Am i not spending enough time looking for deals?

Question

Been looking for my first property to invest in for a couple of months, also working a full time job. I’m wanting to know if I’m not putting enough time into investing or if deals are just hard to come by. I’ve been looking to house hack or buy Single family home and live in it for a year. Would love to hear about other people’s stories on their first time home buying, advice, words of encouragement, etc.

Jim Pellerin · Answer

Elizabeth it's hard to comment on whether or not you are putting in enough time to find a deal when you haven't told us how much time you have spent looking for deals?

How many hours a day are you spending? How many listings have you followed up on? How many realtors have you talked to? How many mortgage brokers have you contacted? How many ads have you replied to? How many ads have you placed? How many FSBO sites have you checked out? How many sellers have you talked to?

When I was starting out and looking for motivated sellers, I would contact every seller listing and every rental listing on Kijiji (you can use Craigslist). I would do this every day, day after day. I found lots of motivated sellers willing to do seller financing or "subject to" or willing to lease option their property to me.

And I did all this while holding a full-time job.

Joe Cassandra · Answer

I'm in a similar boat, @Elizabeth Lewis as I have a business outside of RE that takes up a lot of my time (and brings home the bacon).

What I've found is you need to focus on deal-finding activities that bring the best and highest leverage of your time.

Based on 12 months of trial and error, for me:

1) WASTE OF TIME: Looking at on-market listings and running numbers...slim pickings here. If you're full-time RE, sure, call up a bunch of listings a day and pitch a low offer. I don't have that time. Guessing you don't either.

2) GOOD USE OF TIME: Automating your marketing. Direct mail. Hire VAs to pull data for you, maybe even make phone calls to expired listings, etc. The more ways to get in front of offmarket sellers, the better.3.) WASTE OF TIME: Talking to non-investor realtors. These people don't know the numbers it takes to get a good deal. They'll flood your inboxs with 95% ARV "deals" that aren't worth your time.

4.) GOOD USE OF TIME: Networking with experienced (10+ year) flippers and investor realtors. You may pull some private lenders out of these relationships, plus have your name worked around. ------

I agree with @Corby Goade you have to jump at some point. On the other hand (based on exp.) , getting involved in a 'skinny' deal --- especially a flip --- especially as your first property, it's easy for it to go off the rails.This will put a lot of stress on you...and ultimately affect your W2 job performance. You don't need to only hit a home run, but make sure you know your numbers pretty well with wiggle room that you're not stressed to the max 24/7

Corby Goade · Answer

@Elizabeth Lewis- I'm making some assumptions here, so please forgive me. In my experience there are two things that keep people from doing their first deal, and I am talking about people who have legitimate means of actually buying an investment property (decent credit and income).

First- there's the classic analysis paralysis. I can't give you any direction here other than there's no reward without taking a risk. If you want the reward, you just have to take a leap of faith at some point.

Secondly- and this one is very common, but people don't talk about it much: Your first deal is probably not going to be a "great" deal, but it can be a good deal. I work with lots of new investors who are analyzing everything that comes across their plate and won't pull the trigger because it doesn't check every single box, or the BP calculator told them it's not a grand slam. The "great" deals that are available go to cash buyers before new investors ever have a chance to see them. The only way to get to that point is to do a few decent deals, which will get you some cash, leverage, experience and, most importantly, networked.

Understand your market and when you find a deal that is decent, don't be afraid to give it a shot.

Best of luck!

Tanvir Sattar · Answer

@Elizabeth Lewis I had the same issue before I purchased my first rental. I'd advise finding a Real Estate Agent who is tapped into the market you are interested in. He or she can curate properties in the area that you might be missing and you can review them electronically while still at work. Also, they might know about properties that are not on the market yet.

Good luck!

Account Closed · Answer

@Elizabeth Lewis This depends on what your goal is - if you're looking to find cash-flowing rentals as a low entry point, you should consider remote investing because Houston likely isn't going to get you there (remote investing allowed me to quit my job, which it sounds like is your goal). Luckily for you, TX has a lot of great markets to invest in (I live in Tyler and have properties in Austin, Waco, Abilene, and Tyler). I recommend finding a market with a lower price entry point to lower the amount of risk you're stepping into - the first house is the hardest so don't make it harder on yourself. What are your goals on this front? When are you wanting to lock up your first house?

Dushana Ejova · Answer

Elizabeth, you are in hottest place for this business, find another women there who working and talk to them. Go in Facebook and find this group "Women Real Estate Investors". There a lots of women from TX posting examples and stories and it's very helpful conversations!

Elizabeth Lewis · Answer

@Jim Pellerin

Thank you so much for taking the time out to respond! I probably should have better phrased my initial post title.  I was really interested to hear how much time other people put into REI before getting their first deal.

But I put on average 3 hours into real estate a day, I’ve talked to 10 realtors, 4 mortgage brokers, I haven’t placed any ads and I will look to learn more about the process of doing that. Thank you for the questions, I will go back and make some adjustments to how I go about looking for deals. Wasn’t using Craigslist much at first.

Bill Goodland · Answer

It depends, how much time are you putting into analyzing deals? When I got my househack I had my agent set up auto listing emails sent to me with anything that fit my criteria and I had redfin emails going to my phone that I'd check multiple times per day. Once you get into the process of actually being ready to make offers, you should probably know of every single property in your zip codes that fit your criteria in my opinion

Elizabeth Lewis · Answer

@Corby Goade

Thank you! This was very helpful! You’re right one home will not being in enough money for me to be able to quit my job and live comfortably. But it’ll be my start and move me one step closer to whatever my goals are!

Kingsley L. · Answer

@Jim Pellerin

Great response Jim! I myself found this very helpful. Thanks!

Am i not spending enough time looking for deals?

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