I am really excited to the next part of this guest post on “How to Hire Your Dream House Flipping Assistant! (Part 2)”.
Monday I posted the first part of this article and today we get down to the “nitty-gritty” in the final piece of Part 2 of this article by Justin Williams.
Vanessa’s Pay
With Vanessa, I set up her pay schedule like this:
Month 1: $11 / hour
Months 2-3: $12 / hour
Months 4-6: $13 / hour
Months 7-12: $14 / hour
After Year 1: $15 / hour
Like I mentioned before, your employees are much more valuable once they are trained than when they first start. (To be honest, I almost feel like they should pay you for the first couple months to learn your systems, but of course that isn’t how it works, and this is why employees are an investment, right?) The training you put in to your employee increases their value considerably after just a few months.
People also like to see that they are progressing, so if they know those raises are coming it will help keep them motivated and avoid the possibility that they will look for a “better” opportunity.
Now, I know that some of you might say “but shouldn’t a raise be based on performance”? My answer to that is, if your employee isn’t progressing at the rate they should, then you should probably just let them go anyway. Good performance and a strong work ethic should be something that is a given — not something considered unique or special.
For the bonus structure I worked out with Vanessa, if memory serves I paid her $100 for every house we purchased and then $200 for every house we sold. This gave her an added incentive to make sure the company was successful.
After the first year with your assistant you can re-evaluate where you want to be. Do they have what it takes to eventually run your entire operation? Or are they more of the type to just take care of the day-to-day administrative work? I’ll let you work that out for yourself in 365 days, but for now let’s get back to the hiring process. 😉
Narrowing Things Down
The next thing you should do is set up a specific email address just to use for the ad you post regarding this position. This is where you will have people send their resumes. I also requested that they send an email or cover letter explaining why they felt they deserved the job. This helped me in three big ways:
1. It let me know if they could actually follow directions.
2. It let me know if they actually read my ad or just threw resume’s at the wall hoping one would stick
3. It let me know, in their eyes, why they thought they’d be a good fit for the job.
In the end I received well over 100 resumes for the ad I posted. I went through and eliminated those who didn’t follow instructions or include the cover message. I also tossed out those who had poor grammar and spelling (not to say they needed to be perfect, but there were some real doozies in there!). I also eliminated anyone who didn’t have experience with the MLS or real estate.
This got rid of 60% of the applicant’s right off the bat, which was a great time-saver.
Then I looked a little more carefully at their resumes and eliminated anyone who couldn’t type at least 40 words a minute. (I mean if they couldn’t type, how were they going to do everything else I needed them to do?) And people who looked like they couldn’t keep a steady job (i.e. they were in and out of work every few months). Plus anyone else that just didn’t seem to meet the qualifications.
This brought the total down to around 15 – 20 applicants.
The Cream of the Crop
At this point I went through and, rather than focus on elimination, focused on the ones I thought would be the MOST qualified and narrowed it down to about 10. I then e-mailed all 10 of these individuals the same questions.
Now, I don’t remember exactly what I asked, but they were about 4 to 5 questions of the normal “interview scenario” type, and I sent them to each of the 10 top applicants.
Two of them didn’t respond, and of the 8 that did I narrowed it down to the top 3, with whom I set up a phone interview so I could get to know them a bit better and ask more specific questions. Of those three there was one that really stood out. But I didn’t eliminate the other two yet. Instead I asked all three of them to meet me at Starbucks. But when I met the first choice I knew that I had found the right one and hired my superstar assistant, Vanessa!
So, that was a lot to read, and while it might seem like it is a long process, in the end I really only spoke to 3 people on the phone and ended up only meeting one of them in person. But putting in that effort really has been worth its weight in gold!
As you prepare to hire your “rock star” assistant, the next question you’ll have is “how do I go about training them?”
Well, this is exactly what I’ll be covering in my next post! So, in the meantime, get going and write that ad so you can find your assistant! 😉
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If you missed the podcast we did a while back, but if you missed it, you can listen to that here.
House Flipping HQ
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Justin Williams is a professional real estate investor and house flipper who, for the past 7 years has built his systems and business to around 100 deals per year, all with minimal involvement from himself. Currently Justin is helping educate others and share his knowledge through his website and podcast, available at www.HouseFlippingHQ.com
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I really don’t know. It’s different for every area. Join your local REIA, and ask some rehabbers. That’s where I would start.
Hi, I found the articles very helpful. I am a designer and ho,e stager in the Bay Area, California. I would one day love to flip houses. I have a client that flips. He would like to buy in the area a grew up in and still live in. I spoke with him about possibly becoming his assistant. He needs are having so,done local that can stop by the houses making sure everything is sticking to the timeframe and getting done. This person would keep a detailed log of the progress and communicate it to him. He says it would be great if this person could find him houses and give design advice
Such as paint colors, fixtures tiles and flooring. Before I was in to the house stating there into decorating I managed construction company for a couple of years. So I have some construction background/knowledge. Being a home stager and I have some real estate awareness. Counsel understand the demographics and what buyers are looking for. Well him and I or creating a job description I am also thinking about salary or houtly pay. I’m not sure which is better. You mentioned you paid $100 for finding a house and $200 when its sold. Not sure where you’re located but that sounds like very little money in the grand scheme of things. Also your hourly pay increments seemed extremely low. As a designer, I charge $150 per hour. I realize this would be cost-effective for a flipper. But I would think somewhere between $25-$35 an hour would be reasonable. I’m not sure but I think I’m in waves here is at least $12 an hour. I would not feel comfortable or think it’s reasonable to be paid what someone at McDonald’s with making. No offense to those of working in minimum wage payimg positions, but I have a college degree and several years of experience. Of course there are still things I need to learn, like how to work the MLS and search for properties. I did recently purchased the materials to study for my real estate license and that’s something I plan on doing soon so I will have that to offer as well. I’d like to ask your opinion. I’m getting ready to meet with this flipper. I don’t want to waste his time asking for an hourly rate that is out of his budget. I’m new to this but I was imagining it would be more like $1000 for finding a house and at least $2000 when it sold. I’m not sure where you’re located but the pay you mentioned seemed like something only a person fresh out of high school or in the beginning years of college still living with their parents and had no children, could live on. I imagine I will be starting part time. And that there would be a lot of training involved. Then gradually it with build to full-time and possibly something I could invest in. OK so let me see what my question is here, lol based on the information and location I have giving you what do you think reasonable pay is? And since you have a great idea about how much time can be involved do you think it’s best for me to request to be paid per project, hourly or salary . Thank you 🙂