Jumping right in and have a few questions!

[Eric Toff]

Hey everyone, I'm Eric and I'm just beginning to get started in wholesaling. I've been doing plenty of research over the past few months; listening to hours of podcasts, reading the BP forums, and reading everything I possibly can about rei. Now I'm finally jumping in and have a few quick questions. Being from a fairly rural-to-suburban area (southern New Jersey) where township officials and local law enforcement have absolutely nothing to do, bandit signs don't have a great lifespan in the area. Instead of spending a few hundred dollars on signs that will disappear in a day or two I opted to purchase a direct mail list from listsource and hand write yellow letters (slightly cheaper than using yellow letter.com or similar to send them out and I'm on a tight budget!) to everyone on it (holy writers cramp and I'm only about 1/6 of the way through it so far!). My parameters were pre-foreclosure, 40+% equity, single family residential, 7+ year ownership. Dropped my first 45 letters in the mail on Tuesday and when I got out of work today and checked my google voice account I had voicemails from 3 different people already! One guy is located in a highly sought after town (Cherry Hill, if anyone is familiar with NJ) and called twice before leaving a message practically begging to be called back! It was a bit late when I got the messages so I plan on calling them all back tomorrow instead of disturbing them at night.

What sort of info should I be gathering when I call these people back?

I'd like to try to set up appointments for this weekend with these people if possible. Should I take my contracts to the appointment and make an offer on the spot if everything goes well? Or is it better to act more like you need to consider the property a bit and make an offer a few days later?

Probably my most important questions (LEGAL! Haha) - should I have my LLC set up before making offers on properties or is it ok (as in safe) to do one or two deals before setting everything up? I met with a local attorney last week who quoted me $1,000 to set up the LLC and act as registered agent for a year, but I don't really have a grand to hand to him right now to do it.

I am also a licensed real estate salesperson in NJ. Not active yet, but on file with the DOBI. Should I put a written disclosure in my contracts stating that I am licensed or is it ok to just let people know in conversation? Obviously I need to put some other info into my contracts that I don't think non-licensed wholesalers need to worry about (attorney review periods, etc) but I'm unclear on the requirements around the disclosure of my licensing.

Thanks so much everyone!

-Eric Toff