All Forum Posts by: Chris Jackson

@Joe Bodek One of the things people don't connect when they bounce around to the various REI business models is the fact that at the core, this is a people business. Getting your people skills honed is when any of the business models start clicking. Until that clicks, really what people are doing is looking for a biz model that is easier. Introverts, like me spend so much time analyzing the situation that in reality whats happening is we are making excuses. Once I gradually got over my people fears I began to make things happen. I got better at networking, got some much better on the phone and now I prefer face to face to all interactions.

Hone the people skills and then one can figure out which business model is the most suitable for themselves whether it be buy and hold, flipping, wholesaling, mutifamily etc

One of the markets to be most fearful is Multifamily, which is my focus. Even having said that the time to get into the market is now. Why would I say that? That does not mean buy a bad deal it just means its going to harder to get a deal right now. So Why say start now? When the market corrects in multifamily you want to be poised to take advantage of it. If you wait until the correction you will not have spent the time to know the market or develop the broker relationships so you can take advantage of an opportunity when it shows itself. You will be trying to break into the market and may be too late while those that stayed in from a knowledge perspective have an edge over you.

@Timothy Walker  - your statement of "a social person just not very social" resonates with me. thats the way I am. my real estate career accelerated when I began to work on my people side of this buisness. Pure relationship building and networking skills enhancements. Keep at it and try to keep growing those skillsets and you will see rewards. Most people look to try a different business model in real estate to get it going faster. they try them all , maybe wholesaling will be easier etc. I have done them all. I prefer multifamily now but that is only after I really developed my people skills did I see real results. 

Good luck and keep at it

@Chris Tracy - quality response. I live on the East End of Long Island. lets meet up sometime on my way from the ferry

The East End of Long Island's first Real Estate Investment group. This is a group for anyone interested in meeting other like minded people passionate about real estate investing. Our main focus is networking with a quick discussion on various real estate investment topics such as Multifamily Apartment Buildings large and small, Flipping, Wholesaling, Buy and Hold, Landlord issues, Raising Private Monday and many others. We will meet once a month to serve the East End's varied and vibrant investor community that has been underserved until now. Come join us to meet others just like you.

@Bill B.  This is my favorite thread on BP. So I am going to revive it. Last post was 4 years ago. No way there a not more introverts out there wanting a refresh on this topic for motivation.

I am 42. I began dreaming of being a real estate investor when I was 21 years old. I bought a Carleton Sheets program and did nothing. Then because of my shyness I went into the computer programming field and I began to understand data manipulation. But the pull was always there to be a real estate investor. So 10 years later around 30 ish I tried wholesaling and failed. Only because I sent out a bunch of mailers, got calls, didnt call them all and thought it was failure. I was the failure. Then at 34 I said I can never think about this REI thing again if you dont do it now. So I hired a mentor at my local REI and it took a year but I got my first small multi (5 units) a year later I bought an 8 unit. I then had to deal with some up and down of being a landlord and some life things and about about 4 years ago I got back into it and hired another mentor and refi'd my multifamily. Began buying multifamily properties. And now I have wholesaled deals, flipped deals, bought SFR portfolios, syndicated bigger multifamily and raised millions in private money.

It can be done people. From that first meeting at a REIA where my palms were sweating to now doing public speaking, to raising money to cold calling multifamily owners. It takes time but introverts once they harness their inner strengths and forget the weaknesses come across as very transparent almost immediately. I dont bullshAt people. I get sellers to tell me their bottom line in less than 3 minutes. I shake hands with people and have nice lunches and enjoy their company as I know a relationship is developing. I harness my strengths.

Extroverts shouldn't have all the fun. :)  Contact me, direct message me if you are an introvert and need a boost. If you feel real estate investing is something you know in your bones you would be good at.

@Richard D. let me ask you a broader question, when you say how much is your social media marketing budget, who are you marketing to and for what REI business model? Seller for wholesaling? Sellers for multifamily purchases? etc Buyers for wholesaling? Investors for flips, multifamily raises etc? Each one of these has their own strategy. looking for investors people need to be careful. If you are raising money and you are all set with a PPM for a 506(c) accredited investors, rock on. But I suspect not. Having said that you can find investors possibly through social media if you are very careful and do it the correct way but seriously I lean towards @Jay Hinrichs  style. Im pretty new school when it comes to the tech of REI. I am a full on tech bro , know how to code and know how to blow out marketing when I want to but do you know when things began to click for me in my real estate career? When I took it old school and added a new school hybrid. What do I mean? You are not going to win unless you rock an old school relationship building approach. Phone calls, emails, drives home in the car from work or trips contacting people and staying in touch. Developing relationships with people. New school from the sense of you can implement some very cool tools to help you keep in touch with more people in a meaningful and authentic way then one could before without using these tools. I am leaning towards a raising money approach here but when you take that same old school mentality of building relationships and actually giving a sh@t about people and their lives you bring that to the sell side and buy side for say wholesaling or even sellers of big multifamily or even broker relationships or PM company relationships. 

So lets come back from my rant. Yes do I think you can roll social media for brand awareness in any of the REI business models, yes, yes I do but you need to go old school immediately when that lead comes in whatever the pipeline its filling. I am now a full on phone call guy. Yeah I can get down with many emails at once and keep relationships going by email but I have an internal clock when I know its time to get off the freaking computer and have some real convos with people to get to know them even further. This happens with sellers too, someone calls you for say a wholesaling lead on a house they are selling. I give the seller the option of their preferred communication medium. I've closed deals by text only. But that's an outlier, its mainly phone time then you can keep the convo going by text and bring it back to phone if things require more voice inflection and correct tonality. Texts can get really gross very quickly if you are not careful.

So my point is who cares what the budget is as long as you are targeting the right target in your message, getting people to come to you and then taking it to old school tactics that work. My overall message is, the time you spend on the creative for social media and its social media spend needs to be checked against the time and money you are spending on say, calling every lead back for 3 hours and leaving voicemails.

hope that helps

The needing no cash for building/starting a wholesaling business is just a complete fallacy. Thousands a month are needed in advertising to extract good deals. Sure you can get lucky on a few hundred bucks mailer and make a buck to the buyer you have in the waiting, but to really build a wholesaling business is just that, building a business.

@Jay Hinrichs is correct that you have to learn how to sell in order to start putting up decent numbers. Also even beyond sales ability you need hustle. Yeah people don't answer their phone even after they call you , so you gotta stare that list in the face power out follow up calls.

(you can learn though, I do think gifted salespeople definitely have an edge over say a creative or analytical non sales person but you can learn and start to get good at sales (me :) )

But to start a wholesaling business without a decent budget is just silly. Also having been in the trenches for 10 years myself, me talking to a seller or buyer has a very different feel to it when I tell them I have purchased 50 SFRs in the last two years and am a very active landlord.

My point being, I tried wholesaling when I was total newb for all the reasons people get into wholesaling. it failed, I sucked at it. I then figured out that I like buy and hold and just stuck with it, but buy and hold is slow game (powerful game) and there is no get rich quick. I added wholesaling to my bag of tricks because we were finding alot of great deals for ourselves but couldn't take on too much at once. So we found some other buyers and we spoke the same language. We are actually ramping up our wholesaling business because our marketing just works, and we are not afraid to spend bucks. Like many thousands a months. PS we are also not afraid to close on the properties first. That sends a message to your buyers, "oh you own this I am not double closing or buying from an assignment?" - "no we closed on this, its yours if you want it for X price" 

Also there is a fair amount of tech you implement these days for wholesaling and you need a fair amount of operations experience to keep things from feeling they are out of control. 

We also only work with real buyers. Its pretty easy to determine if a buyer is just saying the yearbook words to make them sound smart. Cuz here is how it goes "oh why don't you like that one?" "price is too high or dont like the area" "ok cool so I have one next week at this price in this area you are ready to rock?"  boom next week I find that property, buyer doesn't pull trigger or comes up with other lame reasons. They dont get calls again and are taken off the list. Cuz if its that good a deal and you don't buy from me we most likely will find another buyer, rehab it and flip ourselves or better yet, rehab and rent ourselves. 

I love wholesaling. But I really don't feel like its a newbie game unless you have a couple of bucks for continued marketing, have a plan to find real buyers, a plan to market alot to find real deals and really stick to it for a while to get your rhythm going and even then you just might make a couple of bucks.  (and by sticking to it for a while, like a year maybe to get some slow stride)

@Derek Moore - direct message me.  we are very active buyers and owners in the Syracuse market. 

Yes I have one. Connect with me and I will provide