All Forum Posts by: Doug Pretorius

@Joshua Frazier You get a deal. You advertise that deal literally anywhere. Buyers line up. The buyer that gives you the biggest assignment fee in cash, wins.

The part where everyone fails is the getting a deal part. By deal I mean a house under contract for at least 50% below ARV.

The problem all wholesalers have is getting a house under contract for 10% below ARV, thinking that's a deal, and then they wonder why they can't find any buyers.

I only do seller financing or cash. Entirely off-market.

80% of agents sell 1 or fewer houses per year so whether they're in the business or not doesn't make much difference does it?

Jeremy, how much do you charge? Just a normal sized commission or closer to the assignment fee a wholesaler charges?

@Maurice Roman I have no recent experience with Vena (and even then I only read a couple of her books). But paying $19k to learn about wholesaling is crazy.

All you need to know to wholesale is marketing. You don't need to know how to run comps, you can pay a broker to do that. You you don't need to know how to estimate repairs, you can pay a contractor to do that. You don't need to know how to close a deal, you can pay a lawyer to do that. So all you need to know is how to get your phone to ring with people who have ugly houses they want to sell.

Buying and selling with owner financing is more passive than landlording and yet a bunch of us used to talk shop. Maybe it's just that a lot of us stepped away, retired or shifted focus during the several year long seller's market. That's what happened with me. Now that we're into a buyer's market I'm getting active again.

It seems every few years there's another charismatic dude that "invents" sub2 and launches a new wave of bankruptcies and lawsuits.

@Max Emory Yeah this place has really gone downhill since I was last an active contributor. It's mostly just unprofitable on-market buy and hold with a tiny sprinkling of wholesaling for newbies.

Marketing is gone. Creative finance is pretty much gone. The entire business of speaking with sellers and getting actual deals is generally looked down on. Dave is outright hostile to the most profitable strategies on the podcast.

It was way better when Brandon was here and Peter was still active. Back then there were tons of smart, creative, active investors sharing new ideas and in the trenches deals. Now it's just: "I hired a realtor, bought an overpriced on-market turnkey rental, and I don't understand why I can't retire."

@Ron Amshalom Almost sounds like you're looking for more of a business manager than a mentor. Anyone who handles everything from acquisition to management to disposition is probably going to just do it for their own portfolio, unless you hire them into a full-time position and pay them very well.

My real estate journey went something like this:

1 rental taught me not to be a landlord.
1 wholesale deal taught me not to spend my life stepping in trash.
3 mortgages taught me not to personally guarantee unnecessary debt.
500+ interactions taught me very few realtors are worth talking to.
1 lease option + 1 agreement for sale taught me how to make money with none of the above.