New investor in nyc with plenty of resources but no results

[Vermar White]

Hello fellow investors,

im new to investing, i had my real estate license for 3 yrs, spent thousands on starting my R.E.I. business i have tools and websites that allow me to get all the info on pre foreclosures (lender's attorney info, and borrowers home address), addresses of cash buyers, generic contracts (need a nys attorney to modify), i even have access to POF and funds (100% transactional funding & 50% buy and hold funding) but i can't seem to close my first deal.

i understand i need to have my own attorney and cpa but i have no more funds to pay for their services. i also tried to do some wholesaling but nyc is a tougher market than i thought.

any advice on what i can do?

[George Maka]

@Vermar White Welcome to the BP community!

First off, what are you trying to do? Real estate investing is a large area with many smaller niches inside. Also, why do you need your own attorney and CPA? Sure, have a real estate attorney look over the contracts that you're going to use, but until you start putting deals together, there's no reason keep paying them. Bigger Pockets is full of resources and there should be enough here to help you put your deals together for free.

Now going back to the actual business, it's all about your leads. This is a numbers game and the quality is in the quantity. You need to keep generating them on a consistent basis and be sure to be focusing on motivated sellers. It may seem like it's not working, but just keep doing it and it will snowball down the line. 

How do you generate them? I've been having luck with yellow letters, but there's also website marketing, facebook, linkedin, paper ads, bandit signs, and just old-school-pick-up-the-phone and call people. And you have to think about the leads you are targeting. I know you said pre-foreclosure, but in my opinion, they may not always be the most motivated. Foreclosure process can take up to a year or more (here in CA at least), so when they're in the pre-forclosure stage, they are still in denial. It's not until they are in the final stages and they know that the have to vacate the house by next month is when they begin to panic. 

My suggestion would be to find one area of focus, keep learning everyday about it, keep targeting leads and keep networking with other investors. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it. Travel as far as you can see, and when you get there, you'll see a little further.

Best of luck,

George