All Forum Posts by: Traver Freeman

Hi Aaron,

Welcome to BP. I'm in a similar scenario to you minus the equity. I live in El Cajon and am renting currently. One income, stay at home mom of a 1 year old. We've got a decent nest egg and have the same amount we can put into investing. I'm looking at all sorts of options but San Diego is a tough market for beginners with little income. But that doesn't mean it can't be done, we just have to look a little harder to make it happen.

First time home buyer here. Looking at a short sale, the buyer's agent I connected with is working on getting us a time to view the property. She also mentioned we should get pre-approved for the loan and recommended 3 individuals to me. Should I consider these individuals or do my own research by calling around to banks? If I should call around, besides interest rates, what are some things I should be looking for to find the best lender? Any help is appreciative.

@Francisco Perez

My first thought is "is it true?, can you make good on your promises?" A quick glance at your profile shows that you're new to real estate (like me). And if you're also like me, you don't have a whole lot of cash. So are you able to buy that $250,000 home all cash? Maybe your market is $30k and you have that laying around (on top of money for repairs and an emergency fund for Murphy), but I don't. 

People don't like false advertising. It may be what the template cards you can find online say, but those are intended for companies or individuals who can go in all cash and close in 7 days. If you can do that, great, ignore my post.

As far as the rest of it goes. Maybe someone else out there can correct me if I'm wrong, but the standard "we buy houses" tends to be what they talk about on the podcasts and they're saying it works. So my motto is don't fix what isn't broken. Additionally, I think a picture or icon on the card would help. Even if it's just dollar signs. 

You've got about 3 seconds to capture attention when someone pulls that out of the mailbox. If I see a pizza on the card, I know it's from Domino's or wherever. I might be interested in what they have to offer me. Plain text like that would probably get tossed in the trash without me really looking at it. My apartment complex has a trash can next to the mail boxes I utilize quite frequently. The ads I keep catch my eye (to then get tossed in my personal trash after further consideration, unless I really like it then it sits on my counter for a week). That's just me personally, but I'm sure there's others like me. 

@Jesse Waters Thanks for the tips. I didn't even think about a buyer increasing price as time went on due to continually fixing it up.

Time on the market is definitely not something I am looking at exclusively. With my personal home, I'm really looking for something within my price range and location. The actual condition of the home is of little concern. But I am leaning more towards short sales, foreclosures, or anything that could use a little bit of work.

The number one reason is those are the properties I could afford in my market, and the second being that I can repair it little by little and increase it's value over time. Plus, then it's also possible to leverage the need for repairs in the negotiations as well. However, I don't know how well, if even possible, you could negotiate with a bank on a short sale/foreclosure.

But if, while I'm looking at different properties, I can make note of how long it's been on the market and bring it up in the discussions, I want to be a least minimally educated about the average time on the market so I don't get laughed off the negotiating table.

I'm currently looking around at various properties for a personal residence. I am wanting to use time on the market as leverage for lowering the price, but I'm trying to find out at what point this would technique this will work.

Can anyone give me a break down of time on the market to likelihood of selling? In other words, at what point do sellers start getting nervous and become willing to go with your low offer as opposed to let it sit on the market a little longer. 6 weeks, 6 months, etc? And would that apply to short sales and foreclosures, or is the bank willing to let it sit until they get what they want?

At the moment, I'm just absorbing everything about real estate I can. On the marketing side of things, I have some experience with graphic design and advertising. I'm also heavily involved in the printing industry. I've had an interested in real estate for quite some time as my uncle has done buy and hold for years.

About 6 months ago I moved and started looking for a job. I was going to go with real estate marketing to get involved with real estate and putting my talents to good use. I had two awesome interviews with Coldwell Banker for a marketing position to ultimately have the position canned as their office is home to the marketing VP for the region and their receptionist quit, so hiring that position was a bigger priority for them. In that time frame, I got hired by a local printing company that's totally awesome. It's not real estate, but that doesn't mean my interest still isn't there.

So I'm really looking at any type of marketing. Both investor and agent side of it. Because I might get involved with agent marketing again at some point in the future, I don't know. But it's all about building my tool box. And really, the marketing medium remains the same, it's just the message and audience that changes.

I'm following this discussion because I'm trying to learn everything I can about marketing, but I did want to make an addendum to this comment.

The podcast I was listening to today (33 I think with Sam Craven) was talking about pay per click and Google ad words and they extra emphasized the importance of putting a daily limit on the amount of money you're willing to spend. You may think no limit is more clicks, but there are people out there who will click your link for no apparent reason other than to waste your money.

They also said that paying more per click is better. Though it generates less clicks (because you put a daily limit and $10 clicks maxes out $100 a day faster than $1 clicks), it generates better quality clicks because it's highly targeted and stronger ad words.

I'm going to follow this topic, as I'm thinking I need to move on to this step soon. My thought is, if you have design skills, use them. That's what I'm planning on doing. I'd like to know what type of copy should get put on the cards though. So my question is more about whether the text on those template cards is good to transfer over to my custom designed cards.

I've thought about writing my own copy, but my theory is the old saying "don't fix what isn't broken" so if it works it works. If using your own copy has less effect that the standard, then obviously, use the template style copy. But the design can make you stand out. Just make sure the design isn't so busy you lose the message. The message should always be considered primary.

The key is to get a good balance of grabbing attention and effective communication. But that's just general marketing advice. Another piece of general marketing advice that could throw that out the door is to know your target audience. Marketing to motivated sellers is something that I know little about at this point, but intend to become very efficient at in the future.

I am wondering what others have found to work with both design and copy as well.

As far as printing them goes, feel free to message me. I work for a national printing company that has some of the best postcard prices out there and we do variable data printing and mailing as well.

I'd rather ask a dumb question than make a dumb "investment". I almost typed "dumb mistake" but I erased it because I know I'm going to make mistakes. It's part of learning. But I don't want to make a bad "deal" because I didn't take the time to ask the right questions. And I greatly appreciate the advice both Kevin and Jay have been giving.

Thanks for the encouragement!

 Thanks Cynthia, I will keep that in mind for the future. Based upon the advice I've received here, I think I'm going to look at forms of investing. I would like to stay local, but the 2% rule doesn't apply in my market. I can buy a duplex right now for 460k. That means I need 9000 a month for 2%. One unit rents for 1800, the other 1600. 3400 is 1/3 of 2%, so I'm really looking at about .6% here. And that's one of the better options. Out of state has the income/cash flow I want, but not the hands approach I'd prefer.