All Forum Posts by: Benjamin Shearer

I am new to the REI game and currently still in the process of building my team. I'm finding that searching Google doesn't provide specific enough information about REI tax folks or attorneys. My goal for next week is to interview 5 of each in my area (Plymouth, Westland, Livonia, Novi, Northville, Canton). I would greatly appreciate some recommendations of those that others have worked well with that are focused on buy and hold investors instead of rolling the dice on generic bios found through Google. (Recommendations of who NOT to use are also appreciated!)

@Jeff G. Haha I've had people say far worse so an invite to Hell wouldn't be too bad. I will definitely have to give it a look in our area. Def interested! Will PM as soon as I figure out where that function is.

Hey @Jeff G. thanks for the welcome! The wife and I are currently committed to house hacking for the next five years so we're looking for some 3/2 MFH's. We've mostly been using the MLS to find properties though and there isn't much (nothing at all) in the areas we'd be comfortable living/investing. Our old house (now a rental) is located in Plymouth but we are looking from Novi to Canton and Farmington to the northern part of Westland. We were able to find a 1% SFH on the MLS that was gutted and renovated seven years ago so this will be a second rental once we find a MFH. Inventory is real low and prices are high in the nicer suburbs. I will be driving for dollars and contacting distressed looking properties going forward. I'm not real familiar with the area outside of where we are focusing but I'd imagine there are still some dumpster fires for sale pretty cheap haha.

How long have you been wholesaling? What methods are you using to find deals?

Hello BP community!

My name is Benjamin Shearer and I am a new investor from Josh Dorkin's favorite area (DETROIT!). I have been continuously stalking the BP blog posts, site and podcasts over the past 4 months and figure it's finally time to stop lingering behind the scenes and get active within the awesome community here on BP.

I'm a big believer in learning (screw you analysis paralysis) by doing so we recently purchased a second home (which will become our next rental property as well - don't worry I ran all the numbers first and purchased with this intent) in order to turn our first home into a rental property. 

Going forward, I hope to be able to provide some valuable insight for others (whatever is possible for a newbie to provide at least) while also gaining wisdom from others both before and after I make mistakes. I can't guarantee that the insights I provide will be valuable but I can guarantee that I will make some mistakes so feedback from others is always greatly appreciated.

I'm in this for the long haul so I look forward to building and maintaining some solid relationships with other BP members. Please don't ever think twice about contacting me if you think there's anything that I could do to help you and your REI endeavors. As Brandon Turner says 8-10 times every podcast, "I love it!"