All Forum Posts by: Josh Randall

Hey Carlos Ramos,

I'm a just starting out too. Maybe I'll see you at a CFRI meeting sometime. http://cfri.net/

I don't believe there is any minimum.

This may be helpful: http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/48/topics/33543-what-is-your-state-s-minimum-earnest-money-deposit-

Wilton Baker, I think your website looks great! It's very professional looking, nice layout, easy to navigate. There's really nothing that jumps out at me that needs fixing from a design standpoint. Someone who has experience with capturing leads using a real estate website (not me) might be able to give you some more specific pointers as to what works best. You might add some testimonials as Seth Williams suggested above. If you do, the more information you include, like pictures, names, dates, etc., the more believable they are. Even better is video testimonials.

The only other thing I would suggest is to look at your website stats and see where your traffic is coming from and where you may be losing people on the website and then make tweaks and see if you get better results. It's not an exact science and often takes a lot of testing and trial and error to improve.

Keep up the good work.

Mark Ferguson he definitely said he put over 500k into it. I watched it a second time to be sure. It's TV though so who knows if that's factual. If you watch the show he did do a lot of over the top upgrades.

Thanks for commenting Ben Leybovich. Certainly there is a difference between $100k-$200k properties vs $1,000,000+ properties, but to get $1.3mil in area where everything else is around $500k or less seems unlikely.

I thought some of you might find this interesting...

I've been watching the Vanilla Ice Project, which for those of you who don't know it's a show that follows former 90's rapper Vanilla Ice (Rob Van Winkle) as he and his crew fix and flip a house.

On this season he bought a property in Lake Worth, FL which had been sitting vacant for quite some time. It's a 4 bedroom 3.5 bath home, about 3,500 sq ft, on a 1.3 acre lot on a small lake.

It was entertaining for me to watch because I LOVE this stuff. With my interest in real estate investing and the fact that I grew up watching shows like This Old House and The New Yankee Workshop, I just can't get enough! Anyway, I'll spare you my life story and get to the good stuff.

So what was the outcome of Vanilla Ice's flip you ask?

Well, on the last episode of the show, which aired yesterday 4/28/13, he had a huge party and an open house. Then he briefly went over the numbers. He claimed to have bought the house for $325,000. He said he put over $500,000 into repairs and would list it for 1.3 million. I wanted to see if the house had sold because I know these shows usually air well after they are shot, so I did a little Googling and I found the address of the property.

According to Trulia.com it was indeed initailly listed on 2/9/13 for $1,299,000. Then on 2/12/13 it was dropped $368,000 to $931,000 and as of 4/5/13 dropped another $100,000 to what it's presently listed at now, $831,000. A little quick math based on what Vanilla Ice himself said means he has over $825,000 into the property. Either the $500,000+ he claimed to have put into the rehab was TV puffery or he seems likely to lose on this deal.

A cursery look on Trulia.com at other proprties in the area would make one wonder how anyone would come up with 1.3 million as an ARV for this property. This brings to mind something I recently heard Ben Leybovich say on podcast 14 @34:20 http://www.biggerpockets.com/show14. In essence he said with single-family homes you can't increase the value you can only bring it back to the value the market has set, which is based on a comparative analysis. He said you can make it the taj mahal. You can put gold toilets in it, but you're not going to overcome the price the market sets for that particular location and size of property.

Let me know what your thoughts are?

If anyone is interested the property address is: 4240 Foxview Ct
Lake Worth, FL 33467. Here's a link to the record on the Palm Beach county property appraiser's website: http://goo.gl/f09Xs

Looks excellent Sarah B.! Taking the wall down between the kitchen and the next room was a great call. The finishes are all superb. I want to live there!

You're welcome Seth Williams. You'll notice quite often banks and insurance companies choose a blue color scheme. However, the most important thing is to 'not' use inappropriate colors. Often people just pick colors they personally like without any thought for their website's intended audience or purpose.

By the way, I like your website. I'm partial to simple designs. Also, I watched the video you have on your Start Here page and it's a perfect example of how to build credibility. It was clear and you were well spoken. It showed you're a real person and in my opinion you came off very personable and trustworthy.

Hey Jordan Robinson,

I'm currently a web designer/developer for a living and I think your website looks pretty good so far. Definitely listen to Seth Williams. You need to work on credibility. Believe it or not a logo is huge as far as credibility goes.

Here is a sweet website (http://www.crowdspring.com/) where you can get a logo made for you. You set a price and then designers will compete and submit designs for you to choose from. You can say which ones you like and suggest changes and the designers will continue to tweak the designs until you make a final selection.

Also, I would suggest you work your phone number into the header or somewhere else prominent besides the contact page. A phone number helps to legitimize a website. And add a copyright statement to the footer. Similar to the bottom of this page. Maybe include your phone number there too. It just helps to make your website look more complete and professional. A website that appears at all unfinished will convey a scam/fake feel.

One last thing... the color red is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love, whereas blue is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven. You might consider changing the header/navigation color scheme to blue and use red as an accent and for your buttons.