All Forum Posts by: Jake Hartnett

A Grand Caravan with no seats holds 4x8 sheets flat (cant say that about a pickup truck) you can lock all of your tools up, you can buy it for next to nothing, and nothing gets rained on. My father has been in property management in Minnesota for 20+ years and has always had one.

You can always throw one of the seats in and comfortably fit four people to go camping with plenty of cargo room. Smaller kayaks fit in the back and you can always put a hitch and or a rack on it and carry more gear than you would ever need. Its the best vehicle in the world if you don't let your ego get in the way.

Regarding the Minneapolis Market:

Values are historically very stable. We didn't run up too much in the aughts and we didn't fall too far in the crash. The flip side of that is you are hard pressed to find a 1.5% deal in a decent neighborhood, but there are plenty of 1%ers.

We have some of the best schools in the country, safest streets, diverse economy, lots of large and small employers and are not dominated by a single sector, which probably contributes to our stable prices (3M, Target, Honeywell, General Mills, Delta Airlines Etc.) But we don't have the population growth of some other cities that are poised for major appreciation gains.

On the flip side, income/employment disparity and education achievement gaps between whites and minorities are among the worst in the country, so those benefits are not shared by everyone.

I went to one meeting. There was a lengthy presentation about title insurance, it seems like there is a different educational component to every meeting. Then everyone (100 people?) went around the room and introduced themselves and said their haves and needs. Then there was a little networking time at the end of the night.

I thought there wasn't enough networking time. For me, I feel I can educate myself faster and cheaper on my own. I just want to meet people.

It was only one meeting so maybe others are different, but I certainly wasn't sold on it.

I would prefer to get a less formal group together and skip right to the haves and needs and networking.

Is it worth the investment? I'd say its certainly worth the investment for one free meeting, then reassess.

I agree with the advice here to either option it or get a long term PA with an easement contingency. Personally I wouldn't expect much to come out of these deals so I would try to option it for $1. Even if you buy it straight up for $1 all you have is the right to pay the property taxes, and you've opened yourself up to potential liability.

Good Luck.

Hello Rachel,

Welcome to the site. Which Grand Rapids are you in? Michigan I guess? There is one here in Minnesota and probably plenty others.

Dave Ramsey is a fine first taste of financial planning for people who are in debt and have no financial literacy, but anyone who has thought about the relationships between money, time, work, investment etc. would do well to forget the whole thing. Its cookie cutter infotainment, but he is doing good by converting financial infants into financial toddlers.

He is telling people to put their money into paying down their 4% mortgages instead of investing at 20% COC. That's pretty darn conservative.

I am not an attorney, but here are some ideas.

You can do everything without an agent and without a title company if you want, but its not going to be easy. I would recommend going through a title company on your first deal at least and ask a lot of questions about what they are doing and what all of the forms are.

You can get most documents from USlegal.com or Megadox.com.

I would start with a purchase agreement and then take it to a title company. I think there are a few too many moving parts on your first deal to do everything in-house, especially with a land contract. You will learn a ton from the title company if you bother them about everything they are doing and ask a ton of questions. Its their job to answer your questions.

Good Luck

You need to sit down with a real estate attorney who knows about investing out of the country. They can help you decide on an entity and structure for the deal. This will be a highly specialized person and I would think any advise you get on the site wouldn't be worth much.

Good luck.

That makes a lot of sense Seth. A quality list and quality copy are probably the two most important ingredients to a successful mail campaign. That being said, quality ingredients don't do you much good if you never get in the kitchen.

In Holistic Management (land management and grazing) we say plan is a 24 letter word. "Plan-Monitor-Control-Replan." There is no perfect plan. I'm sure you are still tweaking your copy and trying to get better lists even after doing this for years and completing many deals. 

For me, getting a list, scrubbing it, setting up a google voice, getting a mailbox, writing the copy and sending out a mailer using click2mail, receiving calls and calling people back and asking them about their property was a huge hurdle. Now I have a blueprint for what needs to be done and I can improve the pieces of the system to get better results. For me that lesson was worth $150.

I have set aside a certain amount of money that I plan to spend on marketing. If I haven't closed a deal with that money then I will take a major step back and reevaluate. I will not let these early failures (lessons) discourage me. Its all part of the process. If you approach this business with the attitude that you send out one mailer and if it doesn't work you quit its probably a waste of money to even start.

How many mailers did you send out before you closed your first deal @Seth Williams?

Thank you for this thread. My friends and family think I'm crazy, its great to be able to discuss these issues, if only to get them out of my head.

Best.

I haven't done a deal yet. I'm in the "fire" stage of the "ready, fire, aim" strategy and I mostly skipped the "ready" phase. I have a lot of work to do to improve my letter, get better lists, get more comfortable on the phone etc. I needed to just send some letters to get out of the analysis paralysis wormhole. It costs me $40 to send 100 postcards and I bought a list from the county for $50 that I will get 3 or 4 100 address lists from. I don't have a website or a phone system so my overhead is $0.

Here is some unsolicited advice for you: get yourself a list from the county or from someone who sells lists and send out one mailing minimum before you invest in a course. Don't bother with the quality of the list or the quality of your copy. Just send something out. Plan to not send any offers because you won't have the paperwork ready. You can even plan to not even call anyone back. Just see how it goes. It will cost you $100. Consider it a market research expense. If you can't do that a course won't help you. If you do it you have something to work from. Then you can have a better idea of what you need to learn and what you need from a course.

I didn't send an offer with my letter. I just sent a general postcard that said basically: "I buy land, call this number to learn more if you are interested," and I left my google voice number. On my first call I was so nervous I basically $h1+ the bed, but I got some confidence. My second call back wasn't much better but I learn something with each one. My plan is to continue to take action and make incremental improvements to my system. "fail fast, fail often, fail forward." I don't expect to close any deals with these early campaigns. I think if you aren't in it for the long haul you will be disappointed at the beginning and quit. If you aren't willing to drop money on a couple mailings that basically have no chance of bringing in a deal then this business model probably isn't for you and the course will not give you a rock solid, step by step turn-key system.

In my view, the biggest newbie pitfall is inaction. Just do something.

Best.