All Forum Posts by: Bill Mitchell

Get creative. Hang on let me try here, branding. I know a bunch of investors personally that use a direct mail service here and they all use the SAME templates and just change their picture. Holy cow, you won't believe how many more calls I get because I use my own unique cards with a brand. And sellers can actually REMEMBER who it is thats mailing them every 2 months

Here I just shared one to help everyone out, lets see what ideas others have :)

@Zach Sikes Color me interested. But would you mind doing a quick write up explaining how a new agent gets started (either SA or Listing Agent) from no houses to list / no buyers to buy, to doing it full time.

Honestly it sounds harder than wholesaling.

@Zach Sikes Honestly I am very surprised to hear all of this. No wonder its hard for new agents and many of them work other jobs while they are getting it up and running.

I really thought if you joined a Century 21 or whatever people just called the main office everyday and those leads went out to other agents. Interesting.

I used several different sources and I wasn't able to find much for that specific subdivision. But I did find some off the market in the general area. The going rate seems to be about $.70 per sq ft.

Even if I was conservative and lowered it to $.60 per sq ft for this rental, it would feel to me like I am using guess work.

Ive never had this problem where I can't find enough solid rent comps from the MLS.

@Joseph T Where does it say on trulia where the rental estimate is? I am looking at the property and all I see is an estatime on the retail value of the property.

What are some additional tools I can use to find rent rate besides the MLS? I ask because I am looking at a property in a very rental heavy area. I know the houses are renting here, the problem is none of them are being advertised through the MLS. The rent rates are a bit lower, perhaps that is why ($550-$800).

I know some people use craigs list to help supplement what the rental rate is. How does one go about doing that?

Thanks everyone

If you are an agent and wholesale just disclose disclose disclose. Thats all there is to it.

I think the people that regurgitate the 70% rule all the time for wholesaling don't know any better, mostly probably because they have done few if any deals themselves. When all I tried to do was 70% all the time and not paying attention to any local market factors all I did was bang my head against the wall trying to figure out why I couldn't get under contract. Some were accepted, but I am finding much more success using this new "trick".

@Tim G. Thanks a ton Tim. Again thanks so much for taking the time to offer your expertise in my thread. One last question though. When I use the MLS to find cash buyers, I am usually contacting the real estate agent that represented the buyer. If its a recent sale, it usually hasn't changed over in the tax appraisal district records yet. Therefore, I offer a 3% commission to the agent based on the sales price of the home for connecting their buyer to me.

The thing I am worried about is giving the agent the address of the lead I put a lot time and money (marketing) into for. And having them wait for my contract to expire and try and get the listing themselves. It has not happened yet, but I wouldn't be suprised if it does eventually.

I suppose the upshot is, the sellers I typically work with never want to work with a realtor to begin with. And if a realtor were to do something like that, then I could always report them to the real estate commission here in TX.

Thanks for your feedback everyone I really appreciate it.

@Tim G.

Do you think it would be ok to make this a more standard practice in my business in your opinion? That is paying more attention to what price properties are going for in the subject properties subdivsion and surrounding areas. And then trying to get the property under contract at a somewhat better discount than that for what cash buyers are buying at? I figured it would be hard to lose that way, since doing this you will always be going by local values.

Instead of trying to apply the 70% rule as a blanket over every house I ever look at (which is what I used to do).