All Forum Posts by: Daniel Claroni

Thanks for the great advice. Yup, I have a job in mind. For the small jobs, we need to repair/replace 2 bricks on the front of the house on non structural walls. Also need to vent a bathroom through the roof of the house. Last one is to seal concrete slab gaps on walkway and driveway.

for the big job, it's for a rehab for a  house were closing on - new floors, move walls, trim, paint, new appliances, cabinets, landscaping, and more

I'm looking for 1. A handyman for small jobs and 2. A GC for rehabs big and small in the Bellevue and Omaha areas.

I don't know where to really even start looking or what type of things to ask. It seems like handymen and contractors are super busy so I don't know how to efficiently vet them without using too much of their time.

I also don't really know how to know if the work will be quality, or if I'll be overpaying without trial and error or getting multiple bids.

Thoughts on those topics?

@Jerryll Noorden

I really like what you're saying here. I was following what I've seen online, what I found from research and what I heard in podcasts and books for RE ads.

I'm pretty new to RE investing and definitely new to marketing so I think I can start here and learn from what I am doing now. I dont have any leads or results so just getting one or two will be a big win for me.

But with all that said I do agree with the phrase "if you do what the masses do, expect average results". Looking forward to reinventing the wheel like you said.

I recently set up a campaign using Google Ads to generate more off-market leads, but quite frankly I'm new to this and I don't really know what I am doing. I figure if I spend a couple of grand a year (say $5k-6k) and in result get a handful of off-market leads per year that will be well worth it because I can hopefully save money on those deals or I could sell the lead/wholesale the deal. I would really appreciate any feedback, tips, or answers to my questions at the bottom of the post.

Here are some stats on my advertising so far (started on 04/08 and today is 04/10):

- I setup a 3 page website with a home page, about page, and contact page that lets users fill out info about themselves and the home. When they submit a form, it sends an email to me with all the details they filled out. This is what I am calling a "lead".

- 355 impressions on the ad

- 11 clicks on the add

- $43 spent so far (seems high to me, but I'm going to see how it goes)

- 0 leads thus far

- My top search result is "buy houses" - 265 impressions, 10 clicks. This seems weird to me since its not something like "we buy houses" or "buy my house". Wouldn't you search that if you are looking to buy not sell?

- Second best search result is "buy my house as is" - 40 impressions, 1 click.

Questions:

1. For advertising in RE investing in general, what is a good price per lead? For PPC advertising, what is a good price per lead?

2. What should I be looking for in terms of number of clicks for 1 lead?

3. When I get a lead, is it OK for me to set up a time to look at the home? I feel like doing that might lose me the lead, but how else will I know what the renovation costs will be

4. Is it common/easy to sell a lead to another investor? If so, how do you do that without giving away the lead for free (e.g. getting taken advantage of)? I am thinking I can charge a small "finder's fee", maybe something in the range of $500-$2k. I'm guessing that has to be done after they purchase the property though. I think I would rather do that than try to get into wholesaling, but I don't know if I will get taken advantage of.

5. What are your tips/best practices for pay-per-click advertising and online marketing for RE investing?

@Katrina Moceri

We actually ended up getting a single family to live in for now and eventually turn into a rental. We are looking again now and would love to do BRRRR but are keeping our options open to house hack opportunities or a single family home that we can live in long term

@Christina Colon

@Ryann Kluthe has been extremely helpful in helping us find our first home/investment in the Omaha/Papillion/Bellevue area.

@Stan F.

We ended up skipping on the lower ROI deals. From people's feedback and deeper thought on it we decided we are only going to settle with lower coc ROI if we can get a bunch of equity in the deal

@Mohammad Nur I went through a similar scenario to you just last week. I was thinking of going with an "ok" deal that I could house hack. My return would be meager with conservative estimates pointing toward 5-7% COCR. I feel like we were pretty much in the same boat - I would be able to house hack, commute was shorter, I had been looking for months and there was nothing that was "as good of a deal", and I was anxious to get my first property despite my gut feeling that it wasn't a good deal (I was doing everything to rationalize the deal rather than listening to wise advice and trusting the numbers). Main issue with the house was bowing foundation, but there were a bunch of other small issues.

I got some pretty helpful advice that I think might apply here too.

1) settling with an "ok" deal leaves no wiggle room for errors in your calculations/estimates. If the return is low but acceptable to you and there is some bigger expense that you didn't foresee, that can eat all your cash flow or turn it negative. For a first property, you can almost guarantee that you are going to miss something, so keep this in mind.

2) negotiating against yourself sets you up for failure in the future. It creates bad habits of going with your emotions rather than the numbers. You'll just be digging a deeper hole for yourself.

3) "analysis paralysis" and patience while waiting for a good deal are very different things. If you come across an actual good deal and you don't act on it, then that is where the analysis paralysis is kicking in. It can be tough to be patient, but it's much better to wait and find an actual good deal than to tie up your time and money in a bad one when a good one might be around the corner.

4) there are always deals to find. If you can't find one, you may need to look in another market (even though you might not be able to house hack) or get more familiar with your own market

To me it seems like the numbers on this one don't work and I think that seems to be others opinions as well. I would pass and keep your head up, be patient and persistent and keep looking. Good luck either way!

@Costin I. Thanks for the great lessons and advice, and thanks to everyone else as well.

I wanted to give my current scenario as an example and see what the thoughts would be. This would be my first home purchase that I would first house hack the basement apartment and eventually move out and rent out the entire house, just for some context.

The foundation type is basement with cement blocks and we know for sure one of the basement walls is bowing. The severity of it is unclear, but the grading outside of the house is very flat so we know water is puddling and we think there is a chance for water damage and potentially bad bowing. The other basement walls are not fully exposed (decks and other structures) so the inspector could not see bowing, but he suspects it is likely. We would have to get a structural engineer or foundation specialist and cut through the drywall around the basement to be sure of the severity.

In addition to this, most of the doors don't close properly in the house, so we suspect that the foundation has caused the house to shift quite a bit.

Not exactly related to the post, but there are other issues, including electrical, mold, needs a new water heater and maybe new roof. The house wasn't a fantastic deal to begin with and we don't think we can negotiate too much off the price because, like I said, in my market it will go for close to asking so there would be little to no incentive for the seller to take a low offer. We would need to go like 35k below asking for the numbers to work.

To top it off, a lot of the "rehab" and "updates" that has been done to the house seem like really poor quality/Craftsmanship (maybe failed DIYs?) so who knows what other issues we may find when we dig deeper.

So I've been running into a lot of houses lately that have bowing foundation walls or other foundation problems (in my case it has mainly been from frost heave and poor grading on the exterior of the house) and have been advised to steer clear from them. However, I have heard on podcasts and read in articles that foundation problems can scare people away and make for some good deals.

In my market, houses sell for near retail almost ever time, so I'm thinking unless I can get a great deal, steering clear is good advice. I also don't want to buy a house that has its foundation crumble on my tenants. Do you have experience buying houses with foundation issues? Are there some casing where I should still consider the house and some cases when I should definitely turn and run?