Skip to content
×
PRO
Pro Members Get Full Access!
Get off the sidelines and take action in real estate investing with BiggerPockets Pro. Our comprehensive suite of tools and resources minimize mistakes, support informed decisions, and propel you to success.
Advanced networking features
Market and Deal Finder tools
Property analysis calculators
Landlord Command Center
$0
TODAY
$69.00/month when billed monthly.
$32.50/month when billed annually.
7 day free trial. Cancel anytime
Already a Pro Member? Sign in here
Pick markets, find deals, analyze and manage properties. Try BiggerPockets PRO.
x
All Forum Categories
All Forum Categories
Followed Discussions
Followed Categories
Followed People
Followed Locations
Market News & Data
General Info
Real Estate Strategies
Landlording & Rental Properties
Real Estate Professionals
Financial, Tax, & Legal
Real Estate Classifieds
Reviews & Feedback

All Forum Posts by: Cary Donham

Cary Donham has started 1 posts and replied 61 times.

Post: Had any experience with billboard advertising? Please share

Cary DonhamPosted
  • Real Estate Investor
  • Dallas, TX
  • Posts 63
  • Votes 18

Ditto on what Joseph said. I had a fellow real estate investor, a friend of mine here in Dallas, who tried it and he said that same thing..... it just wasn't worth it.

I have bought quite a few properties from having vinyl lettering on my truck windows (didn't like the magnets personally and the lettering could be read from farther away).

Bandit signs are wonderful. Just be aware of your city code. You have to run out and stick the sign in the ground real quick while no one is looking then drive off LOL! There is a reason why they coined the term BANDIT sign.

Post: Bandit signs online resource? In Denver? 800 # resource?

Cary DonhamPosted
  • Real Estate Investor
  • Dallas, TX
  • Posts 63
  • Votes 18

I use VoiceNation for my 800# but keep in mind that some prospects might be more inclined to call a local number. I haven't run the numbers though to have a difinitive answer on that.

Post: Beginning in Wholesaling

Cary DonhamPosted
  • Real Estate Investor
  • Dallas, TX
  • Posts 63
  • Votes 18

Wholesaling is not hard in my opinion but it does take some research, education and an action plan. Well on second thought I can see how this might be difficult for some folks but I didn't think it was hard.

1) Research who you can team up with to dirddog for

2) Research and educate yourself on how much repairs on a house would cost the average investor

3) Attend as many of your local investor clubs as you can to learn along with reading this forum as others have said

Here's what I did:

I called the "We buy houses" ads in the paper and asked them if they would be interested in training somone at no cost to them to find homes for. I found only 2 interested to meet with me. I offered to buy lunch so this way we could meet face to face. I picked the one who I felt had the most experience in which I could benefit from.... of course while he made money at the same time.

He took me around to 3 properties while he looked at them and made an offer on them to show me about how much the cost of the rehab would be for his crews. After that I started looking at foreclosures and found a couple of properties for about 1k to 1.5K a piece birddog fee.

I felt at this time I could find and write contacts for myself then assign those contracts over or do double closings to gain a larger piece of the pie.

Then I felt I could rehab one myself but I didn't know how much the costs of the repairs would be for me as everyone has different levels of costs based on their contractors.

So I started writing down all of the names and phone numbers from the sides of vehicles such as Joe Johnson painting or John Doe's Remodeling. I obtained access to some foreclosed properties through a realtor friend of mine and had the contractors meet me at these locations to give me bids because I was interested in buying these homes. I also made sure these homes needed major work including foundation issues.

Now I had a database of contractors, I knew how much to write the offer for and what the numbers needed to look like to turn a profit and presto. I did my first rehab back in 2002 with 14K profit. It's not a smoking deal but 14K isn't bad for the first one. Second one was 21K.

From there I started attending one of the best investor clubs in this area and adding to my database for contractors, investors and hard money lenders.

Post: Verify Occupancy

Cary DonhamPosted
  • Real Estate Investor
  • Dallas, TX
  • Posts 63
  • Votes 18

Michelle I don't know where you are located so you might need to act quickly because here in TX the lender only has to file with the county clerk 21 days prior to the foreclosure.

Correction:

I realized you can edit your own post so I did it up above.....

Describing yourself doesn't descriminate against anyone. I think it would be fine to list what you have here.

You meet with several and pick the best choice. It would be real hard for someone to know if you descriminated against them unless they had the list of prospects you were looking at.

This is not a job you are hiring for - this is someone who is going to share your house with you. You wouldn't want to wake up and night with a stranger standing in your bedroom door with a hammer in their hand like in the movie "Slingblade."

Don't you think you have the right to choose who you feel most comfortable living with considering this is your home?

Post: Anyone rely entirely on internet marketing?

Cary DonhamPosted
  • Real Estate Investor
  • Dallas, TX
  • Posts 63
  • Votes 18
Originally posted by Randal D:
I could go as high as maybe $300-400/month for now, Im just starting out. Yes, I do have a website to send them to and a form they can fill out. Should they be sent directly to the form, if the url is easy to type ?

No they should go to the landing page which will be setup to peak interest enough to get them to click on the link for the form to request more information. I haven't fooled with my website in quite some time now and I get mortgage leads from them strickly from the natural searches now. I get about 2 or 3 leads a day.

Post: Google AdWords

Cary DonhamPosted
  • Real Estate Investor
  • Dallas, TX
  • Posts 63
  • Votes 18

I haven't used PPC for the specific target you mentioned but I have for my mortgage business. Just about anything is being searched for on the internet so it can work...... IF DONE PROPERLY. I'm assuming that you haven't done that much with adwords so forgive me if you already know some of what I'm typing here.

There is quite a bit to learn about when using adwords like going after the less searched terms that are more cost effetive or mispelled search terms. For instance one of my search terms I used was countywide because people would mispell Countrywide and leave the R out of the word. But this is only one small piece of the bigger picture.

Adwords for Dummys is a great book to start with. Plan on spending plenty of time learning how to use your tracking, webpage optimizer etc... inside adwords.

First thing do is start with throwing anywords you can think of in your campaign and set the daily and monthly limit low to begin with. Adwords will even give you more suggestion from just adding one word in your campaign and show you how much that term is being searched along with what the competition is for that word. From there you keep adding words and letting your data build. After a month or so you will start to see which keywords or phrases work best and you can focus more on those then bump up your budget. This will keep you from spending too much money in the beginning.

Post: Best day for postcards to land

Cary DonhamPosted
  • Real Estate Investor
  • Dallas, TX
  • Posts 63
  • Votes 18

Many studies have been done on this and the findings are that direct mail works best if it lands mid week (Tue - Thursday) as Andy mentioned.

Post: getting started in wholesaling

Cary DonhamPosted
  • Real Estate Investor
  • Dallas, TX
  • Posts 63
  • Votes 18

You can get anything for any amount of earnest money..... in fact you don't even really need earnest money. The earnest money is there for the seller to make sure they have a serious buyer and that they don't get jerked around by holding a property for 30 or 40 days and then not have it closed.

I will follow Jeff's answer which I like too with "Everything is negotiable....."