All Forum Posts by: Cornelius Garland

I've only seen it from the outside, and it looks amazing. Easily, the best-looking house on the street.

Sounds like you're gatekeeping. I highly doubt the influx of new investors is the primary factor why you're unable to acquire deals at reasonable prices. At some point, we all had to enter the real estate market, and I'm certain when you were new there was an experienced flipper saying the same thing you're saying now. 

What's the alternative? Do we not want people to follow their dreams and change their lives for the better?

The camaraderie in the Biggerpockets' community has gone downhill significantly since I joined in 2015. Everyone seems so bitter and jaded these days.

@Catie Fihn I have ample experience with all of the outbound marketing channels, as I've been wholesaling full time since 2015. An important metric to track is how many leads it will take to get one property under contract from cold calling. Based on my company's metrics, we're averaging 100 leads to 1 contract with cold calling. In new virtual markets or cities where the median sales prices of homes are over $400k, it takes 200 leads to get a deal. In 2024, our cold callers averaged 1.5 leads per day, and I had 40 callers on my team.

Let's answer an even more pertinent question: How long will it take to get a contract from cold calling? On average, it took us 60 - 90 days for the hot leads to convert into a contract in 2024. 

If the agency you're using will generate 6 leads per week then you'll realistically get your first contract in 4 months.

Because of these abysmal contract timelines, I'm not suggesting my JV partners or clients utilize cold calling as their primary marketing channel. It was my main marketing channel from 2019 - 2023, but cold texting has since replaced it.

You can get the same lead volume from one day of texting 5,000 sellers as you would with 5 cold callers dialing for a month. At $5 per hour per cold caller, on the low end, your labor expenses will be at $4,000 per month. Texting 5,000 sellers at .0075 cents per text will cost $37.50, and this will generate roughly 50 leads per day. Additionally, the leads from texting are more motivated.

If you're considering cold calling, I would treat it like direct mail - you must go all in on it or else it doesn't make sense as a marketing channel. A part time caller, even on a very targeted and motivated list, will not generate enough leads to get a property under contract in the next 30 days.

I really do not like being the bearer of bad news, but I've seen so many investors go down the marketing route you're taking, and they end up spending all their hard-earned money on methods that do not work well. However, I do think it's the natural progression for many investors, and some lessons are better learned through experience.

At the end of the day, you'll need to choose the marketing channel that best fits your lifestyle, budget, and goals. For some investors, it's direct mail because they're in a rural market with many elder homeowners. For others, voice broadcast is crushing it. At the moment, my research indicates that cold texting is working extremely well in any market and demographic.

Lastly, I do not suggest to cold calling yourself unless you're dialing a very motivated list like an inherited or auction list. It's very difficult to keep up with cold calling daily especially when you're making offers, building a buyers list, and maintaining your family life outside of real estate. When you stop dialing, the leads stop. And when the leads stop, your business stops. As with any marketing channel, you see the best results by consistently reaching out to sellers daily.

I hope this helps and best of luck! You're on the right track and asking all the right questions.

You're welcome. There are certain words we need to avoid so the carriers won't flag us as spam. My message looks something like this: Hi, I'm interested in acquiring your property at 123 Main St. Are you considering parting ways with it?

It's important to avoid these words: sell, cash offer, buy, purchase, interested, etc. Any word that can be considered transactional should be avoided.

10 DLC registration can be a pain, but it's necessary so you can enable the texting feature in any software. I read all the regulations in 2023, and there was an update last month, which required me to update my SOPs. I taught myself how to submit the accounts for approval. It took me several tries the first time, but I've gotten several accounts approved since then. I mainly use REI Reply, and I can send off 5,000 texts per day in each account. I have 10 accounts, and I'm texting major volume daily. We get 50 - 100 leads per day and these sellers aren't in communication with other investors since they do not pick up for cold calls.

I would suggest using a lead gen service like Lead Mining Pros now to gain momentum. However, I would start working on getting a texting platform 10 DLC approved. The hassle is worth it, and cold texting is a blue ocean right now. There are very few marketing channels where there is literally no competition.

Based on the KPIs I'm tracking, yes texting is more effective, and it's not even close. In 2015, I started using direct mail and landed my first several deals this way. Once skip tracing became accessible and reliable, I switched to cold calling primarily as my marketing channel in 2019. Around this time is when I started cold texting. It was effective back then, but it quickly became saturated. During the pandemic, hundreds of new investors were entering the wholesaling business, and it caused immense marketing oversaturation. Some homeowners were getting 50 - 100 texts a week on one house. Consequently, the government introduced legislation in October 2023, which requires every business to register their companies with a federally regulated organization in order to text.

This brings us to today. Now that the laws were introduced, it essentially removed 99% of the investors who were texting. Many investors simply think it's illegal or ineffective. The truth is, the process to get your account 10DLC / A2P verified is not straightforward and the government prefers it like this. If you can overcome the obstacles with getting your account compliant, then it's worth it.

In the last 12 months, the majority of my deals came from cold texting and long term follow up from leads I had in my CRM. Very few came from cold calling and direct mail. I can get 5 - 20 leads per day texting, depending on how many texts I send. Currently, I'm averaging a 1% lead rate - 500 texts sent and 5 leads generated; 1000 texts sent and 10 leads generated, etc.

For cold calling it will take 1 full-time cold caller dialing over a month to get the same amount of leads I can get in a day with texting. It just doesn't make sense to cold call anymore. Until something changes, texting will be my number one marketing channel. I'm glad the regulations were put in place because I can go into any market and dominate it without competition, while keeping my cost per deal low.

@Drew Mullin I know the owner, Nick; he's a solid guy. I would say that cold calling, in general, has been in decline over the last year. If you can have him do text blasts for you then I would go that route. You might not get much traction with his cold calling services. His service is for beginners to get you started, so the goal is to use his service to gain momentum and then potentially build out your own cold calling or texting team.

Isn’t a CPA‘s sole purpose to ensure you pay the least amount in taxes by exploiting legal loopholes? How is this any different?
 

@Account Closed If you have a good relationship with them then I'd get a durable power of attorney for this specific property and cancel the MLS listing with the current agent. It might be priced too high and they might have it listed for the retail as-is price versus the true cash value. If it needs updating, even if there were repairs done over the years, then this will likely be a cash transaction that needs to sell to an investor.

With the POA, you can list it on the MLS yourself without having to involve them in all the paperwork. Before you do this, you should have a plan of action and feel confident in your ability to move it. More likely than not, it's priced too high. You can post the deal here on Bigger Pockets and there might be a buyer for it. I've wholesaled several deals to community members on this site.

You can get paid a percentage of the proceeds from the sale either on the HUD or outside of the closing.

Great question, @Sergio Mosq. I've done several deals in the Hampton Roads area. I usually get a durable power of attorney from the seller, which allows me to list property on the MLS. I get paid a "marketing consulting fee" on the HUD instead of an assignment fee.

If you are using a purchase and sales contract, double closing should work. A similar law went into effect in South Carolina. Attorneys have wholesalers sign a disclosure form that they won't be held legally liable for closing the transaction. I suggest calling around to investor friendly attorneys to see if they'd be open to it. There's always a hungry attorney looking to bolster their business, while some attorneys may simply say "no". You just need one to work so I would find your guy and lean on his advice on how to structure your deals.

There's always a work around. Money is made in the grey area similar to how corporations exploit tax loopholes. It's the same thing here.