All Forum Posts by: Jeff Rappaport

@Randy Quaccoo, I am glad I was able to motivate you! The easiest way I found was to place an ad on BP. You are dealing primarily with investors. Some of those investors are realtors. My ad was that I was looking for a realtor that I could work with in the Boise, Nampa, Meridian area. I made it clear I was not looking for a realtor to list properties or find properties for me on the MLS. I was looking for someone I could work with as my boots on the ground and had access to the MLS. I had a number of people contact me and I sent out an email to them with all the details of what I was proposing including a compensation plan. I then talked to each of them on the phone and made my decision. I believe it took me one day before everything was set up. If you have other questions pm me and we can discuss in more detail.

@Jameson Sullivan I always am working diligently in creating a win/win/win situation for my seller and buyer (and myself).  The more you do in a market the more familiar you get with it.  Plus, I have another set of eyes (my boots on the ground) that can tell me about the different neighborhoods and the condition of the property.  To be honest, there are a number of deals I do in Utah where I do not meet the seller nor the buyer.  Most of my deals are negotiated over the phone these days.  I make my offers based on the information I gather on the phone and then I email or mail them to the seller.  I rarely go see a property prior to having a signed contract in place.   This includes rent to owns and owner financing deals.  I just did an owner finance deal in Utah with an out of state owner.  I have never met her!  I negotiated the deal over the phone, emailed her a contract, set her up with the title company and found a new buyer that closed within two weeks.  Everyone is thrilled with the transaction and the seller wrote me one of the best testimonial letters I have ever received.  You can certainly still provide great value to both the seller and buyer whether you live in that area or not.  

Join us this Thursday, July 14th for the Wholesale Meet-up! We will be discussing how to construct a deal. Are you having trouble determining the ARV? Estimating repairs? We will show you how! If your offers are too low you won't get many deals done in this market. If your offers are too high you won't make any money. You won't want to miss this event!
Where: Thai Siam 12147 S. Factory Outlet Dr. Draper
Time: 7:00 pm
Thursday, July 14th
Cost - free (come for dinner)
Investors of all experience level are welcome! Hope to see you there!

@Austin Faux I think everyone is getting confused by me using a realtor. I chose to work with a realtor so I could have access to the MLS and run my own comps. My realtor is not listing any of my properties or finding any properties for me on the MLS. She handles my boots on the ground tasks like inspecting the property, taking video and pictures, and working with my buyers to get them in the property. I pay her a percentage of what I make up front. She can earn more than that set percentage if she ends up bringing the buyer. When I have a property that I will be looking for an owner occupant (lease option or owner financing) she will do a little more work in terms of putting out handwritten bandit signs all around the property. Ultimately, I want her to take all of the buyers' callls so I do not have to. That is the extent of it! Hope that answers your question.

Are you interested in a 3 for 1 deal? Buy three houses for the price of one in Ogden. Buy all three or buy any combination. They all must me sold this weekend! Will discount to $175K if you buy all three. That is just over $58,000 per house! Great rentals or fix them up and flip them. Repair estimates are extremely conservative. You may be able to do the rehab for significantly less! Need a quick close (by Tuesday) so only serious inquiries. Need $5,000 non-refundable earnest money to tie these up. Willing to take $10K for all three. I will be assigning these contracts. 

Address- 2780 Liberty Ave Ogden, UT 84403

Purchase price- 60K

Repair Estimate- 25k

ARV- 120-125k

Bedrooms- 3(could be 4)

Baths- 1

Square Footage- 1,512

Other addresses are:

2768 & 2772 Liberty Ave in Ogden, Utah.  Prices are $60K and $58K. All are rented.  Can send you comps, video walkthrough and comps if interested.  Remember the discount for all three!

Contact me if you have interest.

Jeff Rappaport

[email protected]

801-209-2945

@Larry N. Yes, I do find my own deals and I have other wholesalers bring me deals so I can find them buyers. To find off market deals varies in every market. You can certainly try direct mail (absentee owners, high equity, code violations, probate, divorce, tax delinquents, notice of default, etc.), door hangers, bandit signs, networking, referrals, radio and tv advertising, print ads, online ads, facebook ads, FSBO, rentals and online marketing such as SEO and Adwords to name just a few.

I use a combination of methods but my favorite right now is vacant and distressed houses.  I have a number of investors go out and find vacant houses and then we track down the owners.  We mail, call and show up at their current residence and talk to them about selling their property.  Almost all of these are not advertised for sale in any way.   Most markets are very competitive right now so you want to try several marketing channels to bring in enough leads so you can convert them to deals. 

Listen to @Peter Vekselman, he knows what he is talking about!  He was my coach for about 6 or so months and runs one of the biggest wholesale businesses in the country (your welcome Peter)!  He is the real deal!  His partner @Joe McCall is also very knowledgeable and focuses more on wholesaling lease options.  Not a bad idea to learn how to use creative finance so you can provide sellers with multiple options for their property.  That way you don't have to compete with all the other wholesalers looking for properties at 50-60 cents on the dollar.  

@Justin Webb, if you are wholesaling these properties I don't think you need to take the time to investigate the area as much as you described.  If there are investors buying in the area you are interested in that is pretty much enough information for me.  Granted, I don't typically buy in the worst parts of town but that easily can be resolved by talking to your boots on the ground.  He/she will know the area.  As long as you have buyers to move these properties to you should be just fine!

@Larry N., I should have been more clear. I am not interested in properties on the MLS. That may change in the future but I am always marketing for the off market deals where I can speak directly to the owner. I need a realtor so I can run comps on these properties. If you were working on properties on the MLS I would tell you it is very easy to get a proof of funds these days. There are many realtors that would not have a problem working with you as a wholesaler. There are also many that would not want to work with you. You just need to dig to find the right ones. The one thing I would tell you is that I would line up private or hard money if I was going to wholesale properties from the MLS. That way if things did not go as planned you could still buy the property. You will run into far less problems that way!

@Daisy Chau, why do you want to get a conventional loan when you can easily create some financing with the owner.  With that kind of down payment many sellers would be willing to work with you.  If not, let me know and I will find you the property in Seattle that you can finance without the bank.  PM me and we can chat more.  By the way, we are having a BP meetup tomorrow night if you are interested.  

@Nick Boullion, @Gabriel Amedee, @Brian Wheeler

Actually, wholesaling virtually is not that difficult.  I live in SLC, UT and also work in the Idaho market.  I have only been to Idaho once and that was about 25 years ago.  You can structure virtual wholesaling in a number of ways.  

One way is to partner up with an experienced wholesaler in the area you would like to be working in.  You do the marketing, create the leads, prescreen them and then turn them over to the experienced boots on the ground wholesaler.  Let the wholesaler negotiate the deal, put it under contract and then get it sold.  Typically a 50/50 split is used in this case but everything is negotiable.  

What I did is I placed an ad on BP to find a realtor in the area I could work with.  I chose a realtor because I wanted access to comps in the area.  

The way I structure things is I do the marketing for the leads.  I have them prescreened and then I talk to the seller over the phone.  I let the seller know that I will send them an offer on their property by email.  I follow up with the seller 48 hours after sending the offer so we can discuss in detail.  All negotiations are handled by me and done over the phone.  I have never met a seller from Idaho.  Once I put the property under contract I send a request to my realtor to go inspect the property.  She will take some pictures or video of it and send it back to me.  If I like the property (if I don't like the property I will either renegotiate or cancel the contract) I then check the title (find a good title company to work with in the area) and start marketing for buyers.  If the property is occupied or the seller will not let me keybox it I refer all the qualified buyers to my agent to get them through the property.   I only want buyers that are ready and able to buy if the property passes their inspection.  If the property is vacant I can just have it keyboxed and let my buyers go at their leisure.  Once I find the buyer that is interested in the property we sign an assignment of contract and I send everything over to the title company.  Set up a closing and make sure it goes the way it should (be careful on this one. You always have to assume the title company does not know what they are doing in terms of an assignment or double close).  The title company wires me the funds and then I pay my agent.  My agent can also make more money if she brings the buyer.  That way we are both working on building a buyer's list simultaneously.  

Since I also do owner financing and lease options I may have a little more work to do to find an owner occupant.  The agent will put out my bandit signs (about 20 handwritten all around the property) and somewhere down the road take all the calls that come in from them.

That's basically it!  If you have any additional questions PM me.  Would be happy to help you!  Good luck!  

The Utah Investor Meet-up is scheduled for this Thursday, July 7th at 6:30 pm.  We meet at The Huddle (2400 E. Ft Union Blvd) in Cottonwood Heights.  Do you have questions about your real estate business?  Want to grow your business with more buyers? Do you just want to hang out with like minded individuals who are investing in real estate?  The Utah investor meet-up is strictly a networking event.  Ask anyone that is successful in real estate what the one thing is that is crucial to their business and the answer more times than not would be creating relationships.  Networking! Don't miss out on the opportunity to do just that!  The event is free.  Investors of all experience are welcome!  

If you have any questions, contact Jeff Rappaport on BP.  

@Tri Ly Pm me and we can talk about the Boise area.