All Forum Posts by: Justin Pierce

Tanya S. thanks so much for the kind words and thanks for reading my column. Yes, we live in a strange area. You can post any vile political thing you want but for goodness sake don't try to make a profit. Haha.

What kind of investing are you doing in our area?

Jon Holdman no the problem with that situation is, like many wholesalers, I find it a bit underhanded. I am honest. When he showed me that property I could have just contacted the seller myself but I respected him and his need to make a reasonable profit. He showed me just a picture of the property and I gave him my best number believing he would negotiate based with my best interests in mind. When I saw the home it had many issues and I knew I needed it at more of a discount. But, he stuck firm on his price. There is no team work mentality in the business. He went with a partner and bought the home. So, he probably spent several thousand in closing costs then he split the profit with a partner. Had he assigned the property to me he probably could have saved thousands of dollars and cut out the partner. He probably would have made more money and I could have had the breathing room I needed. The total bill on this home was nearly $400,000 so a $16,000 profit is a dismal return on the investment.

My point is that I opperate in good faith. I find many wholesalers do not. Also, if wholesalers are going to squeeze you for every last penny just like any other seller does then I don't see much reason to work with them.

But, yes, this is also good example of why the cost savings is worth taking the task in house. Everyone has to perform for their clients. If wholesalers continue to disregard their value for their end buyers they will find that more buyers like myself starting doing as I do and they just might find there is no more industry for them. If that happened there would be less competition for me out there... a double bonus.

Jerry Puckett that is very good info. I'll take a look at your posts and make my assistant read them... see if we can't get our juices flowing.

Dev Horn that too is good idea. They're really sensitive about big trucks in my county but I've been thinking about things like that myself.

I don’t want to criticize anyone. I’m sure there are some good wholesalers out there. I just haven’t met one yet. I have, however, had a lot of my time wasted by many self proclaimed wholesalers.

I find that wholesalers are trying to push homes that really aren’t deals or they have a huge buyers list and they bid the buyers against each other until all the profit margin is sucked out of a deal. I had a wholesaler once ask me how much I would pay for a home. I gave him my rough numbers and he went and bought the home for $50k less than that and then sold it to me. He made $50k from the deal and after 5 months of rehab and marketing I made $16,000.

I have many more stories like this but the point of my post is to say that I am taking my wholesaling in house. The MLS has pretty much dried up out here so I'm going grass roots. I've hired a personal assistant and these are some of the things we're doing to find deals.

-Sending out about 500 mailers a week to target areas (specifically people who bought their homes over 20 years ago)
-Reworking my website
-Created a feeder website to rank higher on search engines
-Tried putting out bandit signs but got a ticket.
-Searching craigslist, newspapers and for sale by owner sites.
-Driving neighborhoods

Any suggestion? What are we missing? Who is the leading guru real estate marketing and wholesaling.

Again, if you’re a good wholesaler I don’t want to criticize you. This is hard work and you deserve to make some money.

Ben, love it. Bread and butter, baby.

I'd just like to remind everyone that soliciting for funding can get you in trouble with the SEC. You can market to family and friends and be mostly safe but as soon as you start asking money of strangers you start getting into merky waters. Also, be careful about promising any returns. I think Ben is safe here because he's just spliting the profit not promising a rate of return.

Thanks Ben.

Ben, that's a solid and fair strategy if you know people who can front that much cash. If you're blessed with those kinds of friends then go to work my friend. I don't see a problem with it.

That plan would be a much better place for your family/friends money than the stock market. I think it's quiet equitable.

John,

I favor lease options myself. Probably just my comfort level. Even thouse can be hard to get into without a good deposit. No?

Anyone got an awesome deal they pulled off with creative low down financing?

Dean,

What's your best most creat no money down deal? Can you share a real story with us?

Justin

Haha,... unfortunately I think that's true to a degree. It's just like getting a loan from a bank. They only want to lend to people who already have money.

Bill,

I agree completely. You're in a bad spot if your only option is a no money down strategy. Sellers can smell that on you and it hurts your chances. People are going to have to work hard for a long time to build up enough knowledge and reputation to be able regularly pull these deals off.

I get asked about this topic a lot. I'm about to write about the subject and I just wanted to refresh my memory to try to give the most honest and even assessment on the subject. I'm expecting some guru's to give me grief.

I've done two no money in deals just this year but the no money down is never my goal and they never would have happened had I not had a track record to show. My goal is always to get a profitable deal. You can really get into trouble if you main focus is just not putting any skin in the game.

Thanks everybody and kee the suggestions coming if you have them.