I'm building a REI team, could anyone help?

Question

Good evening everyone,

Can anyone recommend a quality REI attorney, broker, and or contractor in the DFW area? I'm trying to put together a solid team and I'd really appreciate the help. I'm interested in buying and holding SFH & MFH, possibly with an FHA loan for the right MFH. So professionals with experience in these areas would be ideal.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Ryan Blake · Answer

@Anthony Heatley

Word of warning. If you go to these contacts and tell them you are working to build a team they may not give you the time of day. They get calls from people talking like that all day with very little action behind it. I think reaching out to the BP community for recommendations is a great start. The best way to get good quality "team members" is to come to them with something of value.

1) Find what bank, mortgage company, or other lender you plan on using and see what terms they are able to offer. If you are going with a conventional mortgage (this would include an FHA loan), get a pre-approval letter. I can suggest Gateway Mortgage (they have a wide variety of lending options). You can contact @Andrew Postell for more information. If you are going to be flipping and want to do a hard money loan, I can help you with that and even save you some money. I work with a HML company and advise / consult with flippers who use Longhorn Investments for their funding. It is important to know what types of legal entities they will lend to. Most will lend to LLCs but may do so with higher interest rates.

2) Now contact your real estate attorney. @Ronald Rohde is very active in the BP community and may be able to help you with entity formation. Make sure the vehicle you choose is able to qualify for lending. I recommend a series LLC. Search BP to learn more about them. They are great for Buy and Hold and Flipping. If you are going to start partnerships, I recommend going with individual LLCs. Ronald will be able to give you much better advice on this than me, or at least point you towards a good attorney who specializes in this.

3) With the pre-approval or idea on terms of the loan and your legal entity set up, now contact an agent. Don't contact them until you know exactly what you are looking for so they know you are serious and you aren't wasting their time. Give them specifics like zip codes, size, target ARV range, etc. I can recommend @Kiel Lindsey and the Aspire Realty team. They work with investors and offer property management services as well.

4) After you find a property and have it under contract, contact your GC to do a walk through and get you a quote. You may want to have a home inspector before this. It will give you a licensed and independent look at the home. As for GCs they will normally want you to have the home under contract before they will come out to look at it. Again, this is to help keep them from wasting time. If you are an easy client, they will give you better rates. Most GCs will mark up the costs 15-25% as the GC fee. This fee basically makes it so that all you have to do is say yes or no to everything being done (yes I want this done, no I don't like those fixtures find different ones). They will take care of everything. I recommend the two larger GC groups in the Tarrant County area. Renovation Gurus and Finishing Touches. They are both professional and pretty speedy. They have multiple crews so your project won't be sitting around while you wait for another project to be finished. If you want contact info for them, message me and I will pass on the guys I work with in each of these companies and make an introduction for you.

I get that every book and guru will talk about surrounding yourself with a great team but know that you will sound unprofessional calling up an attorney and asking them to "join your real estate team." They want what we all want. Money. Bring them a job and they will saddle right up to you. Be easy to work with and professional and they will want to work with you again and again. Then you will have a team.

Hope this helps and that you get started off right. The big thing to do is take action. Get a property to get you started on the investing adventure.

Chinmay J. · Answer

Building a team in vacuum means nothing. The professionals are going to think you are wasting their time.  If you are working with a broker/realtor, try finding the deal first. Once you find the deal, slowly everything will start falling in place.

Anthony Heatley · Answer

@Ryan Blake

Thanks a lot for the advice, Ryan! As a newbie, I'm not totally sure which things are or aren't kosher in the REI business and I didn't want to be one of those guys that seemingly didn't get the memo. So I appreciate the insight and actionable suggestions.

1) I understand the instruction here and I'll reach out to Andrew for more info.

2) I recently saw an article about Series LLC so I'll have to take a closer look and contact Ronald for more advice.

3) I completely understand and thanks for another referral!

4) Thanks again for the referral and I'll definitely send you a message for the contact info.

Wasting people's time is the last thing I want to do; which is why I decided to reach out in the forums instead of approaching individuals asking for their time and expertise without me actually being in a position to do business with them. So again, I really appreciate the step by step advice and referrals, Ryan.

Ryan Blake · Answer

@Anthony Heatley It is almost always best to get referrals first. You are spot on with that.

As for meetups, I personally like this REI Group for information and education. It typically gets about 70 attendees and the best part is you aren't sold on buying someone's program (many REIA's will try to sell you mentorship or software). I love going to the Propelio meet-up for networking. They have speakers but only give them 10 minutes each and it ends up not being enough time to get much quality info. It is also nice that their is an open bar and Chic-fil-a. The real benefit of this one is that they get over 300 people that show up so be ready to make contact with lots of people and vendors set up in the hall.

Both of these meets ups are 100% free.

Ronald Rohde · Answer

Great post @Ryan Blake, I agree in total. Building a team is a process and if you're not ready to put EM down, I wouldn't waste a broker's time until then. You're just setting a bad impression as someone who hasn't done due diligence. Plenty of material to read and prepare before talking to busy professionals.

Anthony Heatley · Answer

@Dan Barli I've done a member search before, but I was told that it's better to get some referrals from other people here on the site. I definitely plan on seeking out a REIA once I get to DFW next week. Thanks for the advice!

Hao Dinh · Answer

@Ryan Blake Thank you Ryan for the tips. Im new and this is very helpful information for me.

Ronald Rohde · Answer

Its no problem. There's a difference between planning your list of "holes to fill" vs. Hey Mr. Banker, i want to talk to you about a loan, but I don't know what I'm going to buy, how much I'm going to put down, what my closing date it, but please talk to me right now anyway!

Anthony Heatley · Answer

Thanks for your input @Ronald Rohde I guess I was just moving a little fast.

Anthony Heatley · Answer

That's a great point @Chinmay J. I think I was just trying to skip steps and avoid the obvious or something. Thanks for your input.

I'm building a REI team, could anyone help?

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