All Forum Posts by: Doug N.

@Jim Pellerin and @Jo-Ann Lapin are right about CRM being a nice way to go, however Base costs $300-$900 per year, and that's a little chunk of cash you may want to conserve. 

It sounds like you are familiar with Drive, and whether you run Android or iOS, you have all the tools you need between Drive and Calendar. This home-brewed CRM is simple, almost foolproof and free. 

You can create rich multimedia documents in Drive using Docs, complete with photos (and basic editing), formatting, links, etc. It auto-saves, and the documents are on all of your platforms and devices instantly and all the time. It's also deep-searchable, ie if you have a document that has a unique string (Jim Fernandez), you can find it in a whole mess of documents, anywhere in Drive. This alone makes Drive a lifesaver - it's really nice. It also has an offline mode, if you like that. 

Next, use Calendar for scheduling - you can set up sms or email reminders with many timing options. You can also link docs to the calendar entry: In Calandar, goto  Settings > Labs > Enable (Attach Google Docs) and you're set. 

Best of luck!

EDIT: I forgot - the Drive app on devices lets you upload your phone pix to Drive folders, which you can then add to a Doc. It also lets you create and upload PDF's directly from your camera - this is a feature of many paid stand-alone apps, btw. 

@Jeff Upton Please do your best to ignore the information(?) posted by the fake Adam Smith. A discussion of beta and the immeasurability thereof? Really? The efficiency of liquid markets for securities? Oh lordy - Sam Varnik would be proud. Yours is a question about MF valuations, not the Large Hadron Collider and theoretical particle physics. (Though Particle Fever is quite the good flick, check it out sometime!) 

My suggestion is that you deep dive into @ben's posts where he talks about how he does MF valuations and why he is not actively in this market - he's the one to listen to. 

Take it easy!

@Marc Bracy - I posted on this earlier today - check out this thread:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/93/topics/230...

If you are good in chatting with folks, do that - it works so much better than any letter, and you will have a definite advantage over the mailers - of which there are a ton!

Let us know what pans out!

@jamael reed: @Curt Smith's advice is so good, it deserves to be a tattoo. Seriously.

Your competition is all doing the same lazy thing - buying lists and sending out letters. It's a tight market, and there's a lot of this going on, every day. You need a lot of horsepower (aka time, patience and dollars) to out-perform these folks. Why compete in this manner? It's a steep climb. 

What can you do as a local that remotes can not do at all? 

A lot. And this is your singular advantage. (This is the part where I repeat Curt's excellent advice).

You can talk to folks. You can set eyes on the property, and feet in the neighborhood. You can smell the air, make connections (thoughts and people), get additional ideas, and discover more neighborhoods. You can build your mental database of various property conditions, approximate values and area trends. You can gain experience in chatting with potential sellers - no one is born with this skill, it is manufactured by you. All this, and more! For free, with no (or very little) competition!

PM me if you'd like, and best of luck!

Rick - I am using that in my next conversation. Pure gold. 

@adam smith - 

I have a letter for you, pm me if you want. 

A snippet:

You are suffering from an identity disorder. Though you may feel okay now, be advised that this is serious business, and it rarely ends well. No one knows this except you and I, not one single poster in this thread, perhaps not in this entire forum. @Ingrid is close, though.

Your issues are born of a guilt, a specific kind of guilt, one closely related to survivor guilt. I don't need to ask if you earned your money heartily and earnestly, or if it was simply given to you - I already know.

There is no external cure - no therapist can help you, and no hobby or occupation or romantic partner or cash balance can postpone the pain. No one gets it, and no one ever will, no matter what. You know this is true.

(much more here)

Take it easy, and I truly wish you the best of luck in your search.  

Hi Kaylyn - Sorry to hear of your issues. I think you are getting some pretty high horsepower advice here from a few real professionals. @Joel Owens answered your question pretty succinctly, and personally, I think it's great advice!

With my clients on commercial deals I ask key questions to the listing broker ahead of time. (...) the question I ask the listing broker:

"If your seller was given a good offer that was reasonable by a strong buyer would they go to LOI and proceed with us OR Are they looking to hold offers for 3 weeks and have multiple rounds of bids to extract another 25 basis points on the sales price? "

The answer to this question lets me know what their plans are. I do not waste time with offer dates and multiple rounds of bidding requested by the seller.

Best of luck next time!

@Mil Sanghvi

Congratulations on your purchase. I do have some questions for you :)

First of all, I notice that it's five duplexes, and not a 10 unit apartment complex. Are you of the opinion that this increases your capex (which is not a line item in your numbers), and perhaps some other expenses as well?

Do you feel property management software is a reasonable expense for the number of units you have? Over just four years, your SAS costs are almost $10k - is this something you can do in Excel or Docs?

How did you calculated your projected expenses? Are your numbers based on historical data or seller estimates, or other?

@Christian Brodin nice list! I am shamelessly copying it for my wiki!

 Plus plus plus. Nice learnings, and please post some more - you are a good writer as well!

Hi Jennifer -

So nice to hear from a book person - I heart reading, and I think it gives one a definite advantage in a lot of areas, esp REI. I will paste a section from a post I wrote last week, these are pretty good reads. Enjoy!

***********************************************

Can I suggest a few books? These are dense reads, but very good.

Real Estate Finance and Investments (14th Ed), William B. Brueggeman & Jeffrey D. Fisher

You will need a bottle of Advil (and vodka) to get through this one, but if you manage to get 1/4 of it, you're going to know more than a lot of folks. Very complete - everything you need to know. I think it has a lot of the coursework Ben teaches in his CFU (just a guess).

The Depression of 2008 - by Fred E. Foldvary

A good overview of the moving parts in RE cycles and some economics as well. It's only 30 pages, but very informative.

The Complete Guide To Real Estate Finance For Investment Properties (How To Analyze Any Single-Family, Multifamily, Or Commercial Property) Steve Berges

An easier version of Real Estate Finance and Investments, very good, though I have not read all of it. This has a lot of the analysis formulas you can find here on BP and other places.

@Rhyan Kassuhn Welcome and welcome! @Alex Chin always has good advice, and I can't add much to this thread except my usual rant about data-driven processes... ie making your own databases from assessor data and tagging/marketing to desirable parcels. Best of luck, and pm me if needed. Take it easy!