All Forum Posts by: Corey Smith

I am a little confused at what your concern is in regards to investing.If you walk into a house and can smell that an animal has been living there, your options are to clean the smell up yourself or move on to the next house. Personally I've never worried about a house that had pets previously living in it. A bad odor can come from anything, I've been inside houses that have had a bad odor and no pets lived there. Humans can create a bad odor within a house. I think your time is better spent worrying about the numbers on a deal as opposed to previous tenants. Good Luck!

I completely agree with will. Everyone has they're own way of doing things but on most of my jobs, I am the general contractor so I dictate price and timeline. I usually pay by the hour but I dictate how long it should take. If they can't get it done within my timeline, then they are fired and the other jobs that we talked about gets done by another sub. Jobs are not accessible now like they use to be, so my subs usually have fires up under they're butts to get jobs done so that they can continue working. My .02

I have actually gotten a few contractors from posting ads on craigslist. Never really used Angieslist.com. When I post an ad on Craigslist, I usually ask for pictures of work done and references, which I do call to check on.The references has to be GC's they worked for or customers they did work for, nothing less. I'm not going to say it's a flawless method to find good subs, but I will say that it has cut down on my headaches of dealing with bad subs. Good Luck!

Lorelei,

The "fear of the unknown" is what i've found most newbies are a little nervous and/or scared of. What if they ask this? What if I can't do this? What if they're rude? What if they get offended from something I said? What if they say NO?!

Anytime you start something new, you'll have those butterflies in your stomach. The first time I started, I SUCKED. No lie! I was stuttering because I was nervous. Sometimes said the wrong thing because I didn't know what to say. Eventually I became better from time and doing it over and over and over again.

I'll tell you my secret on how I got past that, hopefully it can help you out. Most successful people have found they're success because of something or someone that motivated them. It might have been that they were trying to avoid bankruptcy or foreclosure, they had a baby on the way, a relative got sick etc.

What I did was kept a picture of my son with me in my wallet. For every bad meeting that I had, for every screw up conversation that I had, I reached in my wallet and pulled that picture out. I wanted a better life for my son, I wanted to give him the world. That's all I needed to keep going. Find your motivation, and no matter what never stop striving for your goals. Good Luck!

This is a great information filled networking blog. I'm glad that it is getting the exposure that it deserves.

Wesley,

You have gotten some great advice from these two gentlemen. I would just like to add that in my opinion you should put your money up in the bank and become completely educated on the game of real estate first. Don't believe that the real estate game is as easy as these "gurus" try to make it seem.

The "gurus" tend to leave out all the small details within real estate investing that can cause a "good deal" to go bad. The key to this thing is that you want to become an investor not a gambler. Putting your hard earned money into something that you don't completely understand is gambling and definitely a recipe for disaster. Save your money and take the time to shadow and/or do work for a seasoned investor and you'll quickly learn about all the minor details that are left out by "gurus" that want to sell books and seminars. Once you understand the game and pitfalls to avoid, then I would recommend that you invest your money.

Lastly, I would warn you to be careful when dealing with "experienced investors". Not all of them are out to help you, some are out to help themselves. You'd be amazed at how many newbie investors I talk to and they are turned off by real estate because they lost tons of money and messed up their credit because they thought an "experienced investor" was acting in their best interest.

There is a great deal of money to be made in real estate, but there's no rush. Get educated first and grab some free experience then jump in with both feet. Good Luck!

Building a relationship with your local bank is one of the best things you can do for your investing career. But right now, you should be talking to your circle of family and friends about becoming private investors for your projects. I personally prefer private investors but it's always good to know the banks money is there if you need it. Good Luck!

I completely agree with everything that's been said here. I think that you should do what Jeff says and 1. Slow down and make sure this is a good deal. 2. Post the numbers here because there are plenty of experienced investors that can give you some great insight on a situation that looks good on the surface. 3. Or find an experienced commercial investor in your area that is willing to walk you through the process step by step.

By both of you being newbies, I really think that your relative should have found an experienced broker to help get the deal done correctly and split the commission. But I do understand how a "new" real estate agent can want this commercial deal all to themselves inspite of the inexperience. It's hard to get brokers to work whole heartedly in the best interest of the client. lol Good Luck

I would recommend that you simply ask the seller how did he arrive at that number. No need to make it a guessing game if it doesn't have to be.
Also, you could research out an appraiser and explain to them the situation to find out their opinion on the value. But, first you need to ask the seller how did he get his value of the property because he might have had a recent appraisal done on the property. Good Luck

I think that there are some great advice here. I would just add that your learning experience should come from home visits with sellers that are motivated. At the end of the day, your time should be valuable. The more time you waste going out to unmotivated sellers home, the less time you have generating leads to motivated sellers that could actually make you money. At the end of the day you have to ask yourself, what is my time worth?