All Forum Posts by: Danny Johnson

I know this post is a little dated, but I was interested and wanted to respond.

1. What was your first deal?
First deal was a burned house that I found while driving a neighborhood I was interested in investing in. I sent a postcard to the owner and they called saying they were interested in selling. The place was damaged pretty bad, but salvageable. The problem was that they owed way more than it was worth (owed 60k and figured only worth $25k). So, on the first deal, we attempted a short sale. The bank accepted the $25k offer, but the seller, not happy about how cheap we were getting it, decided they were not going to show up at closing. They were at least 9 months behind on payments. The bank asked if we would like to buy the note for the $25k. We did. An attorney shortly after approached us before we foreclosed and offered to buy the note for $50k. We did that also. We learned A LOT with this deal!!! He went on to fix it for around $45k in repairs and sold for around $150k.

2. What were your goals when you first started out?
The only goals I had were to flip enough houses to be able to quite my job.

3. How did the deal end up?
The deal went great. It was difficult and there was a lot to learn, but that is what was so great about it.

4. What kind of deals are you doing now?
We (my wife and I) are doing rehabs and selling on new loans and with owner financing.

5. How is what you are doing now different from what your goals were when you started?
Our goals have changed to accommodate for creating passive income.

6. Is there any advice that you would have given yourself when you first started to help yourself from making a mistake or wrong decision? Buy only in the parts of town that sell good.

Thanks for the topic, I enjoyed it.

I send out yellow letters for the first mailing and then have printed letters and post cards for consecutive mailings.

Even if a lot of people are sending yellow letters, I still think they work better than printed, white letters.

To answer the question directly:

You need to ask the active investors that you will be sending properties to what info they would like to get from you. Being that you are the birddog, you are only letting them know about properties and won't need to find out too much about a property. Usually the simple things like: address, asking price, number of beds and baths, house size, etc. The big thing investors want to know is what the situation is. Why are the people selling? or What makes it a deal?

You get started by finding active investors in your farm area (area you want to invest in). You can start by driving those areas and looking for houses that are being remodeled. Ask the workers if the owner is an investor and if you can leave a card for him/her.

Danny

It is preferable to try and make contact with the listing agent to have your offer submitted on a property. This is especially true if the property is an REO. You want to start building a relationship with those Realtors because they can be an awesome source of deals.

You may not get many of the offers accepted, but you will be talking with them and giving them a chance to get to know you. Once you get some accepted and close on them, they will be much more willing to send you deals.

How it works: You simply contact the agent and tell them that you would like to submit an offer on one the properties they have listed. Inform them that you are not currently working with a Realtor and would like for them to draw up the contract, with your contingencies if necessary. It is always preferable to not have contingencies, but if you must go ahead. They will have the standard contract, so you will not have to provide one.

The important thing is to not waste their time. Usually bank owned properties won't go for less than 10% of asking right out of the gates (property just listed). You can offer less, but it likely won't be accepted until it has sat on the market a while.

Hope this helps.

Danny

Thanks for the welcome.

I'm sure those software systems could help you with managing your investing business....but I personally feel that people should work in the business and do several deals (I think you mentioned have done some) to the point where they have a better idea of what they are looking for the software to help them with.

I'm of the opinion that, in the beginning, the money spent on the more expensive systems would actually be better spent on your marketing.

Thanks.

I agree with you on all points.

The easiest way to keep track of everything is to make checklists of what is needed for each type of transaction. So, when you get a house under contract you can print out a checklist for that transaction and keep track of all of the different things that you need to do to make sure you don't forget anything. Like putting the utilities in your name.
Then when you sell, you will pull out the selling checklist to make sure you do things like canceling the utility services.

Also, a good file keeping system and having Quickbooks set up to keep track of the financials will help keep you organized.

Don't forget to keep track of all goals so that you don't just get caught up in the day to day.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, Scott.

Looking forward to spending lots of time here.

Hello.

My wife and I have been buying, fixing, and selling houses in San Antonio for about 7 years now. The San Antonio market has been great to us. We've had to change direction several times with the changes in the market, but nothing like what investors in other areas have had to deal with.

We are both full time and really love what we do. I still remember way back when the phone rang for the first time with a seller on the other end. I tossed the phone to my wife and informed her that she would have to handle to call because I was too nervous. She made it seem easy.

Our main goal is to generate passive income by selling houses with owner financing. Who doesn't like to receive checks in the mail? In order to keep everything going (i.e., generate cash), we mostly do fix and flips.

I've read other forums for years and gained quite an education. I hope to be able to contribute here and I'm sure I'll learn many new things. I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone on this forum.

Danny