All Forum Posts by: David Cowan

@Madeline J. and @Robert Lorenz - I respect that you are even trying. I think a lot of people give lip service about how much they care. But the bottom line is this - in a community of people motivated by money, we hear all day, every day about how if you really want something, then go after it! Figure out a way to make it happen. Don't say, "I can't do it" or ,"I could do this...but..." 

Instead, ask yourself, "How can I make this happen?" and then set about taking the steps to do it. I have some long-term goals that involve helping families to afford a nice place to live. But, whenever I think about it lately, I've been thinking about how I could plan to make the largest amount of positive impact. Robert, you gave me some great ideas. Thank you. And thank you both for having enough of a heart for others to actually try.

@Luis N. Have you called the police WHILE the incidents are happening? Do the police respond when you call? Because it would be pretty obvious there's an excessive noise problem if they show up and it's happening. I'm a professional drummer and I play outside in the garage, usually while everyone else is at work. The latest I've gone is 9PM. Never had any complaints, but I'd stop playing earlier if I did get any. However, my neighbors are louder than I am when they have their parties. Doesn't bother me, but I have seen the cops show up to a couple parties that got a little out of hand. I live in Torrance. You shouldn't even have to talk to them about it, at this point, if you've already asked them before. The police should be shutting them down when they get the call. No reasonable person thinks it's ok to have loud parties going on after midnight, on a regular basis. Every once in a while is one thing. But every week? That's ridiculous. If they were my neighbors, I'd call the cops on them every week. I don't know if they fine residents here, but where I come from, you'd get cited and have to pay a fine if you received too many complaints about noise and not keeping up your property.

Pick a zip code in listsource and then do a cash buyer search for that zipcode in the past 6 months. You'll want to target the areas that have a good number of cash buyers in the past 6 months. To get better directions, you can go on youtube and search "How to find cash buyers using listsource" That'll get you started. As I mentioned before, just make sure you mail to that list every month for 6 months. You may not get any deals if you only mail once. I did that and, although I got some calls, none of them were strong leads except for one caller...but his property was a commercial building. Not even sure how he got on my list since it was supposed to be all residential. Good luck!

@Mabel L. If you really want to find cashflow properties inside California, try areas outside of LA Bakersfield, perhaps? OR areas East of LA where the SFR house prices are much lower. For example, Victorville has houses for under $200,000 with $1000 - $1500 rents.

A good agent can help you find what you're looking for. It looks like you're going to be ok, though. It seems there are lots of people in this BP community who can point you to reliable resources.

By the way- Good teachers are hard to find. Kudos to you for all you do for your kids.

Sounds like a great idea, Jalen Carethers I'll be tuning in to read about your results. Good luck, man!

Welcome, @Brya Freeland! Good luck with all your efforts!

@Andre Eakins The key is to figure out how much you can afford on a regular basis, and then commit to doing that same amount every month. If you mail out fewer because your budget is low, it's better to do that than to start out mailing 500 only to realize you can't keep up that number of letters every month. Most of the money is in the follow-up. You might get lucky and get something on your first mailing. But you shouldn't depend on that.

On a biggerpockets podcast I listened to, a guy said he only had $100/month to work with at first. So that's what how many cards he sent out. It took him eight months but the consistency paid off.

@Andre Eakins  On listsource.com, you can search specific list criteria for free. And you can join for free. But you have to pay for the list in order to get the actual addresses. So, in order to help you out, someone would have to buy the list and give it to you. The lists aren't terribly expensive. You can get a list of 250 will only cost you around $20. And you will mail that same list for several months because most of your business will come from repeat mailings.

Figure out how much money you can afford once a month, for mail marketing.

Also, watch this video so that you know what you can and can't legally do as a wholesaler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fi54S8nwUA

@Simona Potocar Excellent questions! Thank you! And thanks to @Shari Peterson for the great references. I just got  Quite a few of my big questions about investing in the Cleveland area answered. I live in Southern California, but I was born inCleveland and plan to purchase rental properties there, in the future.

Christina Payne it can take months to get a deal, times even more than that. It's not an easy process. I'm still looking for my first deal as well. But, I'm encouraged knowing that if I continue doing the work, and just don't quit, my deal is going to come.