All Forum Posts by: E. Jacobs

I'm curious if the profit margin for the wholesaler is usually higher when dealing with more expensive properties. For example, if you can find a house that would be able to sell for $1 million after some rehab and you can get it for 800-900K, it seems like it would be easy to charge a nifty 5 digit fee without the investor really noticing. Has anyone done any deals like this?

How much time and money does it take to create an LLC? The pocket LLC tactic sounds like an interesting one but I was wondering how this would cut into profits. Thanks!

Thanks guys, that was a lot of help. I think I am going to try finding a contractor who will work with me. How much do you think a flat fee for giving me an estimate on one house would be? And since most deals don't close, how can I minimize some expenses here? Do I only have the contractor come if I find a very serious seller? Paying a guy a fee for every house I look at can really cut into profits if only a small percent of deals work out.

Hi everyone- I'm trying to start my wholesaling business this summer but I must say I have absolutely no experience or knowledge about rehabbing or its associated costs. I want to be able to walk through a house and know what to offer based on accurate repair estimates and market value using comps. But if I don't know how to estimate the repair costs, what should I do? I know I will eventually learn from experience but I don't want to let this slow me down. Should I try to add a contractor to my team at the beginning to do walkthroughs with me and estimate the repairs? I could refer business to him from my investor network and also give him a cut if I close on the deal. Or should I ask the seller to estimate the repairs and pass that number along to potential buyers and tell them that's what the seller estimated? Does anyone have any advice here?

Hey Larry, what's the latest with your deal? What did those 2 investors think of the property?

Just wondering, when you come across a great deal and you shoot an email out to all of your investors, how do you handle their offers? Do you take all the offers and wait a few days then get back in touch with the ones who would buy it for the most money? Or do you try to close as fast as possible and sell it to the first investor who makes a good offer even if you think a better offer might come up later?

Thanks Michael! That was some great information there. I love the level of detail because you explained HOW to do things, not just WHAT to do. I think a lot of authors assume that readers know how to do more than they really do. The specific scripts provided will definitely help me along my way and reduce the time needed for me to figure out a formula that works in conversation. Anyways, some comments/questions on what you posted:

Which open houses do you usually target? Do you only go if you think the property might turn into a deal or do go to any open house just to learn and advertise your name? Why don't you give the seller your business cards unless you've scheduled to buy their house?

What is the psychology behind always repeating what others say followed by a positive or negative reinforcement word? I think I would feel like I was talking to a robot if someone kept doing that to me.

When you ask people if they or anyone they know are planning on selling or buying a house, do you specify the type of properties you're interested in?

How has your experience been with mailing holiday cards including your business cards?

After striking up a conversation with a stranger (like the person on the bike next to you in the gym), how receptive are they when you ask if they will take business cards and refer you to others?

Where can I get the rest of your book?!

Also, if anyone else has personal experience with any of the original questions or anything posted by Michael, please share!

Hi all, I've been scouring the forums nonstop for the past few weeks and I have read every article under the wholesaling category with hopes of starting my own full-time wholesaling business this summer. With that in mind, I have a bunch of questions that I would like to ask experienced wholesalers so that I can feel more comfortable getting started and skip a few steps on the learning curve. Some questions I was wondering about lead generation are:

1) What is a realistic marketing budget for a starting full-time wholesaler?

2) What media of advertising has worked best?

3) Are there specific types of neighborhoods that you should target for greater lead generation? What characteristics are you looking for?

4) Besides soliciting leads through advertising, how else can you find leads? Are there websites you search such as craigslist? Do you drive through neighborhoods looking for houses that appear distressed? Who can you contact that may provide leads? Realtors? Lawyers? Banks? Do you hire bird dogs?

If you have any advice about any of these questions please share! I know there's some great people on this forum and I'm hoping to learn a LOT from participating in the discussion!

I may be wrong, but I believe that million dollars is referring to net worth, NOT cash flow.

Hi everybody!

New to the forums here- look very nice. Anyways, I'm 20 years and studying finance and real estate in college right now. I will graduate about a year from today, and I really want to get rolling with REI. I've been doing a lot of reading about real estate to help prepare myself for next year, which is how I came across this forum. After reading through a bunch of threads, I decided that this is a great source of knowledge that I definitely want to be a part of.

Basically, I was wondering how exactly to start my career in real estate, and is it plausible to start off doing it full time right out of school? I've read in various places that real estate requires no money to start off, and I was wondering how true this is based on experience. Would I be better off finding a fixed income job in real estate to gain knowledge and then using money from that for my investments? Ideally, I'd like to just be a long-term investor so that my assets will generate wealth for me, but I was not sure how I would be able to support myself until my portfolio grew large enough to make a decent living. I understand that flipping houses is a way to make some quick cash which I could then reinvest for rentals, but once again how exactly does this work in the early phases of investing with little capital to work with? Ultimately, I want my properties to work for me, not the other way around, so I don't want to solely be flipping for a living. But I will do whatever it takes to succeed in real estate. Can anyone offer some advice for someone coming out of school and looking to get started in real estate right away?

And if I'm covering topics already mentioned elsewhere in the forum, please forgive me. I did some reading around but didn't really find exactly what I was looking for, although if I missed answers to my questions feel free to just redirect me. Thanks a lot and I'm very excited to get started on here!