Summary: One of the biggest challenges for new investors who are looking to get into fixing and flipping houses, is the fear of not having a good contractor to do the work for them. I have seen this fear stop investors dead in their tracks, even when they have a good house, and the money lined up to buy the house. The fear of not knowing a contractor that will do the work or how much it will cost will prevent many new investors from pulling the trigger and moving forward on the deal. Don't let this fear of paralysis analysis stop you from doing your first fix and flip. The best way to overcome fear is with education and knowledge. Start out today by learning the basics of estimating the material costs by taking a visit to your nearest Home Depot or Loews Store. Allow yourself around 2 hours for this exercise and make sure you take your notepad and a calculator. Go through each aisle and take note of the material components that you will use for each room in the house. Write down the costs of flooring, cabinets, faucets, counter tops, toilets, vanities etc and go through the store aisle by aisle to make sure you don't miss anything. Make sure you take pictures of all of the items with your smartphone. Save all of your notes into Dropbox or Evernote or Google Drive or somewhere where you can easily access the information in the future. Once you understand the cost of each component of your materials costs you will be able to add up all of your materials and have a good understanding of the total cost of your materials. Knowing the cost of the materials is 90% of the battle because once you know the cost of materials, you know how much you are being charged for labor when you get an estimate. Your job, is to shop that labor estimate! You can download a copy of our "Repair Estimate Cheat Sheet" at this link: https://www.lexlevinrad.com/estimating-the-cost-of-repairs-for-fixing-and-flipping-houses/
