All Forum Posts by: DaVon Brooks

Just a thought @Luka Milicevic , not knowing if any other deals came from the marketing, would it be prudent to consider your marketing costs for ROI? Not the conventional thought, but maybe a good way of quantifying data for your business in the long run. Or I could be way off.

37207, 37208, and 37209 even, are seeing good amounts of development and gentrification. Finding the off-market deals then NEGOTIATING with the sellers is the key to success.

If you use direct mail, I recommend marketing to absentee homeowners unless you are very good with sales negotiations. The home owners that see the change, and decide to leave, know the value of their home or rather they know that it's a seller's market.

You may see a good response with Davidson County's quadriennial property reappraisal about to take place. 

Hey all!

For those intereted, here is an update. I drove out to Union City on a gut feeling that I needed to see what was happening with the property myself. The person that I had been in contact with was actually the nephew of the siblings that owned the property. The nephew only had a stake in the property because his mother had passed away 10 days before his grandmother (the previous owner).

An "Aha" sounded loud and clear in my head, but I was still able to walk the property, one of the aunts was there packing up the house. Long story made short, one side of the duplex was a complete rehab, and the other needed serioius updates. 

I took a ton of photos and ran them by a friend/mentor to get a feel for repair costs. The answer was 30K per unit (new roof needed, water damage to supports inside, and foundation cracks, just to name the big ticket repairs). To be in the deal for potentially 60K in repairs, I no longer saw the deal as anyway profitable except for a long-term Buy and Hold.

Needless to say, I've let the lead go and refocused on marketing. All in all? AWESOME learning experience and I got a spontaneous road trip out of the deal. 

@Alexander Price, it is definitely 38261.

The owner just told me that rents in the area are $450 to $800 per door, and I'm taking an average of 450 + 555 = 502.5 or $500 as estimated (conservative) rents per door.

Each side of the duplex is a 3bd/1bth, the recent appraisal puts it at $60,000. I've negotiated an asking price of $26,000. Repairs are estimated at $10,000.

The seller is ready to goooooo. I just have no buyers in the area. :_( 

Who knows the area? The zip code is 38216. Does 555 sound like a good rent estimate?

Hey if you have some time would you look at this deal? To see if it's a deal.

I received comps from a realtor in the area that show an average sp/sft of $25.4 for SFRs in the area. The property is a 1757sq/ft duplex built in 1967 with an ARV of $44,627.8 for the property. The market rent according to Rentometer is $555 per door in that area. For a gross annual income of $13,320. That's a 29.85% gross return for the property if purchased at full value with no repairs to either unit. 
As is, I have negotiated the seller to $25,000 and in all honesty I believe I could get him down to the $23,000 as they want to sell within the month . What have I missed? The deal looks too good.  
Cosmetics and carpet are the repairs suggeste

@Brett Snodgrass That's so true! A lot of those things seem innocent too. A lot of the distractions that get in the way are things that I think could be a helpful change to my approach, but really the truth comes down to needing to pick a course and stay it for a functional amount of time. 

@Aaron Lovett, I just wanted to let people know that successes come in all shapes and sizes. Just like Real Estate. Lol. Thanks for the kind comment!

This is post is not about a closing or a super productive marketing plan. This post is really designed to remind everybody to stay motivated and moving forward with the next step to YOUR idea of success.

I started researching REI around Fall 2014. I immediately encountered Wholesale, and was hooked by the idea of low to no money down strategies to earn money in REI while learning about the rest of REI. Biggerpockets came in my google search for info on how to Wholesale and then I joined this awesome community.

Needless to say, I started reaching out to people, reading the articles and guides on here and listening to podcasts. I amassed a pretty comprehensive understanding of Wholesaling and even mentored a few other investors and friends, but...I never closed a deal! I had a business plan, a marketing strategy and the courage to contact strangers and ask them to sell their home for a discount. I work retail sales so people don't scare me. Lol

My major issue was the lack of mass and consistency of the action I was taking. I drove for dollars but wouldn't send mailers to every house, then I'd stop driving then start again. I bought a list (a not so great one) of target sellers and started writing MORE mailers and sending, but I didn't structure it. I was doing enough to say that I WAS doing it but not enough to actually close any deals. My biggest issue was and still is marketing. Not how to do it, but the money and time needed to do it.

So, I thought to myself, find a partner and get this done! I built a Marketing Campaign proposal that would exchange funding for a 50% cut of the profits from the campaign. I pitched to a developer that had seemed super eager to work with me, face to face. Then I never heard back. Lol. I was stuck again.

Today however, I joined the REIN! That means more people to meet and more connections to be made and proposals to pitch! I feel like a success because I finally did make a "larger" monetary investment in my future in REI. Still no deal! But this commitment to steps forward feels right.

I'm staying in the fight! You stay in it too! 

Only bit extra that I would add is to definitely clarifiy your understanding of contract law in your state, and make sure you leave in "out clause" in your contract in case a buyer should back out.

A good way to discourage a buyer from backing out (or vetting your buyers so to speak) is requiring a non-refundable payment of earnest cash to the title company. This can cover fees at the title company if the deal.falls through