All Forum Posts by: Brandon Foken

Ahhh man, come back from vacation and find out I missed this deal. Any thought about extending it to the end of Cyber Monday?

My county tax assessor page (Alameda County) does not give address information, just first and last names. One thing that I've found useful is to sign up with a free account with Property Shark. This allows you to input an address and it will give you a bunch of public records information: tax assessment, owners, address, etc. I'm not sure if it's just a California thing or if it will work nationwide. Best of luck!

Howdy Uuri,

I'm also from San Francisco (living in Cow Hollow). I've been following along on here as well as attending a few different meetups in the East Bay looking at the Oakland (West & North, not East) and Hayward markets. Planning on sending my first batch of yellow letters to absentee owners early next month. I don't have much to contribute on the subject of refi but wanted to at least drop a line and say welcome - always good to see fellow Bay Area people on here.

Brian Burke: Are you only putting offers on homes listed on MLS? Or are you finding leads through other avenues as well?

After Thanksgiving, I'll be sending out my first batch of yellow letters to absentee owners and will be mainly focusing on Direct Mail, bandit signs and a website to generate leads. Interested to hear your approach as well.

Thanks Josh. Looking forward to learning and contributing here!

Howdy Jason,

Good to see someone else from the Bay on here as well. The certificate I was looking at is offered by CCSF.

Link:http://www.ccsf.edu/NEW/en/educational-programs/school-and-departments/school-of-business/real-estate.html

The classroom costs were about $2k + books + misc. fees. It looked to be mainly geared to training potential agents and prepping them to pass their test. I've decided not to undergo that education and instead focus on getting my business up and running.

As for my profession now: I am selling enterprise data storage solutions to the State and Local governments of California as well as a few other enterprise accounts around the Bay. Been doing this for just shy of four years. Semi-recent transplant from Seattle.

Dale, thanks for the reply as you've replied to both of my posts which is always appreciated. However, I don't think fear is an obstacle for me. There is no nagging voice in the back of my head saying I can't do it. In fact, the only voice in my head is DO IT, wait are you waiting for? But I can definitely see others having this problem.

Jon's response confirmed some of my assumptions: mainly that I was over-thinking things. I will continue to research my surrounding areas and target a few specific areas that I will focus on.

Regarding agents, what is the best way to size them up? Jon recommends working with AN agent (which I take to me only one). What sorts of questions do you ask them to judge their credibility/knowledge/experience? Basically, how do you know you are tied to a good agent vs. one that is so-so or a time waster? Does anyone have any agents they've worked with in the East Bay of California that they could recommend?

It was about two months ago that I made the commitment to move from my regular, corporate sales gig to real estate investing. I originally set my goal to buy my first investment property in two years. Well, I've heard some rumblings that my job may be going away in 2013 so I'm trying to move more aggressively on my dream of being my own boss. So, with that being said, I wanted to provide a little background on what I've done and ask for some advice on what my 1st and 2nd steps should be.

Background:
I've been reading these forums incessantly day and night and have read through a lot of the blog posts and blogs by members here (123flip, Real Estate in Your Twenties, etc.). In addition to internet readings I've read Millionaire Real Estate Investor (Gary Keller), Building Wealth One House at a Time (John Schaub) and just finished Investing in Real Estate (Gary Eldred).

In addition, I've also signed up for my local REIA - just missed their latest meeting - and have attended a few different meetups that different investors have put on. The meetups were decent, some good information, but both ended with a sales pitch so probably something I won't devote a lot of time towards in the future. Finally, I've been digging around craigslist, zillow, trulia, etc. to start getting an idea on prices, rents, etc.

My initial strategy is to target motivated sellers as well as try to establish relationships with REO agents for SFHs within an hour drive of my apartment. I would like to focus on a few, quick-ish flips (minor cosmetics) to get my feet wet with a longer term strategy of moving towards rentals and buy & hold.

Now What?
So, now it's the $64,000 question: Now What? What should be first and second steps be to go from theory to practice? Some things come to mind, but I'm not sure if one should go before the other or if I'm just over-thinking this. Some ideas come to mind:

-Setting up a LLC
-Get a website up and running
-Create a comprehensive business plan with 1, 5 and 10 year objectives
-Get a cell phone (current employer provides my cell phone)
-Talk to a CPA (girlfriend's dad owns his own accounting firm)
-Start marketing to potentially motivated sellers
-Talk to landlords to get a gauge on my future competition
-Reach out to RE agents

Wow, that turned out to be a bit longer than I anticipated. Anyways, I'm hoping some newbies and more experienced people can jump in here and talk about some of the initial things they did to turn thinking/reading into action. Any advice is much appreciated!!

Thanks Dale.

Has anyone gone the formalized education route versus the more typical informal route of networking, reading, mentors, etc? Looking into the RE Certificate more, it would only be about $2k total (course fees + books) making it pretty attractive. Any input is greatly appreciated.

Howdy all,

My name is Brandon and I'm somewhat new around these parts hailing from the Bay Area. I'm 27 and no longer a recent grad. I've been doing the 7 - 4 thing (9 to 5 is so old school) for the last 4 or 5 years since I graduated from college (GO Ducks!). Sold mortgages in Seattle at the very height of the market (July '07) and now have moved on to selling enterprise data storage for a Fortune500 company in the San Francisco Bay area. While in school, I interned at a small property management/investing company in Eugene and that really opened my eyes to Real Estate Investing and knew it was always something I wanted to do. Life got in the way for a bit, but not I'm back at it and have set two goals for myself: #1 buy a multifamily investment property by the time I'm 30 and #2 quit my day job and focus on REI full-time by 35.

To further those goals, I've started voraciously reading as much about REI as I can fit in during the day. I recently finished Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller and I'm currently reading Building Wealth One House at a Time by John W. Schaub. Next up is Investing in Real Estate by Gary Eldred. In addition, CCSF offers a 18-credit real estate certificate program that I'm looking in to as a way to get more formalized education. This looks to be geared somewhat more to a Agent, but there are enough courses for everyone depending on their interests.

Being that I'm in the Bay, property is significantly higher here than in many other places in the country making SFH rentals practically unfeasible. As of today (and my criteria is nowhere close to being locked down), I'm targeting the Oakland/Berkeley areas for a 2 - 4 unit MFH property. My main focus currently is continuing to get a solid foundation and understanding of the fundamentals while networking with fellow investors in the area.

I've been lurking for a few weeks so just wanted to take some time to say hello and thanks for all the excellent topics I've read through thus far.