All Forum Posts by: Greg N.

Oops, the zip code is actually 08065 (auto-fill error)

Overview:

I'm offering up my absolutely stunning duplex, located in Palmyra, NJ, which is just minutes outside of downtown Philadelphia and situated amongst beautiful historic neighborhoods. I bought this duplex in Nov 2015 and house-hacked it for close to a year, however, I ended up moving to the West Coast for work and have been renting both units out for just over the last year. The duplex is professionally managed by a local management company, who have been absolutely amazing at taking care of the place. 

As of last week, Unit 2 is vacant making this the perfect opportunity for someone to purchase the property for home-hacking OR to fully rent the place. Fully rented, this is a cash-flowing property in GREAT condition.

Why am I selling?

I don't foresee myself returning to NJ and have decided to start investing on the West Coast. This house has been under agreement for the past 2 months, however, the prospective buyer backed out a few days prior to closing. As a result, the property will be put back on the market for a few more weeks. If not sold, I will rent out Unit 2 until Summer 2018, when it will be listed for sale again.

For more information

• Interested parties can view the listing on realtor.com
• For more information, please reach out to me personally via Biggerpockets or my email (nowicki.greg [at] gmail.com, or call the realtor (info on listing page)
• The previous prospective buyer had a home inspection report conducted a few weeks ago, this can be supplied upon viewing of the property to save time and money
• I also ran a quick report using the BP Rental Property Calculator (seriously, one of the best things on this site) to model out what the prospective buyer would have been making given their mortgage situation (FHA loan) and historical costs that I have seen from my end.

@Account Closed Possibly. Feel free to email me some more info: nowicki (dot) greg (at) gmail.com. 

@Mark Langdon thanks for your input. Do you wholesale in NJ as well? If so, how has it been working out for you?

@Erik Pedersen Yeah, i'm trying really hard to get the first deal done. In fact when I scheduled my first appointment with a seller, I had no idea what to actually do from there haha - so i teamed up with a local wholesaler to come with me (yes, I took a chance with them, but it seems to be leading towards a rewarding relationship). Question for you - would you recommend any courses/resources for wholesaling? I feel like i'm taking a very off-the-cuff approach to this and would like to implement a little more structure. Also, where were you getting your lists from?

I'm actually closing on a duplex tomorrow which I'll be house-hacking. I'm super excited as this will be the first addition to my rental portfolio. 

@Alex Perez  I'm currently doing all the mailing myself (printing, folding, stuffing, etc), with each piece of mail averaging around 70 cents (multiply by how much you will be sending). Wholesaling site from lead propeller (just started with them) costs about $50/mo. Haven't done any deals since I started, but have run into some interesting leads. Currently working on one where the seller has 3 homes to sell side-by-side - the only problem is that their are 4 siblings involved (ugh...). I partnered up with a local wholesaler/flipper to help me with this one, which has been a huge learning experience! Best advice I can give at this point - stop thinking, get mail out the door, and pick up your phone when it rings.

Results from first campaign: 4% response rate from yellow letters.

Went to visit one property after qualifying the lead over the phone. Turns out the seller owns the two homes next to the one I went to visit (three in total). He's eager to sell the two on either end, but wants to keep the middle as his elder sister lives there. And the kicker is, these lots are zoned commercial and all three could unlock huge opportunity.

Currently working with local RE folks to try and put a deal together for the three. If that doesn't work out - may have to work out a deal for the two. Pretty exciting so far!

Hey All,

I'm planning on starting up a wholesaling campaign at the end of this month in 1/2 zip codes in Southern NJ. My goal is to build a solid marketing machine within 3-4 years time while I currently work a full-time job.

After listening to the BP podcast with @Michael Quarles (ep #81), I decided to call yellowletters.com to speak with him about setting up a direct mail campaign, but I was informed that he's usually not in the office as much anymore - spending most of his mentoring time with students (bummer - I was looking forward to connecting with him!). Anyway, Norma was able to help point me in the right direction in terms of setting up a campaign, which you can see below. This criteria is, in her words, what beginners typically start off with. Hope this helps anyone else out there:

Criteria:

• Mix of Absentee & Owner Occupied (I'm thinking 60/40?)
• 1-3 Bed
• 40-100% Equity
• At least 4 years of ownership
• Single Family Home
• No Corp/No Trust

Mailing Size/Frequency

• At least 1000 mailings/mo (I'm going to start off with 500-600; I know I can afford this consistently)
• Mailed at least once a month (i.e. each contact should receive 6 mailings over 6 months)

Mailing Sequence

• Month 1 - Small Text Postcard
• Month 2 - Yellow Letter
• Month 3 - Professional Typed Letter
• Month 4-6 - Don't remember because I didnt have time to write it down

Other (my own plan)

• Website - for lead generation (will have the link address printed on the mailers). Also thinking of creating separate sites for separate towns (this is pretty easy to achieve so no big deal)
• Google Voice/Skype # - alternate number routed to my cell + short/sweet answering service for any calls I missed
• Research call scripts & practice them

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Question:

For those of you already wholesaling - How does that look? Would you add/subtract anything from the outline above?

For wholesalers in New Jersey or the surrounding areas (Philadelphia, South Jersey, Centeral Jersey, Burlington County, Camden County, etc) - I'd love to get see who's out there currently wholesaling in NJ. Give me a shout!

I finally have an update my friends!

After checking out the house with my contractor again (and another follow up meeting after that), I decided not to move forward with the house. I did this for a couple reasons, but mainly because it would have been way too much of a project for me to take on, especially having no experience in RE investing. While the numbers did work out (on paper at least), it just came down to my personal style. My idea of investing was to have fun, and not make this a miserable experience by taking on too much and potentially running into major pit falls. 

I kept searching around the area and ended up finding a beautiful duplex that required much less work. After negotiating with the seller for 2 weeks, I finally got the house under contract with a closing date targeted for mid November!

Here's what the numbers look like more or less;

Purchase Price: 205K

Rehab Cost: ~4K (Mostly cosmetic)

Unit 1 Rent (2b/1ba): $1250 (occupied by me for the next year)

Unit 2 Rent (3bd/2ba): $1350

Cashflow (once fully rented): ~$300/mo (using very conservative expense figures)

Next steps - Now I have to focus on setting up a solid lease agreement and researching how to become an effective landlord. Cheers!

@Anthony Joseph Kendall II Haha that sounds pretty wild, and I'll definitely keep that in my toolkit. By the way, that could turn out to be a pretty sweet deal if you use an airline/cash back rewards card!