All Forum Posts by: Jonathan C.

For me when a wholesaler brings me a deal I only want 3 things:

1-address

2-price

3- pictures

Rehab estimates, ARV estimates, and all that other stuff are almost always wildly inaccurate when estimated by wholesalers. If you are a flipper who knows what you're doing (which is who you're going to want to be dealing with anyways), they're going to run their own ARV and rehab numbers no matter what the wholesaler says.

So, what separates a good from bad wholesalers: simply bringing good deals (75% ARV-repairs or better)

The vast majority of wholesalers market deals that aren't good deals.  If you can actually find deeply discounted properties, you'll be head of 98% of all wholesalers who have ever marketed a deal to me.

Other information on this:

1- I track all my expenses for all my rehabs in a simple excel sheet.  Did 22 rehabs in 2014 and it was still good enough for me, though I'm sure quickbooks will be better and will switch to that at some point

2- I use a pretty autonomous GC who I don't have to oversee very closely.  The costs are higher than managing myself, but I'm attempting to do this as a high volume business, so willing to sacrifice some profit so I can spend more time on the stuff that makes me the most money: finding deals.  

To find a good GC my best trick would be to search out run down properties bought in cash in last 15-30 days and then spend a day driving around to all of them collecting contact info for the people working on those houses. I find addresses of these properties through MLS as I am licensed as a Realtor. You'll find that these are sometimes properties bought by investors.

When you come across someone working on the house let them know you have a business flipping houses and are looking for people to do work on your jobs.  Ask them if this is a job for investor or homeowner, then ask if they work primarily with investors or home owners (you're looking for GCs who work mostly or exclusively with investors).

Thanks for all the kind words everyone

I'll post more results of my deals in the future

@Benjamin Ellis it depends on what type of owners you're contacting.

Looking up individual phone numbers and calling owners is super time consuming, so I only do that with owners I have specific info on that makes me think there is a high likelihood they'll be motivated.  For example, I do think it's worth looking up owners of vacant houses and trying to call them because if you can actually get in touch with the owner of a truly vacant house they are probably the most motivated sellers of all because they have no interest at all in their property any more.

Another prospect it makes sense to lookup phone numbers and call directly are pre-foreclosures.

One service I'd recommend for finding phone numbers for vacant owners, but it ain't cheap (about $300/mo) is lexisnexis.

If, however, you're targeting owners with lower likelihood to be motivated, like high equity home owners, which I do also, it would make no sense to call the owners because 19 out of 20 will have no interest in selling and/or be asking way too much for their house.  Those people should get letters.

@Matt Morgan usual profit is what seems to be pretty typical for rehab- about 23-25K, so this one was quite a bit more.  That's how it works though I've found... I'll get a little lucky and have a 50-60k deal every 4-5 deals and then get unlucky and have like a 2-10K deal every 5-6 deals, so it kind of all averages out to around the 25K mark.  

My general rule of thumb going in when deciding whether or not to do a flip is 10% return on total capital- purchase price, renovation cost, holding costs, selling costs, etc (all the costs). That way it accounts for the size of the property I'm buying.  I'm OK with smaller profit on a property where the all in cost is $150k than all in costs $250k, for example.

@Michael Lerch yeah like @Tom S. said- you want someone in commercial lending department, not residential mortgages.

When you call I'd say- I'm a real estate investor looking to see if you do purchase plus renovation cost loans on single family houses for investment purposes.  Ideally loans that can convert to some sort of longer term financing after the work is complete.  I think I'd probably want to talk to someone in your commercial lending area...  is that right?

@Bruce Scannell just the DC metro area- northern VA, DC, southern MD. I still don't feel like I've tapped out the number of houses I can do here. I would only consider looking somewhere else if I felt like there was basically nothing left for me close by. It would be hard to invest somewhere else- I'd need someone I trusted 100% and who knew what they were doing in another market to be able to consider something like that. Most likely I'll just expand more North into MD if/when I need to... moving up towards Baltimore area.

@Jesse T. it's brentwood MD

@Ryan Billingsley thanks.   Just roll it into the pool of cash that I'll use to fund upcoming deals.  

@Jon Lafferty yeah I am full time.  Did 22 this year and hopefully 25-30 next year.

Thanks everyone

Hi guys,

Interested in real world experiences on this.  I send out about 6,000 mail pieces/mo.  I've been using a voicemail number that also shows all hangups (ringcentral).  I've found motivated people leave messages.  Unmotivated people or tire kickers don't leave as often. And, literally, EVERY hangup I've reached live across a year of 6k mail pieces/mo has been a crap lead.  This to me shows the voicemail is probably getting the job done.

That said, thinking of switching to a call answering service anyways.  I'll probably end up testing it, but wondering from people doing a reasonable volume of letters what do you do- direct to voicemail or call answering service?

And, if call answering service, any recommendations from ones you've used.

Thanks

Thanks- anyone else?