All Forum Posts by: Hersh Shah

@Kayla Santangelo

Is it possible to start out part time and scale to full time? Yes it is. That said, to Nathan’s point this is an extremely high failure rate business as only 13% of agents succeed after the first four years.

You have a family so you gotta keep the food on the table for them while trying to make it as a solo agent.

My biggest takeaways for you:

1) This is a business. Treat it as such and you will thrive. Treat it like a side income or hobby, and you will hate it.

2) Learn, Learn and Learn. License course in most states teaches you nothing about running a business and helping clients. You must do this on your own. From how to effectively set up searches on the MLS, write contracts, negotiate, how to get clients, etc etc. if you can't put in the time to learn, why should your future clients trust you to help them? In some cases they may even know more than you if they have bought/sold several times.

3) Most full time agents go several months (6 or more) before they earn their first commission. If part time, you may go even longer but don’t let that discourage you. Though you should know that you will have expenses well before you get your fist closing so plan and budget for that.

4) Join a large brokerage or team that can teach you without you having to do it on your own. This will significantly cut down the time it takes you to be “in the know”

I’ll send you a Message with some additional things that I think may help!

You are using FHA and taking advantage of a low down payment option with the caveat that you have to bridge the appraisal gap of $30k for you to realize 34% COC return. At a $900k price point, that is a 3.3% premium that you are paying which in the grand scheme of things is minimal considering your returns.

I have investors making offers at 10% over list and willing to bridge appraisal gaps entirely to be able to make a modest cash on cash return while paying 20-25% down.

I don't have a ton of info, but it seems like this is a home run. If you don't have the 30k or dont want to spend it up front in order to get the deal done, ask the seller to carry it for 18 months and pay him from your cash flow until it is paid off.

Don't make it binary. Find a way to get creative and get it done.

@Jay Hinrichs Thats a great list to be proud of and be thankful for!

There is much to be thankful for this year after a rough 2020, but I will keep it short:

1) A successful 2021 in my agent business. Brought on an assistant to grow and continue helping folks build massive wealth through real estate.

2) Being able to attend BPCON2021 where I met some really cool folks!

3) A healthy family

4) My clients & vendor partners that make my job fun

5) BP for continuing to pump out valuable content to help us grow and build whatever we want to go after

@Lelani Toki

Thank you! It’s the most valuable asset we have and something we can’t go make more of! Money comes and goes, but time only goes :)

@William Arrington

Congrats! Thank you for you service and keep at it!

@Daniela R.

Regardless of what your plans are for the home, you should consider the value of the home in as is condition and the “arv” once you do the laundry list of items you mentioned.

If arv is more than purchase price + repairs, it’s not a big deal however is arv is less than purchase price + repairs, you would be upside down.

If that is the case, your agent will be able to help you determine what homes sold for in like condition as well as better condition to help you determine how much the price needs to come down in order for you to make it worth your while.

You mentioned you would save 30 mins in commute time if you lived here. If that’s total/day that’s 2.5 hours/week which would be 130 hours a year in saved time. That 260 hours if that 30 mins is saved one way.

Even if you spend more to buy the home and spend even more to fix it up, is that amount of money worth it to you to save 130 hours a year? That’s over 3 weeks of “time off” from a job. EVERY YEAR!

@William Moya

I believe you are asking the wrong question here. What strategy do you know the best and have the time, energy and skill to execute is a better question.

@Amey Phatale

Their stock price relates to their business which took a massive L in something they wanted to gravitate their business model to.

Beyond that, the industry is healthy and these homes will be swallowed up by the market based on simple supply and demand.

Specifically in my market, there are several other major players that want to buy 500+ homes/year. Z is selling 7k across the country, but even if they were selling them in this market, there are plenty of big whales that can buy majority of them if not all of them.

Now Z can go back to selling overpriced buyer leads to agents which is what caused them to grow in the first place.

@Kundan Chand Unless you knew the cleaner and/or used them before you wouldn't know how good of a job they would do. If you didn't or couldn't verify they could have taken advantage of you. If so, you can ask them to go make it right or give a similar credit to tenant if they had to do it on their own.

Next time, make sure there are checks and balances in place to make sure there is accountability for each person. You can do this via a PM or person you trust. 

@Mindy Jensen Yup! Cant wait to see everyone there :)