kitchen's in small spots. The bedrooms are weird sized, they're unbalanced. The cost of the framing and manipulating a building is what really blows up a budget. And I hear it all the time from investors, they're like, how did you do the house for

• 32:44Speaker 01

  a hundred grand? I'm like, well, I only moved one wall. That's the key. You know, and so if you want to stay away from the headache projects, the less manipulating you have to do of a footprint. The much more seamless your project is going to go.

• 32:57Dave Meyer?

  That's very good advice. Yeah, I'm learning a little bit about flipping from James and this seems to be a key thing that he is always hammering on is like, try and limit how much big structural work you have or doing it limits your permits, times and, and the cost and complexity of the project. So that's great advice. Any other last mistakes that you think our audience should avoid if they're new to flipping?

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Don't just go off of what people said that it should cost to renovate a house. Go off of the people that you know that you're working with pricing. Because you know, I hear this all the time, like, oh, well, you can do this for 80 grand. I'm like, well, my team's can do it for 120. So I have to go with 120. But if I went with the 80,000, I'm going to be in, in, in deep trouble. And, and so one of the best things that a newer investor or any investor can do is act as if, don't go out and say, hey, I'm a brand new investor. We, can I talk to you about quoting a house? Call a listing broker. If it's sitting on market forever and it's a fixer and they want to, or ask if you can bring some contractors through to get some quotes to practice. Tell the contractors you bought the house or you're secured under contract.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Get three quotes and then look at each quote and then go, how much does this cost to me on a per foot basis? Like electrical. If it's 10 grand, you got a 2,000 square foot house. Then you can go, okay, 10,000 divided by 2,000 square feet. This is my average price per square foot for electrical. And then you could put that by line item and it make it very simple, but just always get the numbers for yourself, then work it backwards.

• 34:27Dave Meyer?

  Just out of curiosity, when you get quotes from three different subs on it, let's just call, let's stick with electrical. How big of a variance do you see sometimes? Like, how far apart can some of the quotes be?

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Massively, like double or triple. And these are people I know too. So I know they're valued. The biggest mistake people make is they think that once they find a good electrician, that they're going to stay, their pricing is going to always stay the same. But for us as investors, we want to find the people with the gaps. Who does not have a lot of work right now? That's who's going to be competitive. I mean, my furnace guy, and I love the guy. He doubled his pricing on us over the last two years. We stopped using him. Now he's got gaps in his schedule. He called us up and he goes, okay, I can hit those numbers. And we said, well, now we found a cheaper guy. And now that guy's pricing because he has to be competitive. So always look for the gaps. If your electrician's pricing you high, call another electrician. Who does not have work going on? That's the key.

• 35:24Dave Meyer?

  That's great. Yeah. And, and really good advice there to get as many quotes. It seems time consuming though, right? Cause if you're just getting three quotes from electrician, then you need to do that for every sub that you're going to work. This could take a long time, but that's kind of the whole business, right? Like that's what you gotta do it.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And breaking it down to an hourly rate, if I'm going to spend 10 hours quoting a bunch of items out, but I can save $10,000, that's a thousand bucks an hour I'm saving. And so it's worth it every time to get that, that cost down.

• 35:53Dave Meyer?

  All right. Well, you're mowing these down quickly. We have one more for you, James. It comes from Anthony and this one is an investor in Phoenix that can really only be answered by someone like you currently looking at deals in Arizona. So hopefully you can help them out. Anthony says, we are all aware of the 1% rule. That's a property's rent should be at least 1% of the purchase price. And that's monthly rent, just so everyone knows should be 1% of the purchase price. This is a rule that came about in, you know, 2012, 2013. And Anthony is asking, does this hold true for Arizona? It just seems to me that buying at sub 1% is almost not worth it because the cash and cash return is much lower.

• 36:34Dave Meyer?

  I can make offers at the 1% rule, but these would often be at around 60% of asking price. I know deals like this get done all the time, but I have a little luck targeting sellers that are motivated enough. If not 1%, what metric do you use? I have a lot of thoughts about this, but you take this one first.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  You know, I use like the 70% rule, the 1% rule. Those are just gauges for me to investigate more on that property.

• 36:59Dave Meyer?

  Yep.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  You know, and if it hits above 1%, I'm going, okay, this is probably a pretty good cash flow deal I need to really dig into. If it doesn't, but it's close. Let's say it's hitting point eight percent instead of one. It still tells me to dig in deeper because a lot of times with rental properties, it's not just about the one percent cash flow because when I buy a rental and I keep it, I'm keeping this for at least five to 10 years or at least trading it out. And so it gives me the gauge of cash flow, but I'm going to really research more appreciation, zoning, upside on the property and to see if I can really hit that accelerator. And if you're looking at deals where the one percent, just you're 60% of asking, you want to go into a different neighborhood.

• 37:37Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Because it's just not working. There's definitely more affordable neighborhoods, markets where you can still get really close, if not get it. And so if it's not working, you gotta go out like one percent Seattle is not going to work for me.

• 37:49Dave Meyer?

  No, that's no, no way. In a lot of expensive markets, it's really just not going to work.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  No, but if I go and I want that, then I can go over to Eastern Washington where it's a lot more affordable. And look at that, but there's going to be less growth. And so take it as an underwriting tool, then look for the additional upside.

• 38:04Dave Meyer?

  You know, I don't think the one percent rule is dead. I've said this before and I'll say it again. I think that at this point it does more harm than good. I think a lot of people get sort of anchored to this idea that one percent, they have to have one percent. They're only offering deals of one percent. Like, I'm not surprised sellers aren't taking your 60% of asking price offer. That's probably not going to happen unless it's a really mispriced house or it's a real, a place that needs a lot of work. Generally speaking, I'll just give you a little bit of context here. The rent, average rent to price ratio right now in the United States is point five, five. So you're not even close to one percent. If you're in more expensive markets like Phoenix or Seattle, you're probably at point four.

• 38:46Dave Meyer?

  You know, so you have to remember that we're just in a different era of real estate investing and one percent ruled deals. Unless you're in a lower growth kind of market or a property that needs a lot of work, you're probably not getting one percent. Unless you're maybe in the Midwest, Midwest, some parts of Western New York or, you know, Ashley, Cara, friend, she probably can find one percent rule sometimes. If you're not, there are two options. One, you just either have to put more money down, or you need to just accept a little bit lower cash flow, or you need to do a renovation. Cause I do think it is possible to hit the 1% rule, but you have to buy it and then bring up the rents through value add to get it even close to the 1% rule.

• 39:30Dave Meyer?

  Or at least that's what I'm saying. I don't know if you agree, James.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  I do believe you have to earn it a little bit more. You know, every market has its seasons, right? We, when I, 2008, it was a season of leverage, right? It was about levering, buy more. 2008 to 10, it was about buying very secure investments and in being okay with making very few money on each deal too. It was just like it was an income, you know, and then the era of low rates. Go buy assets, they hit the 1% rule. Now, this is why it's so important for investors to put their goals down. What are my goals? What assets will get me there with through real estate? Cause you're just choosing real estate is your engine to get you there. There's no magical engine that's gonna just get you to your goals. You have to prepare for it. And so buying fixers, you're always gonna buy a lot deeper

• 40:16Speaker 01

  because cost of money is really high, construction's high, it's harder to control. And so when there's more risk and it's harder, there's way more opportunities. And so you have to buy more fixtures, you have to get more creative, or you just have to do more work, like run a short-term rental or a midterm rental and just operate at a little bit more work. But that doesn't mean that it's not a good engine. It just means you just have to pivot for this era and who knows how long this era will be? It could just be three years. It could be one year. It could be 10 years. But you have to build the plan around what you have today.

• 40:45Dave Meyer?

  That's very good advice and I totally agree. I think, you know, look at the time this 1% rule came into place. It was over 10 years ago. Investing conditions were completely different. They can be useful, but really just look at the best deal that you can find right now. Think critically, listen to this podcast, think about what deals make sense in today's day and age, and oftentimes trying to maximize cash flow through the 1% rule is not the best. It's, unless you're in a certain market, certain type of asset class, certain property class, it probably doesn't make that much sense. So I would encourage you to sort of just think a little bit more broadly or consider a different market if getting a 1% rule deal is really important to you. That might be a different neighborhood in Phoenix or in Arizona, or going completely out of state.

• 41:31Dave Meyer?

  All right. Well, that's what we got for you all today. James, thank you so much for answering these questions for us. We really appreciate you being here.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  We can go all day. I love this.

• 41:38Dave Meyer?

  Well, we only brought five for you. You just did them so efficiently, but it made a great episode. So thanks. We'll, we'll have to have you back again to do another episode just like this in the near future.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Ready anytime. The important thing for listeners to know, the reason I can answer half these questions is because I already made the mistakes.

• 41:54Dave Meyer?

  Thank you for doing that on our behalf. We appreciate it.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:57Dave Meyer?

  And thank you all so much for listening. As a reminder, if you have your own real estate questions, head over to the BiggerPockets forums. It's at biggerpockets.com/forums. And you can post your own questions there, get in-depth thoughtful answers from thousands of experienced investors, or you can connect with like-minded community members in your area. Thank you all so much for listening. We'll see you next time.

• 42:21Speaker 04

  Are you ever shopping online and suddenly a discount that helps you save pops up? It makes your day, sometimes even your week. Want that feeling month after month? Well, new customers who save by switching their home and auto insurance to Progressive save hundreds. Cue your happy dance. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states.