All Forum Posts by: James Wheeler

OK, all I need to ask is how can I contact these people... lol... NO Really... 

So, when you are doing a rehab your friend puts up the down payment? Or you come up with it??

Either way, these are pretty dang good... 3% is not bad since many HML's charge up to 5 points (5%) and then they want upwards of 15% on the loan, plujs if you are using a realtor to sell you will pay 6% or more on-top of that... and it sounds like there is an incentive to do bigger rehabs... I would love these if they were offered to me, especially the 5k for rehab money...

Of course the big question is, "How much are you selling for?"

Sorry, yeah I got that... this was the post I was asking about:

Can I get more information on this unit? $3000? 

OK, so I am a pro member and have paid for access to BP... As PRO there are a number of tools we get to use and our accounts aren't as restricted as other levels... What would be nice is an ad free version of the BP app for everyone, or at least PRO members.

@Brandon Purdeu

No Problems, I like to help! Thinking about your situation, you might want to read my last comment in this thread (https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/284...) not to sound my horn, but I think what I wrote there might help you also.

~ James

You may be correct, the problem is that people, especially the middle to lower income people, tend to prefer the personal touch over the corporate touch (in my experience), they are more willing to negotiate a fair offer with an individual than with a "big bad company trying to stick it to the little guy." Heck, I even take my 5-year-old with me when I go look at a property that needs the "personal touch," it makes a connection with the homeowner, especially the Mom's and Grandparents who own homes and need to sell. It makes me, and by extension my company, real... we are not just a company, we are people who are trying to help... like our company slogan says "Turning Houses into Homes." We take problems and convert them into opportunities. Do I lie to people, not at all, I will tell them that I plan on Redeveloping or Redesigning their house, that I plan on reselling it also - but again to make this "house" into a new "home" for another family... So Yes, I might have still gotten the Deal, but I may lose out on the relationship... I might get the deal, but at a higher price... 

OK, so I did go there... I said the "R" word... relationships, this business is all about relationships, I remember there was one property that I really would have loved to get and renovate, I got to know the family and even was able to negotiate them down to $10k for the property as it was (needed about 50k in rehab), the deal fell apart because of title issues that the owner did not even know about (ex-husband stuff), at the end she was crying because she felt she had done us a disservice by not being able to sell the property. She felt bad because her ex-husband had put a loan on the property she had no idea about and then defaulted on it... Oh, the original asking for the house was 38K... Relationships, build them, nurture them... even if the deal sours they can still pay off later in referrals or friends. Not sure which is better so I will try to get both out of the deal... ;-)

~ James

@Jerryll Noorden I am sorry to have offended you, the tirade you continue in your second post is quite interesting. Like @Cody Alexander and @James Green stated with properties over 500k the yellow letter is probably not the correct approach... I would say that I use Yellow Letters for Properties under 200K, and they are never an offer with a dollar amount, they are an introduction with contact information that allows the person getting the letter to feel that I am personally contacting them and offering to help, without being specific... just that I am interested in buying their house. Heck, I have found the best first letter is a postcard... then with about 5 touches, if I have had no response by touch 4 I will send a very professional letter asking to buy their house with my company letterhead in a standard envelope. Now over $900K properties, I may break out my linen paper for the "ultra" professional approach :-)

I think you can do whatever works for you and your business! 

~James

Depends on you mostly. I cannot offer any legal, tax or insurance advice because I am not a lawyer, CPA or Insurance professional... I can tell you my thoughts - for whatever they are worth.

Set up your LLC now. It helps you build credibility with other professionals (you know HML, Contractors Etc.)

In AZ I learned from my CPA that from the founding of my LLC I can write off my entire cell phone and internet bills at home as they are essential in my home based business of real estate investing, without the LLC I was only allowed to write off the percentage portion based on the square footage designation I gave to my home office space, that is 10% in my case, which I still can use to write off part of my electric and mortgage payments since it is still used as home office.

You can start building your brand now, rather than waiting and hoping that no one takes your company name/idea... And, if you have an LLC with more than 1 person in it (yeah, they can pierce the corporate veil more easily if you are a sole member LLC or if it is just you and your wife...) you become more protected personally when you finally are getting deals going without having to play "catch up" or creating an entity for the "sole purpose of asset protection" (something my lawyer said to me...).

Hope that helps! (oh, and LLC formation fees are tax deductable also!)

~ James 

All I can say is ... Wow... tirade and rant warning...

Do yellow letters work? Yes

Do they annoy people? Yes

Do other letters work? Yes

Do they annoy people? YES

Can people be unreasonable? Yes

OK, so real estate investing is hard and it can suck because people... well that about sums it up - people... they are fickle and they do not like the idea of anyone knowing that they have what they have or did what they did, even if it is a matter of public record... as for the address of that couple, use their phone number from your caller ID to look them up... if that doesn't work, send them another letter... someone once said something about the fortune being in the follow-up... if they call back and are even more angry, explain that unless they identify themselves they cannot be removed from a list of addresses... as for your "angry cop" - get his/her badge number and precinct... then call the precinct and ask to speak with him/her ... when there is no such officer (as is likely) you can rest assured that people... if there is such an officer, request an in-person meeting at the precinct with both the officer and his/her supervisor (bring your information about your company, your processes and everything...) You will find that police are pretty nice people most of the time and when confronted with evidence and facts... they are usually pretty much just people...

All said, doi whatever works for you. I read once that there is nothing that is true until it is true for you (can't recall who that is from, I still like it). This means that YOUR truth is true because you experienced it, it may not be true for someone else... ie. what color is a rose? when I said rose, people thought of a rose - some pictured one, others imagined one some may have smelled one in their memory... what color was it? Most likely you thought of a white one right? NO??? you thought of the Green one??? Wait a minute, hold on... you aren't one of THOSE people... the ones who think roses are "red" are you?? See, truth is personal for many things... yes I know 2+2=4, always and that means that there is such a thing as universal empirical truth, however, most of our human arguments about "truth" are not empirical ones they are philosophical... 

So what color are your letters? I personally like orange and pink... because yellow and white are so overdone... 

~James