All Forum Posts by: Chris Vanderloo

You can hire someone, or build it with Wix. If you do it with Wix, you may have to settle on certain aspects, and I don't know how much money it costs to host with them. I don't recommend a CRM like Wordpress, it's almost definitely overkill, more expensive to host with in the long run, and slower.

Hiring someone may be more expensive up-front, but you can have certainty that they'll build a great, responsive website. Some people may charge per page, but for a simple, static website a developer could build it at a rate of anywhere from $70-$120/hr. Additionally, hosting a static website can cost you almost nothing to maybe a few cents a month, and then the only on-going cost is your domain (which can be $15 per year, depending on domain type and where you bought it).

Something clean, inviting, free of clutter or spelling issues or any strange branding. Easy, inviting walkthroughs describing where you buy and a few ways for them to contact you.

I can help create a website, but for $500, you should be thinking about how big the site should be - whether it’s just a one-page site, with everything on it as you scroll down, or multiple pages with more info per page. It can get pricey quick if you try to go too big, which you shouldn’t need to do anyway, given that it’s a new brand.

Boy oh boy… you make paying rent as idiot-proof as possible, and the universe just goes and makes a better idiot…

Check out Troy, NY area. Especially around RPI (my school). Lots of students want good, cheap housing and won’t shy away from holes in the wall or other cosmetic issues, and will rent by the bedroom. Let me know if you’d like to invest around there... looking for my first deal!

Hi everyone. I am a current student at RPI (Troy area), and would also be interested in beginning investing with some small multi family homes. Being that I go to RPI, I have a lot of connections within Greek Life and the overall student body and could probably be helpful in figuring out what students need and what students can afford (spoiler: not that much!)

If anyone would be willing to partner with me on a deal, as I don’t have a lot of capital to my name, I would be really grateful. A lot can be done in the area around my school.

I think college students are an awesome place to start, because you can rent by the bedroom. It’s cost effective and makes deals look that much better while giving college students a place to stay for not too much money.

Don’t expect a recession. Always invest with some tactics in mind in case that inevitably happens, but don’t wait for markets to cool off or you’ll always be waiting.

With that said, the small amount of cash would make me nervous about having reserves were that to happen. Make sure your numbers are really solid on whatever deal you get. You’ll need to do a lot of marketing funneling - direct mail, talking to lots of agents, getting yourself in front of anyone that could possibly have a deal.

Best of luck.

@Jessica Stevenson Lots of these CRM's seem to be pretty pricey for what they actually offer. What would you be looking for in a CRM that would be more suited for the multifamily/commercial space? Speaking as a person without any experience in that arena.

@Jim Goebel 

1. That actually sounds doable as long as the data can be pulled down. I'm a big fan of the ELK stack - an open-source data ingestion and analysis tool with built-in custom dashboards and the ilk. I think it could be pretty easy to make a powerful ingestion system built with that, and then use their location-based heat maps to graph it. 

2. In terms of scraping the MLS, I saw a thread on that at one point, and I think they've tried to make it difficult for anyone to actually scrape the MLS. Best bets there could be Zillow's API, but that's obviously a fraction of deals.

3. Doesn't look like Monday has any official way to add on a plugin like you were thinking.

4. That's an awesome idea. Data would be hard to come by, but if we can figure out a reliable source for it, it could be doable. I'd love tracking for people that do labor like that... see reviews of past investors and compare posted rates.

@Jim Goebel That's usually a big one! Many people have tried to piece together MLS scrapers and whatnot, but I suppose it'd be nice to have all the numbers (comps, taxes) found for you as well. I agree.

I’m Chris, I’m a student right now, but I do a lot of internships and projects in my free time. Just getting started in real estate, and honestly, I’m really quite interested in the tech behind a lot of it and automating away pain points. I’ve done lots of work with web stuff (React, NodeJS, MongoDB, etc), and some mobile development with React Native or Java (Android).

If anyone wants to meet, I’m in Boston until December! Or Philadelphia, my home is there. Or Albany, my school is there. Jeez, I really move a lot...

@Laura Moreno my fraternity has dedicated Chegg equipment for our brothers to use, haha. And good luck with HomeFlow - it looks like an awesome project! I also love the winning “lorem ipsum” recommendations :)

Hi everyone,

I’m fairly new to the real estate world and I’m currently a student as well as a software developer. I’ve been programming since about fourth grade, and I like to think I know a thing or two about building technology products.

So I’m curious about what technology investors typically use to systematize their investing. I’m also curious about what doesn’t exist yet! What pain points do you personally have in your investing that could be potentially eased by new tools? What is possible to “automate away”, so managing deals is as easy as it can be? Dream big! Things I’ve looked into before that come to mind are tools for managing networks, organizing contacts so you remember who is good at or looking for whatever, keeping track of the many documents and having on-device signing of those documents.

Hoping to hear some fun responses from you all.

Chris