All Forum Posts by: Jake K.

I've been advising my clients to be cautious and to have a backup strategy when they are buying homes with the goal of turning them into short term rentals.  Its inevitable that the City Council, and eventually the General Assembly, will regulate this market.

News Flash! If anyone finds a deal that meet the criteria Jerry is looking for then contact me and I will take it and pay you 10k and you wont even have to pay anything up front. I am sure there are plenty of cash buyers looking for deals at 65% ARV.

@Jake K. certainly this can be done in a moral and ethical way. However MD and Baltimore in particular is very liberal. Many of these liberals will perceive what you want to do as wrong, no matter how ethically you operate. 

The list in Baltimore of who is owed money is easy to get at BidBaltimore.com. If you chose to try this let me know how it works out for you.

I am yet to acquire a close mentor but I am starting to get more help/opportunities to help them by adding value. Many are willing to give you a few minutes of their time,especially if they are older, probably because that is what is important to them at that stage in life; helping young people. I picture that if all my dreams come true and I can invest in real estate full time plus a good amount of money I would enjoy showing off my savy to the youngins.

@Jake K. yeah I bought a house like 2  weeks ago lol.  That’s my third since last April.  Next one should be this summer or so! 

First off to your question, there are different levels of “seasoned” investors.  I’ve only done 3 deals.  I’m not an expert, I just read and breathe this stuff a lot.  So I’m knowledgeable.  Then you got guys who have done this for 30 years.  Point is you can find someone who’s done say 10 deals over 2-3 years and have them walk you through some stuff.  

Best way to learn this stuff is just doing.  I’ve made mistakes (nothing to bad yet) but you learn as you go.  First deal is the hardest

I actually have done a deal on Hubzu, as I'm trying to learn the ropes of wholesaling myself. I have made a few mistakes while bird-dogging for my first client. We found a property at auction on Hubzu.com that was in close proximity to the area in which my client wanted to buy properties. After winning the bid, what I had ended having to do was, (1) Add the buyer to the contract as partner/second buyer. 2) Use the buyers proof of funds and had the buyer pay the $2000 EMD. 3) At the title company, filled out a form to transfer the deed over to the client, same day. It was a big hassle. My biggest mistake was allowing the buyer to determine how much I could make after bidding on the property and not having an assignment contract in place. The Title company I used was awesome. They would have set it up so the Hubzu wouldn't know how much I would've made off her deal If I took the right steps.

I’m not an expert and definitely don’t know it all, but I’ll mentor you for the low low price of 200 payments of $19.99!!

Kidding aside, the best mentors are people you can add value to. You don’t need to have a mentor walk you through the whole process, you just need someone to bounce ideas off of (I’ll do that for free if you want).

I’ve found the best success so far just being authentic and offering to help people. If you do that and actually provide good value, they’ll naturally look to provide their own value back to you. You do that enough times and before you know it you’ve got several mentors.

Feel free to reach out

@Jake K. I used to think that I didn't have mentors starting out because I never paid for a "mentorship" program. In reality, my lender (who is the same age as me) mentored me quite a bit during the initial purchase of my Lyons 4 unit property. This deal was over a 30% COC return year 1, and I would have walked if not for him.

Mentoring is really just timely advice and someone to bounce the occasional idea off of. The mentor isn't going to do the work for you. Most people who are worth having as a mentor don't want part of your smaller deal. They are already successful, and will probably give you 5 minutes of advice for free.