All Forum Posts by: Clifford Babson

Thanks everyone. Andrew J, I look forward to meeting you at the Binghmaton REI club, and Claire, thanks for the info on Lasaii, it looks really interesting. I am already benefiting from joining the Bigger Pockets network.

Hello Everyone,

My name is Clifford Babson, and I am an Investor from Ithaca NY. I work mostly in the Ithaca, Cortland, Auburn and Syracuse Markets. I grew up in Real Estate, my dad was a developer that started out Rehabbing small multi-families, flipping some, keeping others, and then he went on to building strip malls and big boxes.

I retired from the Merchant Marine about 8 years ago as a Ships Captain, and now that I am no longer travelling most of the year, I started investing in Real Estate. I have a Salespersons license in NY, and I own a few small Multifamily properties. I have been working as a full time property manager for a large regional RE firm, and manage over half a million square feet of commercial space in Central NY.

I did my first wholesale deal last fall and decided I want to do more of that this year. I am pretty busy lately and don't have the bandwidth right now for rehabbing/flipping, but wholesaling is right up my alley and fits with my schedule right now.

Last year I converted some retirement accounts to Self Directed IRA and bought a small apartment building, and am learning all the crazy rules and details of that type of investing, and look forward to expanding more into that area.

So my main Real Estate goals are to get proficient in wholesaling, continue to expand my portfolio both inside and outside the retirement account, and team up and work with other investors and RE professionals. If you are in my area, or want to work in my area, give me a shout.

Great thread, thanks everyone for your insights, and thanks Matt for the legal opinion. I am trying to put together a contract, and I was nervous about using templates and random downloads, especially since I haven't found one that seems tailored for a wholesaler. So I was planning on consulting my lawyer, but was hoping that maybe this group could give me some insight and guidelines as to what contingencies and items that might be specific to a wholesale deal so that I am better prepared for the discussion with my lawyer.

I had a good experience with them. If online self-study works for you then they are a decent company at a good price. There are better ones out there, but they cost more. I didn't need a lot of extra help or explaining, so for me it was mostly test prep, and it worked. They offered a study guide eBook that I used for reference, and I was overall happy with the training, price and outcome.