All Forum Posts by: Christopher Parsons

Really depends on what you want to do. You could refi and go out there and buy more properties, but then you'll have to pay those ones back down if that's your goal. You could get a HELOC and use that to buy other properties. The advantage there is you only have to pay for the money you use with a line of credit. The other main option would be (if you're renting) stack up the cash flow to go reinvest. Really depends on if you're looking to expand with leverage or if you're looking for cash flow with a little more peace of mind in having some properties fully paid off.
There are other strategies as well, selling, seller finance if you want to become the bank. Just make sure you know what your goals are and align your next move accordingly.

@Greg Koszkul yes, mailing still works. Its a great way to reach a lot of people all at once as a filter. You'll probably want to combine methods like starting out with a mailer. Track who responds, then maybe to a straight to voicemail after your skiptrace them, or maybe a SMS campaign. You'll also want to hold on to mailers that are "return to senders". Usually those are absent owners and other wholesalers tend to discard those. You'll have to do a little more work to track them down, but you'll more than likely get greater yields in speaking with those owners.

Another way to look at people going online right now is demographics. Yes, a lot of my generation (I'm 31) goes online, but the Boomers are still out there and starting to get into that age where they're looking at retirement options. I don't think a lot of them will surf the internet to solve their home issues. Plus, in tech areas like where I'm at (near Seattle), a lot of younger generations like mine are fine living in apartments since the tech industry is a lot of contract work and people get moved around a lot. Make sure to research your market and tailor from there what your strategy is. That being said, I know if you stack strategies into say a 60 day campaign, direct mail should be in that strategy. 

@Account Closed welcome to the BiggerPockets community. Sounds like you have a pretty good sound idea in mind. One suggestion is (since you're near a bigger city) is don't just limit yourself to small multifamily for house hacks. Listen to episode 392 of the BiggerPockets podcast. They guy they interviewed bought houses that met his criteria and would house hack and rent out by the room. If I remember correctly, he only have 6 houses, but pulls in $12,500 a month. His strategy should work with small Multifamily as well, but you can expand your criteria a bit if you know how to take advantage of that same strategy in single family homes.

Feel free to reach out and send me a private message. I love chatting about all things real estate. Happy hunting!

@Greg Koszkul I know a lot of people use propstream to build out lists. You should be able to build a list for pre-foreclosure, tax foreclosures, probate, as well as a few others. If you go to propelio's website, they have an academy section with a free course on wholesaling. Some great ideas for types of list you can put together for a direct mail marketing campaign. There's also a lady on YouTube (This Mom Flips by Lauren Hardy) who has videos on virtual wholesaling. I'm going to start studying her content this weekend when I have more time.

I'd suggest doing a bit of research on other strategies right now and get a real clear idea of what you want to attack and how. A lot of big time investors are predicting a pretty big influx of foreclosures coming in 2021 with everything thats currently going on. The better educated you are, the more opportunities you'll have. Make sure to have a solid buyers list as well. 

@Briana Gilbert I would focus a bit on education at the moment. As @Kevin Manafi mentioned, you'll be in a pretty competitive field. Not saying its not doable, but you'll want to make sure that you don't just grind, but that you have a very focused grind. Propelio Academy has a free course on wholesaling, I'd recommend starting there to get an idea of what kind of lists you want to target and how to go about doing them. From what a lot of big name real estate investors are predicting, we're in for a pretty big foreclosure crisis come 2021, so I think you'll see a lot more inventory out there later next year and that should ease up on the competition side of finding deals, but you'll probably have a little more difficult time finding buyers.

After you feel like you have an idea of what your gameplan is to find deals, I would recommend building out a buyers list. Make an excel sheet where you have your buyers name, best way to contact (usually email), where they like to invest (city, zip, etc), what price range they usually go for, do they only want standard rehab or would they consider build outs (adding a room, etc), what kind of houses do they prefer (2-1 with around 1200 sq ft? Basement? etc), and how many flips they usually aim for in a year.

Having a list setup like that could make you a bit more competitive with buyers because you can focus on only sending them deals that fit their criteria. A lot of bigger wholesalers or less experienced just spam out a huge list of everything they have and a flipper may ignore their list if they have to look through too many deals. If you build up that reputation of only sending them deals they would consider, they're more likely to take you more serious. It's a little more effort on your part, but it can yield higher results. As for finding the buyers, I just googled "we buy house cash (your city) and that gave me a good amount of websites for local flippers. I called all of them up, told them who I was, what I do, and asked them if I could add them to my list. Most of them were either very receptive or would tell me that was fine and to just email them my questions. One of them even hooked me up to an awesome REI group on Facebook for Washington State (where I live).

Hope all of this helps. Feel free to drop a message if you ever want to talk shop. Happy hunting!

@Aaron Macken nice, I am doing a couple BRRRRs in TX right now. Honestly, if you want to BRRRR, it might be better to try to find those deals now, just look for ones with minor rehab (paint, floors, maybe new bathroom fixtures) and you'll start building up a little rehab experience without the risk of doing a larger rehab.

You can find those deals through a realtor, but you might have better luck finding those specific type of deals through a wholesaler. Wholesalers specialize in finding those type of off market deals and tend to have more options to choose from. If you're going to work with a realtor, you'll want to find one who is investor friendly. Realtors are basically just sales people for real estate, that doesn't mean they know how investors operate and what we look for. Plus, they make money if they sell for their client and they also will be wanting to get around their client's asking price. Hard to get 70 cents or less on the dollar when you're dealing with an agent.

In working with either wholesale or an agent, make sure you do a lot of screening questions. Wholesalers don't usually have 100% information about a property but can probably find you better deals, whereas realtors should have most of the info up front, but they might not be able to get you the best price for your dollar.

A third option (just thought of while I was writing all this) would be to start speaking with property managers. In a lot of state, property managers have to also get their real estate license. They're more than likely working with investors, probably also invest themselves, and also have access to clients who might be trying to liquidate their portfolio for one reason or another. 

@Ryan Planchon check out Mark Kohler on YouTube. He has some great content for asset protection and has written some great books on the subject. I have heard him talk about Umbrella Policies before and with how cheap they are, I know he recommends both that and LLCs. 

Check out Mark Kohler on YouTube. He has a lot of great content and his first operates in all 50 states.

@Cody Landry it depends on where you're looking to do this. My wife and I are waiting to cash out refi our first BRRRR (have to wait until February) and we came across another deal that we really want. We found a hard money lender that will lend us 100% of buying the property and the rehab up to 70% of the ARV. We basically just need 2k for closing costs and about 10k cushion to cover the upfront part of the rehab (the hard money that I have worked with require you to front parts of the rehab, then reimburse you after the work is complete or part of the work). Granted, the property we're getting is a 65k buy and 15k rehab, but the estimated ARV is around 120k. Make sure to do your research on the market you want to attack, then start working on making connections there.

@Devyn Caraballo the best way is to see if the agent will be willing to walk the property with you on a video chat. You might want to offer to pay them for their time just to show them you're a serious buyer (maybe they have another deal that will fit your criteria better if they feel that you're serious). I do this every time I'm interested in a property that one of my wholesaler's has and he winds up doing it for free, but thats also because I've bought his stuff in the past and have built report with him. Before they enter the house you can ask if they know ahead of time of any major issues, then you get to see for yourself. Make sure to have a pen and paper and write down anything you might want to fix. Usually I'll just write down everything I see as it comes up. Then right after the call (while the video is still fresh in my mind) I'll go back through and create 2 lists:

1. Everything that has to get fixed.

2. Everything that I would want to fix if its in my rehab budget.

That will also give you a good scope of work to give to contractors to get you a bid on the rehab side. Just make sure you factor about 5%-10% of the bid into your final budget incase something comes up. EX: Bid is for $10,000, budget $11,000 in case something comes up. Realistically, for a smaller rehab I'll usually assume at least $3,000 on top of the budget in case I need to get a water heater, some appliances, etc. But if you have a bigger rehab bid, 5%-10% is a decent hedge.

Not every agent will be willing to do that for you, and thats ok if you think you can trust them. I know some long distance investors will just look at the numbers and make the purchase without ever seeing the property. But for me, I'd like to at least have 1 video walk through so I at least have the vision. Maybe as I get more comfortable with my contractor and he sees what I'm going for with each property, I'll be able to cut that process out, but I'm definitely not there yet.