Real deals, how to get "real" responses
Developer · Santa Clarita, CA · Member since 2008 · 15k+ posts · 10k+ votes
In a recent thread of mine, I posted about a rehab deal I had to wholesale. It was suggested that in my thread, I poured on the "sales pitch" too hard and as such, it was suggested that the lack of responses or people actually inquiring about the deal was due to how it was presented.
OK, lets get some answers here then.
If you have a real deal and you are a real investor, and you need real buyers (this refers to BP only and not outside buyers from your other sources) what is the best way to communicate your deal without sounding like a slaespitch and without others wantring to question if you really are the investor you say you are?
Here is the link from the thread in question: http://www.biggerpockets.com/topics/54727-rehab-deal-with-9-k-spread?forum_id=69&page=1#posts-285089
Will, I am sure each of us has a different way of interpreting what is written. Some people may be impressed when a member claims that he has been very successful while others may be sceptical.
I personally do not think it is in good taste to proclaim one's own greatness or success very loudly or repeatedly. That's just how I feel. I would rather see someone give specific facts than use adjectives to describe themselves.
I also think that someone who claims to be successful and has no interest in making money off BP has more credibility than someone who claims success while trying to sell something. So those who wish to sell a house or service on BP need to be extra careful in how they present themselves in order to ensure that they have credibility with the target audience.
Will, I am sure each of us has a different way of interpreting what is written. Some people may be impressed when a member claims that he has been very successful while others may be sceptical.
I personally do not think it is in good taste to proclaim one's own greatness or success very loudly or repeatedly. That's just how I feel. I would rather see someone give specific facts than use adjectives to describe themselves.
I also think that someone who claims to be successful and has no interest in making money off BP has more credibility than someone who claims success while trying to sell something. So those who wish to sell a house or service on BP need to be extra careful in how they present themselves in order to ensure that they have credibility with the target audience.
Will - I think the post was fine, though, I see the point that someone made about your "Must Hurry" comment. I'm assuming that most people understand that a good deal will go quickly, so I see little need to post something like that. Good deals are good deals and people will snatch them up. As we all learned over the past few years (in RE & politics), you "Can't put lipstick on a pig" and expect it to be anything other than a pig.
I think that providing the facts without any of the hypey additional stuff is all you need.
Are you referring to how to pitch your deal here on BP? I don't think there are enough serious buyers here, that's probably where you're run out of road every time. 99.3% of BP members are new(er) 'wholesalers'.
alright, just to clarify, I haven't actually read the post and I'm actually just talking about of my arse. I apologize for ruining the thread, dunno why, I just feel like being a terd today............accept whatever apologies I may need to give in my mental monday absence
Josh, thanks for your comments. I agree I, or anyone else, should not have to post those two words (which are the only 2 in my OG post in that thread, which could be construed as saleman'ish (hey new word!). Unfortunately, as you are well aware, a great deal I had which was posted last year in Northride was a rock solid deal and I posted all the numbers. Only you and one other person from BP responded. So again, I beg for an answer as to how to get the attention needed when you have a real deal here on BP. Or is it what Nick said?
Vikram - I certainly understand where you are coming from and agree. That said, I really made no self proclomations other than when defending a "sed car saleman" comment when I mad eonly two words in an entire post which must have come across as a sales technique.
One other thing - I have given back here on BP more than 99.9% of the population and it is my ONLY intention and goal to help others make money. The way I do that is offer a deal in my area which I can assist another BP member in acquiring and completing. I have my onw sources, but strive to do business with BP members as I feel it helps the entire community. You can call that "trying to sell something - I call it trying to help!
Will, I do want to clarify that I was referring to the wording of posts as opposed to you personally. Just general advice.
I actually have learnt a lot from your posts and appreciate your advice to others on BP.
Nick, there are some serious buyers on BP. I, in fact, did the numbers on Will's post to see if I should ask him for more information. The numbers as stated were decent (neither great nor bad) but I decided that I would pass on it because I do not operate in that area and it would need to be a killer deal for me to venture outside the Phoenix area.
Let me relate a little story from my college day's, the late 1970s, early 1980's. I went to a Christian University, Vanguard University, in Costa Mesa, CA. We had a new professor for our series of Accounting classes needed for our Business Degree. He was an accountant for Wycliff Bible Translators before becoming a professor.
So one day, he comes to class, and tells us about an Initial Public Offering for this new computer company. He is really hyping it up and the entire class just passes him off, another "you have to buy this stock" now sales pitch. The computer company? Yep, you got it, APPLE COMPUTER! Just like in the movie, "Forrest Gump"!!
The point I am trying to make is that good deals and bad deals are always HYPED up. The savvy investor should know the source, be able to do due diligence, and have the resources to complete the deal.
Will, you are an excellent reputation here on BP, so the source is not a problem. Next is the ability to perform due diligence. If you have a ROCKING deal, providing enough information would be very helpful. I have bought 5 houses this year and never even looked at any of them. But I did look at pictures, hundreds of comps, past rental reports, and so much more. I found the motivation for selling (death in the family, broken up partnership, etc...) and did my research. So if you have a HOT deal, post the address, comps, repair estimates, anything and everything, to help an investor with due diligence.
Another thing to do is to have a little "skin" in the game. Put in 10% or 20% and offer the other 90% or 80%, to prove that you believe it is a HOT deal.
You could also list multiple 'exit strategies' for the investment. Higher priced properties have low CAP rates, but even a 4% or 5% cap rate is better than losing it all. You didn't post what the deal you had would rent for but I am thinking $2,500 to $3,000 a month. If someone paid $350,000 and got $3,000 a month rent, using the 50% rule, there is a cap rate of around 5%. And that would be the worst case scenario exit strategy. I believe your deal was offering around a 25% return but no time frame is listed so an APR is just a guess. Six months makes it a 50% annual return.
Instead of saying "hurry, must act now", something along the lines of "I have a great deal that should return a handsome profit. I would like to offer it to my BP colleagues as well as my other investors. My feeling is that this offer will be snatched up fairly quickly, so please PM me if you are interested." You should probably even mention why you aren't buying it, which you did later in the other thread.
You don't want a soft sale and you don't want a hard sale. One of my favorite shows growing up had this famous line, "Just the facts ma'am!" That is what we want.
As someone new to being "active" on this site and new to real estate investing entirely, I don't see anything terribly wrong with your original post. I will comment, as already mentioned, that the explicitly stated urgency and statement of your "greatness" was a bit off putting.
That isn't a personal statement about you since you seem to have a great following here. It is merely a quick glance comment based solely on the post.
Maybe more importantly though with regards to that specific post was the cost of the property and rehab. I've lurked here for many months and I would say the most common posters are always talking about purchases in the sub 100K department. That's not to say people aren't doing more, but that's just what I frequently see. For my first cashflow property purchase I'll definitely have to stick with sub 100K for a SFR type property. :)
Victor, I just want to clarify that Will was posting a flip opportunity and not a long-term investment. Flips work in all price ranges depending on your market. Cash-flow properties tend to work as you suggested - in the lower price ranges. (Higher price ranges can cash flow upon exit if there is appreciation, but they tend not to yield a positive cash flow during the holding period.)
Will we haven’t interacted much on the site in your absence in the last several months. I have only been on BP for around 3-4 months now if memory serves…please take everything as constructive because I do greatly enjoy the bulk of your posts. I especially enjoy the ones where you take people to task about this supposed Holy Grail 50% “rule†and I share most of your thoughts there.
I didn’t find much wrong with the post referenced either, although I did vote for some of the subsequent comments. A deal should stand on its own without any of the marketing fluff or language to describe it. One of the beautiful things about the majority of investment decisions that are well-defined is that it is easy to set up a simple model to analyze them. There is no need to sell any sort of sizzle instead of the steak. Anytime I see “hurry†about anything I do…hurry in the other direction! I am positive this is not what you intended and it was simply taken the wrong way. I also sense some underlying tension you have with Rich Weese from the banter back and forth. Could this be from the business venture you guys put together?
The site is much better with you posting so I hope you continue to spend the time to do more of it in the coming months. Missing a multi month window keeps you out of the loop with new posters adding value. There are a bunch of new folks coming out of the woods now with GREAT topics. Hopefully that will continue and you can make time to share your expertise with all of us.
Will,
First of all I applaud you for being self-aware and introspective enough to ask these questions and accept the responses. It would have been very easy for you to have disregarded Rich and others' responses as flamers.
That said, I agree with most of the others here especially Vikram. I distinctly remember reading your post and immediately thinking that it seemed slightly out of character (what I know of you) and off.
The self-proclamation of success and the MUST HURRY were too much. I wanted to mention it but Rich had already started and there was a tone and I knew you 2 have a little history so I thought it best not to appear to be piling on if I sort of agreed with him.
To take things a different direction on your question. The truth is I would never buy a property you were looking to sell. And you should take that as a COMPLIMENT. I'll explain.
From your posts, my image of you is that you are a knowledgable person who has above average access to funds. Therefore, if you had access to any deal that was worth investing my money, you would already have figured out a way to raise the money to do the deal for your own benefit.
In other words, you are too sophisticated to be giving good deals away. You are too smart to leave 90K on the table for me to take.
So any deal you are trying to offload must not be (by definition) a good one for me.
I am a futures trader by trade. When I make a trade with someone, I am essentially taking the opposite side of their bet. They think the market is going one way, I think the other. Do I want to be on the other side of a trade with a smart, sophisticated investor...or do I want to be on the other side of someone not so smart, who doesn't understand the market, and might be "distressed" or disadvantaged in some other way?
Obviously, the not so smart one, so you don't qualify!
I don't know if that makes sense or not.
OK, lets nip this in the bud right now, as I have no idea how everyone keeps commenting on my so-called self-proclomation.
First off, in my OG post, I merely stated "Must Hurry" with the intent to inform BP members that I wanted them to not kick tires as usual but take action by getting more information and completing their own due diligence, and potentially becoming the buyer. That is it, end of story. No fluff, nothing else. I would much rather assist another BP member make money than somebody else.
I certainly hope this puts an end to the ridiculous back and forth about self-proclomations and "used car salesman" comments.
Wow, maybe you aren't so self-aware and not taking this well.
You have to get real, you did not "merely state Must Hurry". You said "MUST HURRY!" Huge difference.
Second, it was not only this post when you did some self-proclamating. You have done it other times recently. But specifically, you started that other thread with
"As most of you know, I have been doing very well in the rehab market"
That is absolutely a bragadocious self-proclamation. No one would have any idea that you were "doing well" unless you said it yourself. We also have no proof that this is the truth, so this is NOT something that we "know"...it is simply something that you have claimed. That is the very definition of self-proclamation. Is that type of self-hype ok? Sure, but it does leave you open to the criticisms you have heard.
Essentially every poster in both threads has had the same impression so I think it is not realistic to call all our impressions "ridiculous".
BTW, the previous post I mention is from last month and begins, by my count, with 3 self-congratulatory proclamations of success. You can count for yourself..
"Pardon my absence over the last few months, but I have been very busy/productive making money with REO rehab flips and it has taken up quite a bit of my time.
At any rate, and for those who do not already know, we at Nationwide Property Investments created an 8 week REO training program which is unlike any other and to date, has a student success rate of making money on deals of 50%, where the average program may get a 5% success rate (by the way, our student success rate has profits all over $20k each!) ...."
Will, I'm glad to have you once again much more involved and I think that could be said of many, many others here.
I'm very sure that you know your market very well. You also have a lot of creditability here. You have also shared a great deal over the years.
Thanks for wanting to help some of us with a deal. I am a serious buyer, but my plans currently center on investing in the market I know. In time, perhaps I will venture out to the wild, wild west of Texas.
I suspect that the deal you are offering is good. I believe also you would not misrepresent a deal. So, for me if your deal was in my backyard, I would probably be taking a serious look at it.
Thank you for your comments and kind words Charles.
Eric - you are quite critical of me in your last post. No problem, your opinion. I am aware and can accept constructive criticism or suggestions, but at some point, one becomes defensive when multiple people jump on a bandwagon that never needed to be there.
Here is one back at you for an illustration.
Validation - Would you all prefer me to have title give reports on several of my recent deals, showing the history that they closed in my company name for all cash, were sold within 90 days showing the sales price to confirm my history in rehab flipping? Is this necessary to remove all doubt so that these quote/unquote proclomations are validated? If that is what you all want, so be it. I will post my business for all to see. If that is what is needed and I comply, I certainly do not want to have this conversation again in the future. People can refer to the proof and know that what I say is valid. Fair enough?
Can we move on and get back on track here please?
I also like the "validated transactions" concept because it also addresses an issue that Rich had brought up a few weeks back about the reliability of people who post deals on BP. I believe Josh is working on something like that and can't wait to see it!