All Forum Posts by: Brandon Hurlburt

http://imgur.com/gallery/IRLLGvB

http://imgur.com/gallery/TLKrful

You can easily paint over wallpaper, I can even send you a picture of a recent house I flipped for a rental that every room had wallpaper and after a little texture no one would ever guess.

The biggest thing to watch out for IMO is just to make sure you don't load on the primer or paint too much or it could loosen the adhesive behind it and get creases and air bubbles. If you're extremely anal about the quality, you could even have a fan running behind you to help the primer sit faster. After you're done with the primer, put on a decent knockdown texture and it'll take any imperfections out of it no problem. Also, I've never used a primer for this that cost more than $15/gallon.

Haven't had to travel more than 20 minutes from front door actually. Kind of nice because it has made setting up shop pretty easy. Now I have my own crew that I pay dirt cheap to go around and flip my BRRRR deals so I can focus on finding good multifamilies to roll the profits into.

@Julie Noone

I'm working a similar deal right now. Personally, I don't think the financing structure is as big of a deal in this situation as the actual deal itself. If you're buying a basically turnkey deal with almost all other people's money it more than likely won't cashflow.

I.M.E. there needs to be some sort of significant value you can add to it in a short period of time. (Raising rents). On the one I'm working that I said is similar, our price per unit 55k compared to the 110k you're paying. We're also raising the rents $250/month per unit within the first year.

So my "Long story short" version of what I'm getting at is that you're paying too much for the place and don't have much value you can add from what it sounds like. I personally like to pay a little less for a place than I probably should due to seller motivation and have a clear and concise plan on how I can quickly and effectively turn over the units fast in order to generate more income and raise the value of the building for when I sell it.

@Yonah Weiss

I was under the impression there are quite a few investors out there that starter with single families and moved into large multifamilies. That is personally what I am in the process of. I have not gotten "large" yet. I do however have a 16 unit and I'm closing on a 8 unit property in a bit. All of the cash used was from the profits I've received from the single families.

I don't know what your friend is doing specifically. I just simply buy crack houses in decent enough neighborhoods (c+) where people still feel comfortable living. I'll typically be all in for 60% or less. So on a 120k house, even holding it as a rental for $1,100/month, I'll pull out a good 30-40k and still cashflow upwards of $300/month per door. I'll then hold it long enough to flip a few more houses in the neighborhood, indirectly bringing the values of the other houses up. In 5 years instead of refinancing, I plan on selling them and then using all of the equity I have to get into what I would consider larger multifamilies.

Maybe I'm missing something, but that seems like scaling to me. Starting with a tiny little house and turning it into a large apartment complex over the long run.

Originally posted by @Braden Smith:

I haven't found a deal on the MLS in over two years. I think that is true for most areas of the country. There are no deals left to be found on the MLS.

Absentee owners are the most heavily mailed lists there are. Every guru out there tells people to mail absentee owners. And many people mail it because it is cheap. If it's easy and cheap, you can bet there's a million other people doing the same thing.

In my opinion, you need to find a way to stand out from the crowd in this ultra competitive REI environment we have nowadays. Be creative. Think outside the box. Use your own style and personality to come up with a unique list to mail and/or a unique marketing/advertising method. Be creative with your mail pieces and try to do something other than the same old tired "we buy houses" phrase.

I know in my area, we have reached a point of absolute saturation with the number of realtors and investors out there. Just in the last couple to a few years, I have seen the number of wholesalers in my area increase exponentially and the same is true with realtors. Im also seeing a lot of the new realtors trying to be investors also. And all these newbies and rookies are all doing the same exact things...

Actually flying to new orleans tomorrow 😉

I'm back!! 

Okay. So after a little more testing with both I have to say my opinion is mixed. 

Keep in mind my leads are for flips and value add rentals. I do not wholesale and I'm not an agent.

While I do get more internet traffic per dollar. A good majority of the leads are garbage to me. A lot of tire kickers. A lot of people expecting full retail value for their house. A lot of younger people with no equity.

With DMM, I have been able to specifically target high equity / free and clear owners with distressed homes. When I do finally get leads they're almost always deals.

So I'm kind of partial. If i was into wholeasaling or if i had an agent close to me i could probably use more of the internet leads to make profit. 

To me at the end of the day it comes down to do you want to spend a good amount of money for quality leads. Or do you want to talk to 20 people to get a good deal?

I'm a beginner investor. I have a few BRRRR deals under my belt and I'm looking to keep growing. Everything has been running pretty smoothly so far, but I'm not quite sure what i want to do for my next move. I'm naturally drawn towards the more rural areas where I can find good 2% deals. I self manage my rentals and I don't currently have a job, so it hasn't bothered me yet having them more spread out. I'm just not sure if once i get to say 30+ doors if it will be too much of a pain in the butt. Then being in more rural areas will it be too hard to sell them off if I feel they are too much stress. On the flip side, i can find 1.3-1.5% deals in the more metro area. The only problem i have with this is the best i can seem to find for net ROI is a max of 40% compared to 70%+ in the rural areas. So basically twice as much money per dollar invested. So what would everyone suggest? Faster growth and higher ROI, or easier managing but less of a return?

Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:

Originally posted by @Brandon Hurlburt:

Finally decided to do my first direct mail campaign because I can't find any good deals on the MLS. Seems like any time there is a half way decent deal, something I would still try to get knocked down a good 15%, it has an accepted offer at list price or above by the end of the day.

I wanted to do pre-probates and inheritance leads for my first campaign. But I couldn't find any cheap lists, and to go through county records and scrub all of the junk deals was taking way too much time. So I think I decided on absentee owners for now. The criteria I have set so far is at least 40% equity, and a home value of <100k. I was thinking about also doing a purchase of >10 years ago, but I read that a good majority of motivated sellers are new investors that just want to get out.

Are there any tips that anyone would recommend to get the best ROI? I'm looking to buy them all with cash, so I probably will only be buying 1-2 houses a month if possible. So I don't really need 1,000 leads, just a few high quality ones.

 Hey Brandon, 

Several things. I am not sure if you have realistic expectations on this investing game.

Trust me you will not get 1000's of leads.

At best with a killer website you will get between 4 and 8 quality leads a week. (but you need an amazing website for this).

Then you don't do "direct mail marketing because you can't find anything on MLS". That is not the reason you do DMM nor is that the obvious thing to do if MLS is not working out.

As a starting investor, you do DMM simply because you have no other (efficient) way to get leads. Driving for dollars and bandit signs are crap! Don't even bother. 

WHILE you do DMM it is extremely important to gt your website going. DMM should NEVER EVERRRRR be your main lead generating source. NEVER! It is annoying, time consuming expensive unreliable etc. etc.

Do it until your site is ranking one on Google and if your credibility score is decent you will get a ton of leds a week. (For FREE!)

Like so:

You asked for tips on getting the best ROI... yet you talk about DMM.

This is like saying "I am hungry, can anyone give me tips on what to do... but I don't want to deal with anything edible". The mistake most people make I am trying to help is as follows.

They already have their mind made up with a specific thing they need help with and they are not willing to change it no matter how logic it is they are doing it wrong.

You want a good ROI. WORK ON YOUR WEBSITE! (While doing DMM)

I also run a small business doing security systems. I have A LOT of experience with various types of marketing. Trade shows, DM, Sep, PPC, door knocking, etc. I can tell you right now I want nothing to do with the ultra competitive nature of Google AdWords.  I already stated I only am looking to buy maybe 1 house a month. I can just about do that with just my personal connections and free Craigslist posts. To be able to send out 500 mailers a month, will costs only a couple hundred dollars. In my experience I can waste that in a day with AdWords. Absolutely horrible idea unless you want to try and run some huge empire.