Building a team: Deveolping a relationship with an appraiser and other members of my R/E team....

[Javier Osuna]

Hello fellow investors:

As a beginning investor, I would like to pick the brain of those who have already been down this path. When it comes to building your investment team, what would you recommend for a novice investor to do as far as building a relationship with an appraiser? As someone who is just starting out, unless you personally know an appraiser as a friend or acquaintance, chances are one is going to have to go out there and some how recruit one off of a peer's referral, or maybe even the phone book; then build that relationship as you work together... So far, I have not seen any topic that discusses this aspect of investing for beginners. What arrangements can be made with people like appraisers, inspectors, realtors, etc as far as negotiating an arrangement on how they will be compensated by their time and expertise? I hear all the time how a lot of wholesalers got started with zero out of pocket and went from living in the back of their truck to amassing a fortune! The way I see it though, a newbie has zero experience in assessing things like property walk-throughs and estimating ARV. Yes, comps help, but what about estimating the value AFTER the repairs? A professional appraiser's time and expertise are required on the first few deals, at least until one develops an eye for these sort of things. A pro's time is valuable and unless there is something I'm missing here, how would I go about convincing an appraiser, inspector or other professional to work with me and invest their time in physically going out to a property, unless I am prepared to pay them upfront? If this is the only way to go, then cool. Once cash starts coming in of course, I don't see this as so much of an issue anymore. In the mean time though, I may just need to get used to the idea that, I may simply have to gather up a sufficient initial investment in order to pay for things appraiser fees, inspector fees, etc out of pocket. The fact that I may have to look at quite a few properties before I close on a deal, makes the idea of having to pay an appraiser each and every time we do a walk-through scares me a little since there is no way to know when I'm going to make back my money when I do my first closing. Can someone out there render any advice? Is this perhaps where having a mentor becomes important? Seriously, I would not mind splitting my profits with someone who'd be willing to help me out on my first few walk-throughs if that is what I have to do... Thanks.