Small town wholesaling VS virtual wholesaling

[Ricky Brown]

Hey BP friends. I’m looking for some advice and maybe someone to work with. I got into REI last year in January and been doing a lot of studying and learning while I work to better my credit and financial situation. I’ve created a plan to do wholesaling and earn some capital to start investing in rentals. However, I’m from a really small town and feel like wholesaling would be better and easier in a different market. I haven’t had a lot of luck finding buyers to market deals to and wondering if I should wholesale elsewhere. I’ve used lead generation services, such as Zbuyer, ListSource, RealtyStore, and a few others with very little luck. ListSource really couldn’t even give me a list after a chose a criteria; basically all I could choose was to buy a list of people that own property in my county. I’ve also tried using different services like Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin for property info and, if they actually have some info in my county (Marion Co. KY), it’s completely inaccurate. I’ve also used local Realtor sites, like LBAR.com (Lexington Bluegrass Associated Realtors) and Rector-Hayden Realtors and found that they don’t have data for my area either. I’m not saying that REI doesn’t work in my county, but I’m having to figure out different methods to get the information I’m seeking since these options are not really helpful. I’m having trouble connecting with a Realtor for help with MLS access as well. Maybe it’s my inexperience. Anyway, I’m hoping to get some advice or tips, preferably from investors in my area of central KY that can understand my situation a bit, and help me figure out what to do to get my first deal under my belt. I’m using public records more than anything for comps, values, and leads. I know of some properties on the market for a while that would make good rentals. One particular house is listed for $49,900 and the comps on that street (that I pulled from county PVA site) show similar homes are around $39,500. I used the rental analysis tool on BP and ran the numbers using best estimates and data I collected. I found that rent for the area is between $500-$600 a month and could possibly be more if the house was updated nicely. It’s currently rented to a tenant for $500/mo and that’s what I used in the analysis. Anyway, if I got the property at the overpriced $49k with 20%down and estimated $5k in updates/repairs, the ROI showed something like 8.5%. But, if I got accepted at just $40k, the ROI is around 14%, which I figure is pretty good. My problem right now is financing. It’s been listed with the agent since like 2013 sometime so I’m pretty sure the owner would accept an offer around $40k but I’m not able to get a loan at the moment and the total cost came out to be around $14k with everything calculated. Any advice about how I could fund this deal, or is it even a deal worth working on? Also, I’m doing marketing with a little success in my area. It’s tedious to get a good list built right now using manual research through public records, but I have programmer friend working on a tool to scrape the public record sites to help me speed up the process. I’ve sent out letters to some absentee owners and foreclosure cases, but have yet to get a response. Does anyone have any advice about marketing in small counties or should I consider doing a virtual wholesaling business in a different market? Maybe I could get some advice about finding a partner on the ground to work with in a better market. I could do the marketing and generate seller leads and work with someone who can go to the property, meet the seller, and build a cash buyers list. Should I work wholesaling with a partner in a different market or keep working on marketing in my area? Any advice on funding rental property deals. Thanks for any help and advice.