All Forum Posts by: Jeff Rappaport

Looking for a fix and flip opportunity?  Look no further!  Huge potential on this 3 bed/2 bath home on a half an acre.  Very sought after area!  Home needs about $90K-$110K renovation.  After repaired value will be $485-$525K!  Several realtors said you could fire sale it at $450K and it will be sold in 3 days!  Purchase price $235K with owner financing.  Down payment of $67K and will carry the balance for one year.  Interest rate will be 10% with payments of $1400 per month.  First payment to begin 30 days after closing.  This property has a potential $70K tax credit for renovations in this area.  Keep most of your profit in your pocket!  Call Jeff for more info at 801-209-2945.

Do you need more leads?  More buyers?  Answers to your questions?  Come join us for the Utah Wholesale Meetup.  This month will be a mastermind group on marketing.  No speakers.  No pitching!  Novice to experienced investors welcome!  Everyone is willing to share what is working right now!  There is no cost!  Ever!  

Thursday, February 11th

Time:  7:30 pm

Where:  Century 21 Everest Realty

             6925 S. Union Park Center

             Cottonwood Heights 84047

Contact Jeff 801-209-2945 for more info.  Hope to see you there!

@Jenny Wall, Not sure exactly what your question is but I would tell you from my own experience that rentals up to $2,500 per month are very strong.  The rental market on properties $2500-$3,000 are slower but still good.   I would certainly want to know what the parameters are on the interest rate.  I would also take into account that the market could certainly change over the next year and if interest rates go up and the housing market goes down what will your exit strategy be.  Some of the other variables that would be helpful to know is what is your payment at this time?  Are you putting any money into the property for maintenance, repairs or utilities?  How much equity do you have in the property?  I personally like high end rentals but you need to know what you are dealing with and what you will do if things change.  Let me know some of the details and we can discuss further.  

Thank you to everyone that came to the Utah Investor Meetup last night!  What a great turnout!  Hope you all enjoyed yourselves and made a bunch of new contacts!  Please give me some feedback about what you liked and maybe what you did not like about the Meetup.  I appreciate it and look forward to seeing you and others next month!

@Keith Burton, direct mail can be challenging!  However, it certainly can be fruitful as well.  Here are my suggestions:  

1.  Sending out 500 mail pieces is not enough of a sample size to even determine a realistic response rate. 

 2.  I am not a fan of your postcard.  I apologize up front if I offend you because that is not my intention but your postcard stinks!  Marketing 101 is creating a USP (Unique Selling Proposition).  You don't have one.  I guess you could call "get cash in hand fast" a USP but it certainly does not set you apart from everyone else.  Where is your call to action?  Benefits to the seller?   Please, whatever you do, take out the "at a discounted rate."  Why are you telling them you are going to lowball them right from the start?

3. Start over!  Redo the postcard.  Think about all the problems you may be able to solve and all the benefits you may offer the seller.  We buy houses in all conditions in all areas.  We can pay cash and close on the date of your choice!  We guarantee you an offer within 48 hours of calling us.  Need to sell fast?  We can close in a few days.  We are not realtors (unless you are) so you won't pay any commissions.  We also pay all your closing costs!  For a quick analysis of your home call us at xxx-xxx-xxxx!   

We help people just like you throughout the area.  Are you getting divorced?  Inherited a house?  Job transfer?  Health problems?  Tired of being a landlord?  Behind on payments?  Property needs a lot of repairs.  These are all problems we can solve for you!  Please call us now at xxx-xxx-xxxx!  

I think you get the point.  You don't have to put everything in the postcard but a lot of it.  Tell them why they should call you.  Remember, you are competing with many other investors.  

4.  Rethink the postcard design.   Lose the pics on the postcard.  Try handwritten postcards (they look handwritten).  Don't worry about the look of the postcard.  You need to stand out.  Once you stand out your message needs to be compelling and create a call to action.  

5. Become a transaction engineer ( you may already be one )! Be able to analyze a seller's challenge and be able to provide multiple solutions for them. If all you are going to do is hope people will call you so you can offer them 50% LTV you are not going to get many deals. Learn to structure terms and use lease options. They can be more profitable than wholesaling to a rehabber anyway.

If you are looking for other ways to generate leads without spending your money pm me and we can discuss.  Again, no disrespect intended.  Wish someone would have shown me the way about 15 years ago!  Good luck!

@Damion York, I do deal in the commercial field as well.  Please pm and let me know what your buyers are looking for.  Thanks!

Start with $100K+ in equity!  Great cash flowing single family home that has been set up as a duplex!  Property is in great shape and only needs paint and carpet in two bedrooms.  The city knows it is being used as a rental and does not care.  One unit is a one bedroom and one bath that will rent for $800 per month.  The other unit is 6 bed/2bath and will rent for anywhere between $1,400-$1,800 per month.  There is only one meter so owner will pay utilities or give the utility cost to the tenant of the bigger unit for a lower rent.  Either way you should net $2100 or more per month!

Sale failed due to buyer unable to obtain financing!  Need a quick cash sale!  Selling for only $252,000!  Look at the price per square foot.  Nothing sells in this are for less than $95-$100 square foot!  Call Jeff at 801-209-2945 or email [email protected] for more info.  I will send you a video if you are interested.

@Tyler Thornton, as far as finding those lead sources you have a few choices. You can find a list provider that will provide them for a fee or you or someone you hire go to the courthouse, county records and the different cities you work in and research them yourself. Make sure you start going to the local REIA and Meetup groups in your area as well. You will be able to discuss and network with other investors that will be able to direct you in the right direction. You may also find that mentor that would be happy to train you as long as you do some work for it!

@Ludmila Hill, there are many places you can find out how to use creative finance.  Certainly check out the different podcasts and blogs on this site.  Great place to start.  I would also do a search on Youtube for owner financing, lease options and subject to financing.  These will range from quick to much longer videos with a variety of Gurus.  The best part is it is free.  

Certainly you can do the same thing I told Tyler to do above. Start networking with investors that do what you want to be doing. I would suggest attending local REIA groups and check out Meetup.com and see what other groups meet in your area. I work with other investors that generate leads for wholesaling or rehabbing. The leads that don't fit their buying criteria (which is the vast majority) they pass on to me. I make offers on every property and most times, several offers on each property. I give the sellers usually 3-4 options to choose from. If I end up buying the property I pay my leadsource a pretty hefty finders fee. The benefit to the wholesaler or rehabber is that they are getting paid on leads they normally throw away. Benefit to me is I get a ton of leads without having to pay for any marketing.

I know a lot of people on this site frown on paying gurus for education.  I am not one of them!  I have paid a lot of money for my education and I believe, for the most part, it has been worth it!  Don't misunderstand, not all education is good education.  Some of the people I would recommend for creative finance would be:

John Jackson

Mitch Stephens

Ron Legrand

Sean Terry

Joe McCall

Lou Brown

There are plenty more good teachers out there.  At the very least, search for them on Youtube and see what you think. 

As far as would creative financing work for flipping?  Of course!  I think you would like to have built in financing for your deals without having to find hard money or private money.  I think every house flipper should be a wholesaler as well.  You can flip owner finance deals.  You can wholesale lease option deals.  You can keep what you want for passive income purposes and wholesale the rest.  In some cases, you can make more on an owner finance deal than you can a rehab project and you get paid fairly quickly with nothing to fix up.  Far less risk as well!   Hope that helps!  Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with!

@Tyler Thornton, most new investors can relate to your challenge.  It can be difficult to find motivated sellers especially when you are working in  a seller's market.  However, to make things really work as an investor creating leads (consistently) is the life blood of your business.  

Here are my suggestions:  First, I agree with @Adrien C. that sending 250 letters a month may not produce the results you are looking for.  I would also make sure you plan on following up with each seller 4-6 times during the year. Depending on your market you may have to send 2000 mailers before you get a deal you are looking for.  I would also not send a yellow letter on the first mailing.  It is costly and on your first mailing you are trying to clean up your list.  You will get a bunch of mail back being undeliverable so why waste your money on a yellow letter (I think yellow letters have been way overdone anyways).  

I don't know what kind of response rate you are getting but it is very important to track.  If you get 3 or so calls a month the marketing is actually working.  As far as door knocking, I used to do that as well.  It is not an easy gig!  Working the preforeclosure market is much different now than it was 10 years ago.  Sellers are able to manipulate the system and stay in their house much longer than they could years ago.  That could have something to do with your response rate.  Also, what are you saying to them?  These sellers are typically mad, in denial, and embarrassed.  Saying the right or wrong thing coud be the difference between a deal and no deal.  

So, where does that leave you?  No closer to getting that deal you want so bad!  I do applaud your persistence!  This is not easy!  Here are a few of my opinions:

Generating motivated seller leads

Direct mail - Based on your small sample size you may not see any results for months.  Rather than competing with all of the other investors that have a much bigger marketing budget than you have you might want to concentrate on smaller type lists.

Code Violations

Divorce

BK

Evictions

There are a lot more.  You can certainly continue to mail to absentee owners as well. 

If you are going to do a website (you should) you can now look into Google adwords and SEO.  Basically driving online sellers to your website.  

Next, work on some of the free but need to use some of your own time type marketing.  

Make calls on FSBO and rentals on Craigslist and Zillow.

Place ads online

Drive neighborhoods and look for vacant and distressed homes

Go to garage sales and estate sales and see if the property will soon be sold

The last two suggestions I will give you is based on not knowing your experience.  I am not sure what you are looking to do with these leads that are coming in.  However, if you know how to structure owner financing, lease options and subject to deals you will be able to provide the sellers with many more options rather than just a lowball cash offer.  The more solutions you can provide the better chance you can buy the house!

The last suggestion is to either focus on one area of real estate - finding the deals, finding the buyers or finding the money.  If you become good at any of these aspects of real estate you will make money.  You might also consider working with another experienced investor in terms of birddogging or finding buyers.  That way you can learn first hand what it takes to be successful and make some money along the way.  

If you have any addtional questions please pm me!  Good luck!

What is the number one thing you can do to grow your business?  Network with the right people!  Come meet other investors of all experience and knowledge for an evening of networking.  No pitching or sales of any kind!  No speakers!  This Thursday, February 4th at 6:30 pm.  The meetup is held at the Huddle (Fort Union Blvd and 2400 E. ) in Cottonwood Heights.  There is no cost (although you really should order some food or drink)!  If you have any questions please call or pm Jeff Rappaport 801-209-2945.  Look forward to having our best turnout yet!