All Forum Posts by: David Cowan

Hi, @Chez Nwanyanwu! Welcome to BP! I'm in Los Angeles as well (Torrance, Southbay area). Good luck with your search and investing efforts! I'd love to know how things are going as you make progress  toward your goal. I haven't bought my first house yet, so I'm curious and just wanting to learn more about the process while I'm wholesaling homes to gain experience. I'm finding people to be very helpful here on BiggerPockets. So, you've definitely come to the right place!

@Bonnie Hyslop Great question! I'm guessing phone calls are going to be the most effective way to get those deals. But, don't take my word for it because I'm just a newbie. Just seems to me the sensible thing to do. I've heard a lot of people say they get a higher rate of positive response when they call instead of sending letters or emailing. It's probably especially true for people who have houses above the 500k mark. I'll be curious to know what experiences others on here have had.

What verbage they use in their direct mail gets the best responses. I live in a high end area (Los Angeles..specifically southbay) and I've got letters out to a bunch of owners but I'm planning to call them this week.

I learned a bunch of stuff from Joe Crump/with the $1000 option which gets you 6 months of his auto marketer program which scrapes several sites for data. It's pretty good at gathering the data according to criteria you enter. But it's not perfeect. For that same $1000 you also get permanent access to his http://pushbuttonmethod.com which is the same study material you'd get on the mentor program except you don't get the personal access to Joe, and you also don't get the invitation to the buyers events that he has 4 times annually. The buyers events are essentially a bootcamp where you are forced to make calls and try to get deals. If I had 50k available to me, I might take 10k to do his mentor program. I got lots of leads with the auto marketer and auto responders software. I was not good with the follow-ups.. Some coaching through the calls would've been nice. But that's just not in my budget. My auto marketer access expired in June of last year. But I still have access to all the learning materials. I probably could've learned most of what he teaches on biggerpockets and through some careful and diligent scouring of the web. I did get one house under contract by my own means but used to the auto marketer to get lots of buyer leads. Ultimately, the house was priced to high (it was a lease option deal) and I couldn't get the owner to come down more. I'm still happy to have had the experience because I learned a lot fo from interacting with all the prospective buyers and agents who responded to my ads.

Hi, @Henry Garcia! Welcome and good luck! Question- why the move? Also, do you still ever take on projects in VB?

@James Dean  Hi! Welcome to the site! You're in the right place! I can't speak for any of the software people are selling, though. What I can tell you is that this site has a ton of information and you'll find that most of the tried and true ways that others use to find their leads, are going to be your meat and potatoes. See what successful investors here are using and do that. All the best to you!

@Clint Morgan So sorry you're having to deal with that! Here's something to consider- there's a company called Legal Shield (formerly known as Prepaid Legal Services). Check them out. They are prescription-based and the monthly memberships are very cheap (under $30/month) and for your membership fee they connect you with a law firm in your area and you are able to talk to someone about your particular issue and possibly come up with a workable solution. Worth a shot for under $30 to see if they can help you find a solution. Just google them. If it works out, you can save yourself some money on things your seller was contractually obligated to fix. Good luck!

@Kathy Finholm Welcome! What is your purchasing criteria? In other words, how much (maximum) do you want to spend on a property? How much return on your cash do you want? 12%? 20? Or a specific number, like maybe 20k per each flip? Location(s)? Knowing this data will help your team find the best suited properties for you.

@Jon 

@Jon Miller Welcome to BP! Sounds like a great plan!

@Fred Delariva

@Brandon Battle

@Joe Gigliello

All really good stuff! This wholesaler sends me so many deals like this, I was starting to think that maybe I was missing something. But you have all confirmed that I'm not the crazy one. By the way- I'm a a wholesaer as well. I got on that person's list to get some idea what's out there and how others are doing deals. I also was thinking there might be an opportunity to JV on some deals if anything good came across the desk that they hadn't sold yet. So far, it looks like their deals aren't selling because they really aren't deals. This is teaching me a lot. Thanks so much! By the way, feel free to inbox me if you'd like to be on my buyers list. I also team up with other wholesalers in order to optimize my chances of getting a great deal for my investor partners.

@Yerry Balenzuela Welcome! Congrats! Everyone has said pretty much everything. Except for one thing. Depending on how you are financing this project, you might be able to consider lease optioning the house when it's done which would get your loan paid down further before actually selling the house. Lease options might be a way to get some of your money back before making a final sale. That could help widen the margins a bit for you. Especially if you take the advice of all these obviously very knowledgeable members of our community, here. I just learned a lot by coming here and reading your post.