All Forum Posts by: Fitzgerald Hall

@Craig Macken Congrats!

What type of "deal" wholesale, rehab, etc? 

Also, did you use one of the standard postcards or did you create your own?

@Katharine Gonzalez 

1. "VA" stands for Virtual assistant. I find all of virtual assistants on Upwork, formally Odesk.

2. I have experimented with a few different companies,, I currently use yellowletters.com for my mailers. Currently interviewing a couple of other companies since I plan to start sending 4-5k pieces of mail per month

3. I used a script in the beginning but now I just hold a natural conversation with sellers (they are regular people just like us) and ask the basic questions such as; bed/bath count, condition, reason for selling, mortgage pay off, and asking price. I dont bother asking things like square footage or year built because most people dont know the correct answer. I can easily find that information online. 

Hope this helps. 

@Andy Wu Well you definitely have a great stepping stone to move forward from. With that being said, I would assume that you are pretty solid with analyzing a property for profitability. If passive income is your goal, I would start to network at the local REIA's (GA REIA and ATL REAI) with wholesalers and realtors who could help locate some solid deals for you. Since you are only available on nights and weekends, leveraging other people's time is going to be an important factor as far as finding deals.

Another good reason you should attend these meetings is to become familiar with the different lenders out there who have great programs in place to lend on buy and hold property. There are a couple of them with really good terms. 

From what I understand, it sounds as though you are definitely familiar with the real estate space in general. From my experience, Ive found that action trumps everything else in this business. The best piece of advice that I can give you is to identify the types of rentals you would like to have in your portfolio based on your target cap rate or irr  and TAKE ACTION. 

By taking action you will analyze deals, view properties, and eventually decide which level or rehab you are comfortable with. Analysis paralysis is real, learning through experience and especially the experience of someone who is more experienced than you, is worth more than gold. 

Sorry of the rant but I hope this helps. 

@Andy Wu reaching out to someone with some experience is exactly what you need to you. But you also need to assess your own situation to clarify what you have to offer to your RE journey at this time. Things like; how much time you have to allocate to RE, how much money you can spend on RE related expenses, who you know, etc. All of these will be a factor in how you decide to get started. 

Goodluck!

@Justin Frye Goodluck Justin, Dev gave you the perfect plan. 

@Dev Horn Is there a thread that you spoke on about scaling up? If not is there a way to discuss scaling my wholesale business up with you?

@James Mabe Thanks man, I just wish it actually performed instead of just sitting there looking pretty. Although I have not taken the time to stay committed to it. 

@Brandon Gentile Thanks!

Hi you guys,

Admittedly I have been a poor host to this thread. I got extremely consumed with finding the best source of leads and briefly side tracked on getting involved with multi family investments. For those of you who are still interested, Ill give a brief update on how this year has gone so far. 

Since the last time I posted in this thread, Ive completed 6 wholesale deals with two currently under contract, one of which is scheduled to close next Thursday. 

Deal 1: Referral from telling all of my friends what I do. Ironically this was a deal from a realtor. 10k profit 

Deal 2: Direct mail tax delinquent 3k profit 

Deal 3: Referral from previous purchase 5k profit

Deal 4: Direct mail probate18k profit 

Deal 5: Direct mail (to behest I can't remember which list) 4.5k profit. The seller actually wants to be a private lender for me!

Deal 6: Direct mail high equity clayton county 5k. I actually split this fee with a another wholesaler, we both made 5k a piece and the people we sold it to, wholesaled it to another buyer and made an additional 5k on top. (this should have been my first sign that a strong buyers list is super important)

Deal 6: currently scheduled to close next week 50k profit from my Driving for dollars direct mail campaign 

Deal 7: Currently under contract looking for buyer. I estimate profit to be around 10-20k. This lead came from probate mailer

Most of my deals have come from direct mail. Oddly enough I have not stuck with 1 particular list. Now that I think about it, most of my deals came from a different mailing list. 

What I’ve learned over the past year

• Consistency is the #1 ingredient for success in not only real estate, but in life.
• Even though I never stuck with a particular campaign for longer than 3 months, I was consistent in marketing in general, which proved to bring me some pretty descent deals
• Follow up is just as crucial as generating the initial lead
• There was one deal that I followed up on for months. I literally called the seller every week until I finally got the property under contract. If I did not follow up, I probably would not have gotten the deal.
• Systems will make you life much easier
• Once I started suing my CRM and I do mean actually “using” it, I became much more organized. Emails automatically went out, tasks were automatically created. Life got better lol
• Keep it stupid simple
• Don’t over do it, just keep it simple and save yourself the headaches
• Don’t over analyze, be an action taker
• I often found myself suffering from analysis paralysis when it came down to choosing my next mail piece or my next marketing strategy. I learned to just take action and pay attention to the results. If the results were favorable I performed the action again, if not I moved on.
• As a full time wholesaler its important to manage/budget your deals so that you don’t run out of money
• Although I had some descent sized wholesale deals, the inconsistency of the deal flow took me by shock as far as money management goes. There were times where I had to decrease the amount of mail I was sending so that I could actually live and get my bills paid. Now I am much better with setting and sticking to a budget.
• Take breaks
• I often work myself into the wee hours of the night. I’ve noticed that I become less productive as the day progresses. Now, I take breaks so that my brain gets a breather. I also understand that every day won’t be as busy as my busiest day, so its ok to have some down time.
• Future Plans
• I am currently in the process of increasing my direct mail to about 5k pieces per month.
• I also plan to start calling probates daily.
• I am currently preparing to learn how to build a new construction from the ground up. (this opportunity came from one of my wholesale deals). My plan is to take this knowledge and complete my own new construction next year.
• My biggest goal for next year is to flip at least 5 houses (rehab). I have networked with several solid contractors and I am waiting until December to close on a solid rehab project to catch those spring buyers.
• Overall I am happy with the journey and I am learning to enjoy the actual journey itself and not just the results (paychecks). Hopefully this helps someone.
• Let me know if you have any questions!

@Chris Bounds Congrats on a successful campaign!

I am thinking about using yellowletters.com as well. 

Are you finding that your typed letters are doing just as well as you zip letters or are zip letters hands down the best performer?