All Forum Posts by: Gavin Welch

Some close friends of mine went to NOLA after the hurricane and bought every property they could get their hands on.... Then the bubble popped and they single handedly nearly lead to the collapse of three separate banks.

Do what you do and let the jokers go.. There are always going to be some guys with a new scheme to get rich fast.

Most of the really rich real estate investors I know, have done it consistently and over time. No fancy strategy just good sense and basic math and replicate..

That sounds a bit high.. What are properties in your area going for? Take yourself out of the property for a minute. Could you rent it to two strangers and cover the mortgage plus maintenance and still cover a profit? If so, how much profit? What's the local market rent? That should help you set a purchase price and figure for monthly expenses plus profit.

Hey Graham, I'm with Bill on this.. The margin sounds a bit thin. I would really look at the neighborhood and see if there is a potential to rehab the units and raise the rent a bit. Be careful of debt.. Nothing kills rental income cash flow faster than debt service..

There are some great laminate counter top options that look just like granite. I typically don't put granite.. I had it in a SFR and it got water stained, cracked and just didn't work out well for me.. The faux granite laminate is the way I go now... Of course, if you are in a high-end neighborhood follow the upgrades that the neighborhood has..

I typically do not buy properties in the higher-end neighborhoods.. My market can't support it..

An LLC is not really necessary for only one or two properties. I have one just because I have other business I want protected. I also have two bank accounts (one for deposits and one for rents).. I manage the books with quickbooks and its cake..

I have insurance on all the properties and an unbrella liability policy as well.

Here is what I look for as far as rentals go. 3/2 concrete block. Decent neighborhood, (hood ok but no war zones). I have not financed any properties but I'm a firm believe in putting at least 50% down if I had to finance.

Websites are a lot of time and expense.

Good luck..

Let me know if you have anymore questions

Gavin

@Bobby Gonzalez undefined, Hey Bobby.. First Fortune Builders is good, its also $25,000.. For 6 months. FInd your local real estate REIA (real estate investor ***'n) and become a wart on the butt of the smartest guy in the room.. Careful though usually that are full of wanna-be investors.

For wholesaling go to www.flip2freedom.com

There are a ton of great books on rentals.. I like a guy named John Schraub. He's very conservative (with debt) and know his stuff and is no BS.

For property management check out a book called "Landlording on autopilot" by Mike Butler. It rocks!

I hope this helps

Gavin

@Account Closed Are you curently using Google analytics? Its awesome..

It will tell you where the traffic is coming from including social media, how long they are on your site and on what pages they are leaving at..

Best of all... Its free!

If you need help with it, you can email me at [email protected]

Hey Jerilyn, is right about that.. But my borker is a one man show and has kinda lost interest and is 50 miles away.. So I'm kinda on my own.. That makes it really hard to get the marketing started.

@Patrick D. There IDX is good (real geeks).. Yes and expensive. The reason I chose them is b/c they work well on mobile devices. Also that have a good CRM backside for the leads. The website is super EASY to add/edit. So much easier than wordpress or something.. The great look is also another reason I went with them..

So far none of the internet leads have turned into buyers.. But I am experimenting weekly with key words and SEO stuff.

If you could split the cost.. Then by all means I think they would be the way to go..

@Jeff Richardson.. Here is my plan. I am looking to take my real estate 'side gig' or hobby to a full time gig. I set my personal deadline of February to "pull the real estate boat close to the dock".. Meaning generating income.

Here is my strategy.

1. Calling expired and withdrawn listings. There are some great scripts for calling them. I just bought the book "How to become a Power Agent" by Darryl Davis.. Its has a lot of good scripts. I used mojo dialer and landvoice (leads and a dialer that will dial 300 per hours). It works great, but over whelming and some of the leads were bad. I look in the MLS and then cross reference with the property appraiser and then look on whitepages.com. Some times you get a number some time not. Go knock on the door of the expired listings..

2. Door hangers. My wife is walking our baby around neighborhoods and hanging door cards on the door. No leads from this yet.

3. Website. Mine is pricey but has a nice capture system and looks great and is easy to change. Mine is [REMOVED[ I got no hits at first. Then I started advertising "Free MLS Access" on craigslist... Mine site is connected to the IDX (internet data exchange) and that is providing some hits.. Also I am testing google adwords. I pay $2.00 per day and I'm getting 20 people a day visiting my site. I was paying $10.00 per day and getting twice the hits. I get about 3 or 4 people opting in through the site per week.. No sales from it yet. I'm going to start a weekly newsletter to send to them.

I need to edit the site and try to up the conversion rate. I'm going to start using youtube more. They are owned by google and it raises your rank. I have been studying SEO (search engine optimization) for a while now. They say that 90% of all real estate searches begin online.. If I can be the first one they see there I think they have a good chance of using me.

I am getting 'SUPER NINJA" meaning I am trying to go a totally different approach to online.. I'm starting a podcast.. Interviewing the experts. I hope i will be able to drive traffic to my site that way.. We launch at the end of the month.

If you do a mailer, let me know how it goes.

Thanks

Gavin

I'll help you.. I'm in FL but let me know what I can do for you.

My email is [email protected]

Cell 863-670-0303