All Forum Posts by: Eric Medemar

If you can hold onto your properties for the long haul prices will return in the meantime wholesale some deals.

Wholesaling only involves working with homes that are already sold, so your outcome is uneffected by the conditions of your real estate market.

Our market is a disaster in MI and just the other week I made $16,000 on a $12,000 wholesaling deal, One of my clients just cleared $40,000 on a home he paid $35,000 for. If we can make good money in our rock bottom economy in michigan you can do it anywhere. Just something to consider.

Depending on how you look at it bird dogging could be considered illegal in a few states, but you need not worry because if you have a good contract that states you are not being paid for doing real estate transactions, you are being paid as an independant contractor for you property location services, you should be fine

I am always amazed at the way that people try to market their business. With thousands of articles online about marketing people continue to make the same mistakes. I am far from perfect in the marketing department but I have a general idea of direct response marketing. Here are a few things that have helped my business tremendously.

1. Make getting information from you a two way transaction. If you are driving traffic to your website offer some valuable information to your target audience that they would be willing to leave their information for. A website is no good if people visit and leave with no trace of themselves left behind.

2. Have a purpose to your marketing materials- don't make the mistake of sending out post cards, flyers, etc without a call to action. Far too many direct mail pieces and websites tell the target audience all about the business but they don't tell the customer (Whats In It For Them) an easy way to remember is radio WIIFM whats in it for me.

3. Use a website with your classified ads and Direct mail- A website is the perfect way to let people know what you can do for them, and it creates a great low resistance way to contact you without needing to talk on the phone. Most consumer hate the phone and the last thing they want to do is immediately share there life story of why they are motivated sellers. Instead use a website that offers a free report like "how to sell your house fast in any market". If someone requests that report you will know that more than likely they are motivated sellers, because people don't request info on topics that they are not concerned with. Be sure to make them leave at minimum an email address and name, but phone number is nice as well.

You mentioned having a partner. I would definately watch getting into a partnership for any venture. In 90% of cases one partner ends up doing a vast majority of the work, and bitterness will follow shortly behind.

Unless you need the capital, then I would avoid partnerships all together, many headaches can come up because twice as many things could go wrong.

For example if your partner runs into a financial hardship and can no longer take care of his end of the deal, then you are left holding the bill.

If you do decide to take on a partner be sure that you get absolutely everything in writing and I mean everything. Plus look into taking out life insurance policies within the business that are at least equal to your partners part of the biz.

"There are some great courses on Ebay, or if you google real estate bird dogging you can see what courses are offered

I am not much of a rei meeting attendee, but when I do go I find it striking that most of the people their are trying to do the exact thing that you are doing, so in many cases you end up with a room full of networkers, meeting with networkers.

One lesson that I would suggest is that when you do go to one, try to identify the key players by talking to other networkers there about what is what. Once you have identified the key players offer to take them out to lunch (your treat of course).

Get them out of the environment of scavengers, and into your own environment .

Too many low ball offers can quickly build you a reputation of a person not to be taken seriously. A better strategy is to get as many good relationships started with realtors as possible and become a go to person for good deals because they know that working with you is easy.

I just closed a realtor deal that i got for 12k and sold for 30k, the realtors call me because they know that I am easy to work with and I follow through.

Contrary to popular belief realtors don't skim the good deals for themselves, in fact most realtors that I know don't even invest (very odd to me, but heh

There are quite a few good courses out their that I have bought under the real estate investing heading

I have a couple of rentals that the tenants have told me are haunted. The strangest story is that 4 days after closing on one of the homes the neighbors told me that a 14 year old boy had stabbed his grandma to death and stuffed her into a gravity fed furnace in the home, he was later killed by another family member

Well, when the new tenant moved in she had been there a week and I was chattting with her about how every thing was going, and she said "Well great but the house is haunted". The hair on my arms stood on end. She had been my tenant at a previous rental for over a year and I never had any stories from her at that house.

I asked her if she had talked to any of the neighbors and she said no. I just played like I didn't know anything. She went onto to tell me that the doors open on their own. She said that one night she went to the kitchen and there was a boy and a grandma standing there. She thought it was because the home backed up to a cemetary. I didn't tell her the truth.

You don't actually assign contracts as a real estate bird dog. You are paid for your property locaton services which is legal.

Wholesaling is legal as well because you are not actually selling homes you are selling contracts and there are no laws against selling contracts.