All Forum Posts by: Marcus Auerbach

@Sharif Mensah welcome to BP! - please start by reading up "yellow letter" posts we have here, you will find more information that you have questions right now. There are many good posts about the economy of numbers - basically how many letters do you have to send to close one deal. If you work with a mailing list the number will be in the thousands, if you handpick properties its probably in the hundreds. Good luck!

@Mackal Smith the obvious question to ask is did you shop arround a bit? If you are not sure where to start google for a local insurance broker.

@Sean Fuller we are all CFO's here, so why don't you post your question?

If you actually want someone's time for a live interview, especially of a busy person, you should think about why they would want to do that and what they get in return.

@Jim Chung the first units are hard, it gets easier with the lenders when they start seeing your track record. First thing to do is to put a nice application package together that has all the information a banker could ask you for in a nice little binder. Second identify at least ten small local banks (10 branches or less) and call them ask to speak with their commercial lender. I am fairly confident that you find a few that are willing to work with you.

If that does not work find someone in your family who is willing to co-sign the loan with you. You may have to split the pie, but you still get half a pie and can refi them out of the loan later when your track record is long enough to show consistent success. Good luck

@Devin Amstutz I am not an attorney or from Ohio, but I am not aware of anyone who had legal problems because they were wholesaling. However, real estate matters are legal matters and so no matter what you do in real estate, if you don't do it right and you cause damage or step on peoples toes you will get legal problems. That's not a matter of wholesaling, that's a matter of operating in the real estate space.

Great that you decided to take the course, but as you will learn being a licensed sales person comes with a lot of responsibilities and disclosure obligations. Also it's not a quick thing to do. Expect to study a couple months and maybe take the test twice. You become licensed in limited practice of law as outlined in the course, but as far as I know that does not include wholesaling. A broker is legally responsible for your actions (and will carry E&O insurance to protect himself from your screw ups). That puts the broker in a position where he will be very uncomfortable with your wholesaling activity.

I don't mean to discourage you, I just want you to go into this eyes wide open. The other thing is that in my opinion wholesaling is against contrary believe a very tough way to get started. It requires a whole basket of skills and you have to be good at all of them including knowing your market really well, marketing skills (and significant funds), negotiation skills, understanding investment strategies and what makes an attractive deal, estimating rehab and construction expenses, estimating after repair values accurately and networking - to name a few. There are plenty of articles written on the subject.

Have you looked into house hacking or buying a rental property? Both are a great way to get started slow and learn the basics, before jumping unprepared into wholesaling and risking to get a black eye and walk away to quickly from what could be a great career opportunity for you.

@Aaron Litzenberg Winter weather is definitley an issue, but you can also play it to your advanatage: sellers tend to get a little bit more motivated once Thanks Giving comes into sight and some banks seem to be willing to get bad assets of the books before they close the quarter and the year. If I have already a few accepted offers in December I start writing offers with 60 day closings and delay them a little longer into spring. We have rehabed six properties this year to date and all of them were accepted in Q4. It's mid May and I still have one more to close: it's a short sale I have been working on since October and hopefully close before June 1st. These are all buy and hold deals and our tenants have typically no problem with deferring the landscaping to spring. As far as fix'n flips are concerned I would say that the market comes back right after new years. People just want to get through the holidays and into the new year. Many buyers try to buy before it get's busy in spring.

@Janet Thaxton reading your post I think you got too exited about the deal and want to believe your buyer. A buyer without proof of funds will typically not be taken serious by agents or sellers. He will be looked at a tire kicker and a waste of time. Earnest Money underlines the committment of the buyer: it basically says here are x Dollars and you can keep it if I should not be able to close on the deal.

My guess is your buyer is a rooky wholesaler who is still looking for a cash buyer on the other end. That's fine, but you need to have some earnest money from him for your time and effort dealing with him. This way he has skin in the game and an incentive to close the deal, because otherwise he will loose his EM.

I look at it this way: if you get the deal then good for you, if get burnt you will learn a huge lessen on a small deal that will benefit you for the rest of your life. Be careful and good luck!

@Jeffery Waicak not really, she is not allowed to by contract. But she should set you up with MLS alerts or a portal for the area you are targeting. This way every time a home gets listed you get at least an automatic email with the details.

Investors and agents are a difficult match. Most agents dont understand what investors need. And most investors don't understand how to work with agents and are often wasting their time for no or very little pay.

In order for the economics to work she needs to make you as self suficient as possible with trickle emails. You rund the numbers and do drive by's on the ones that would work. If you like it from the outside you can set up a showing. Discuss with your agent how many offers you want to write - it's a lot of work. Personally I get about every third offer accepted, which is a very high ratio, but I know my market and sellers.

And in the end, if you and your agent dont line up well, don't hestitate to move on until you find a good match and it works for both you and the agent.

@Adam Kozuch I don't think you have to go to those extrems. Every untreated lawn is a mix of many different plants. All you have to do is create a little unfair advantage for grass, which actually grows like weed if given the right treatment. We call that then a nice lawn. I would start right now with Weed and Feed fertlizer, it contains herbizides that will start killing weeds and give the grass space and sunlight to grown. Seed over with a quality grass seed mix (dont cheap out on that one) and follow up with summer fertilizer later. Repeat in late September if necessary. You should see a big difference this summer and have a nice lawn next spring. If you dont want to do it yourself you can use companies like TrueGreen or a local landscaper. 

Book on the subject: Leverage your IRA by Methew Allen - also an IRA lender