All Forum Posts by: Grace Sunshine

@Bill Gulley，thank you for the great blog article. From your article, I agree that method of organizing business functions is important for both mortgage and real estate business. We need a system to track the staus for each lead. I have created a podio database using the methods mentioned by struggling investor. It works good so far. It allows me to track down the status of each lead. Of course, the mission statement, the business goal, and the strategy are the foundation for the success of a business. Thanks again for the advice.

@Bill Gulley, I cannot thank you enough for your comments. It is very helpful for the development of our business. I am taking a small business development class in a college and am writing my business plan. What you talked is exactly what our professor emphasized. Yes, Business is not only about earning money. It is related with our passion to help others ethnically, and to do the right thing. 

I like your final statement:

"Look at the big picture, understand the basics of real estate, then adapt strategies that may be applied in almost any transaction with all kinds of properties and owners. Get to this point and you'll be successful. "

Thanks again for your effort and time to teach newbies like me. Biggerpockets became a good community because there are some one like you.

@Bill Gulley, thank you for your insightful comments. As a new investor, I agree that I am creating a business with the efficiency of the mole. Understanding a true business mission, resources, strategy for the success of the business is essential, before the business automation.

Thanks for the useful information, @Steven Leigh

@Steven Leigh, nice to know. 

When I buy house for rehab, I buy house with prices less than ARV*70%-repair value.

For the wholesale business, do you have some criteria to enter into a deal? If yes, would you please share your criteria in your market?

Thanks.

@Steven Leigh, Thanks for your comments.So you only use purchase agreement with the earnest money as the sole liquidation of damages? How much earnest money you generally put with a house with ARV 150k?

@Steven Leigh, I have purchase contract, got from Bigger Pockets. I want option to buy contract. I checked the Bigger Pockets FilePlace and can't find option to buy contract. Do you always use purchase contract, not option to buy contract? I was told that if the deal is not so good, it is better to use option to buy contract, instead of purchase contract. Thanks.

@Mike V. mentioned Answerfirst. I am using Patlive Starter plan for the phone call answering using the $79/month plan. I want to know whether I need to switch Answerfirst to save money.

Here is the comparison that I did.

With 920 letters out, the total phone call is 327 minutes, total 94 phone calls. Each call last 327/94=3.4787 minutes.

1000 letters/month

If we send out 1000 letters out, we expect 94 phone calls. That is 94/1000=0.094*100=9.4% response rate.

If we use patlive, 300 minutes phone call. The cost for patlive will go to the premium plan, it is 199/200=0.995. The cost will be 199+0.99*100=$298 per month.

If we use answerfirst, the cost will be: 20+1.05*300=$335 per month.

Patlive is better than Answerfirst.

500 letters/month

If we only send out 500 letters out, the phone call will be ~150minutes, then the cost for answer first will be 20+1.06*150=$179

For patlive, the cost will be 79+(150-50)*0.99=$178 for starter plan

For value plan, the cost will be 119+0.99*(150-100)*0.99=$168.005 per month.

There are no big difference:

For 50 minutes/month. that is 50/3.5=~15 phone calls.

For patlive is $79.

For Answerfirst.20+1.07*15=$36.05

Answerfirt is better than Patlive

Conclusion: Patlive is better than Answerfirst if we have a call volume >150 minutes/month. If the phone call time is less than that, then use Answerfirst is better.

Answerfirst record all the phone calls. I am not sure whether Patlive do that or not.

@Steven Leigh, Thank you for your comments. You are right, I need to learn the process first and get my first deal done. All of my other rehab deals are done by MLS. That is a totally different story. Do you know where can I find an option to buy contract? Or I need to draft it from script?

Hello, @Steven Leigh.You are right, I have not done any deal yet for wholesale business yet. For the past one year, I bought and rehabbed 4 houses from MLS. I began the wholesale business from this Aug. So far, I sent about 1000 letters and had about 50 leads coming in. I have my partner, a real estate agent, call and negotiate with seller and had no deal yet. My partner is afraid to give an high offer. Now I am looking for option to buy contract for our business. Do you know where can I find it?

As for the automation, I mainly  learned from podcast from Sean Terry, Flipping Junkies.