All Forum Posts by: Jake Wiley

 @Will Clark - Lots of great thoughts here. First step is get really clear on what you are looking for from Real Estate. What do you think that it will provide for you? When you answer that question, then dial in exactly the types of RE Investing that will provide that exact benefit. Once you are crystal clear on what that is, then like others have said listen and read everything you can on the subject, while at the same time create small tangible steps you can take every day that move you in the exact right direction. Could be, attending local REIA meetings, connecting with RE agents that specialize in investment properties that you are looking for and getting a search set up.

At the end of the day, if you have a clear outcome in your mind and force yourself to take a step in that direction every day, regardless of how small you will get closer.     What you will find is that by taking steps every day, you'll start to find and develop a community of likeminded people and opportunities will naturally present themselves and you can help but to start closing the gap to your goal for yourself.     Its just key that you force yourself to start doing something, however you need to know where you are trying to go otherwise your actions are just sporadic.   

Good luck - I'd love to hear what your first step is!

I didn't see how many units/tenants this was related to, but it seems like there may only be one, which would be ideal in this place.    

I'd take a deep breath, this will be okay.   Make sure the tenant knows where the next payment needs to go, and you have a handle on any utilities that you are responsible for.     Essentially this will give you at least a month to regroup and get this right.     We've all had bad PM's or ones that started off great then self destructed.    

While it may seem sudden and a surprise, they've done you a favor by forcing the issue.  In a month or so, when this is rectified you'll look back and be grateful they are behind you.   You've gotten some great advice on how to identify the next PM.   Good luck and congrats on the opportunity to improve your business!.

@Scott Goulet - If you have a banker on your side that wants to see you grow and has a track record with you via your other properties, they are worth their weight in gold in terms of helping you find the best path forward.    

I'd start talking to the lenders you know that also know you and see what comes of the conversation.   If they are used to working with investors growing their portfolio, they will have done and seen great ways of making this come together.    

I've got a banker now that I call about everything we are planning to do ahead of time, even I am not looking for a loan if it could potentially effect our growth strategy in terms of the next deal, I run it by him first to see what he thinks.    

The point being, I'd connect and talk about your plans with those you trust, including your lending partners and get their take.   

@Misti DelMar - This will probably come of hokey - but for me, every time I've gotten extremely focused on the outcome, exactly what I want I've been able to see the path open up before me.    All the advice you've gotten about picking a market etc is all great and spot on, but taking it a level deeper and knowing exactly what you want, painting the end goal in your mind even with the intermediate steps completely unclear it will start to work out.    

For example, my wife and I recently sold some property to take advantage of the hot market, but decided we were going to 1031 exchange the property.    We had 45 days to identify the replacement.   It would have been easy to say this market is too hot right now and its not going to work, but we got really clear on what we were looking for and the timeline and lo and behold we found the best investment to-date within the timeline and have already closed on it.    I don't know how the stars aligned, but I do know we were talking to all the right people, and looking in exactly the right places and were all in the moment it hit the radar.    

You've got this!    You started the wheels in motion with the two years of saving, which is awesome!    Good luck.

Here's one of my favorite quotes about sleeping on it!   Whether you like or know Colin Powell, this couldn't be more true.   

"It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning."

Colin Powell

Interesting stats this year, but the number of institutional investors buying up SFR's in the market right now is at an all time high. What this likely means is that there are two strategies, Retail - Selling the houses one by one for as much as they can get and two wholesale, selling off in tranches at a discount to institutional buyers, which might be connected based on some threshold.

What this means is that they are likely going to be willing to negotiate a little, but at a certain point they could wholesale it in a batch.    In the event you get pushback or inflexibility where you were expecting more, that's likely what is playing out.    Good luck and please let us know how this gets on!  

Jake

Agree with all of this.     Yes go and meet.   Be understanding of the ask of time if you are just starting to learn, don't send a million emails trying to learn the business.     When you work with great agents they will help you find the right areas and target properties and then be on the lookout for you and can set you up on searches etc.    When the time and property are right, you are ready to go.    

Google search "your city' +REA and go to the meetings.    You will learn a lot, meet some wholesalers as well that have off market properties.    Like @Michael Dumler said - you will really connect much better with an agent that gets the investment side of the business.   Its a much smaller group than you'd think and it makes so much of a difference and will save YOU a bunch of time not having to talk about lots of things that don't work.    

You can most likely get a standard form P&S contract from the Florida Realtor Association website or an agency that has one online. If you know the title company you plan on using, you could ask them as well what they'd be comfortable working with. You definitely don't need to create one of these from scratch or spend the money doing so, you just don't want to miss anything like disclosures etc that could come back to bite you.

There is a degree of personal preference here that will have to be factored in.     

From a super high level and dollars and cents perspective, I am assuming you have a disparity between the duplex and the single family because of what you perceive you can afford, i.e. if you get a duplex you have to live in one side thus can afford a larger property because the tenant is paying the rent, or its related to being able to maximize the down payment of an owner occupied unit?     

If you can swing the duplex and rent out both sides, that would be likely the best ROI for you and maximize your investment dollars and thus create income from the property that will allow you to capitalize on the income for future investments. However, I also appreciate that there may be an owner occupied down payment thing working here.

I'd say that if you are willing to keep renting the extremely affordable 2 bed to allow you to kickstart your investing portfolio, that's a great strategy.    The way you feel about a property that you both live in and own is not always rational from a financial perspective and often times impacts the returns for comfort/wants.    

Good luck - no matter what the best piece of advice I can give you is get started and as soon as possible.    Don't overthink it, you'll never make the perfect decision.    

@Will Kenner - There are title companies that deal with plane Jane transactions every day, just like Real Estate agents.   They are not overly comfortable with assignments, not sure how they record, get squirrely on title and insurance etc.    

I have found title companies that sponsor local REIAs are typically more investor-friendly.   Stuff happens, sellers get flakey, buyers are slow to get to closing, there may or may not be funds sitting in escrow for the fees.    On wholesale deals, titles can get interesting with a lot of these things having successions that may or may not have been done.    

I like my title company to be totally in the loop on the agreements I am using and able to quickly tell me if the title is so bogged down the deal won't get done in a reasonable time quickly before I spend time working my buyers only to have to pull out.   In the event that more time is needed a good title agent can help maximize the contract terms and communicate with all parties before a bunch of amendments have to be signed.   It makes a huge difference.   

If you are wholesaling - you've got to control as much of the process as possible and have an attorney that gets it and is willing to jump in with you to keep things moving.     The good ones get that you might have some contracts that aren't great and require more time than usual, but if you are doing all of your closings with them, most of them are simple and they make great money on the relationship overall.     

I appreciate the feeling.    Direct mail can be frustrating, to say the least, especially if its a spray and pray approach, meaning you've got stuff hitting every mailbox.   

I was in a similar position years ago and found the best results by having a handwritten note that I printed out in mass and would drive for dollars and street by street, dropping notes in mailboxes with the typical unkempt lawns, notable neglect etc.   I'd also take down the address and go back an pull the tax records on the property to see if I could gleam any info on the tax records, like owners with different addresses etc, or owned forever and then do targeted live stamp "handwritten" letters.   Essentially I'd use "dad hand" font and a mail merge to print out letters and envelopes, so it looked handwritten.   Definitely got a much higher hit rate, but required a good bit more leg work.