All Forum Posts by: Jill DeWit

From one female investor to another female investor, welcome @Laurin Wilson! 

You are clearly smart, by thinking, planning, and asking GREAT questions here.

I am originally from Southern California, living in Scottsdale area now, and the majority of my investments are in other states. (Although for full transparency, I do have a 500+ acre parcel for sale in Santa Barbara County.) 

I've done the house flipping thing (ugh, NEVER worked so hard for $38,000 in my LIFE) - but I always come back to land. A normal deal for me would be... Buy for $30,000 and sell for $75,000-$90,000. All rural vacant land, in MANY other states. I have always paid cash and sold for cash - so no hassle or worrying about any lenders. I can easily handle many deals at a time, and since they are vacant land in other states, it does not matter where I AM. We are actually preparing to take RV out for another 3 months this year.

Whatever is important to you, I am sure you will hit it. You are already talking #s, setting clear goals, and thinking of ways to solve problems.

Best wishes!!!

Jill

Welcome to BP! I have been in this community for years. GREAT place to get info and learn about MANY types of real estate.

I've been flipping rural vacant land for about 14 years. Some tease me about it not being "sexy". BUT it is easy, not much $ needed to get started AND my nice bank balance is sexy. 

Best of luck to you!

Jill

I review multiple deals EVERY day, primarily LAND, and I have a simple checklist of deal killing items. My partner and I call them our 6 A's:

1. Access (preferably legal and physical)

2. Acreage (more is better)

3. Affordability (I MUST "buy it right")

4. Alive (all owners alive & able to sign)

5. Attribute (something great about it? Waterfront or close to great town?)

6. Adjacent (what is happening in the area is a good indication of what is possible)

If I have all 6 A's I'm good to go. If I am missing some, price might compensate or I just might walk. For example, I am not interested in taking on a lengthy probate issue (aka Alive).

Hope that helps!

Jill

Excellent questions!!! 

I see where you are going @Steve Morris, and I am not a fan of those types of wholesalers as well. They actually gave that word a bad reputation so I don't even use that term any more. I run my operation VERY differently and that is a big reason why sellers love me.

Here is how I do it in response to your comments:

1) You won't be the person actually taking title  I DO take title, pay 100% closing costs to seller because whatever price we agree upon is net to them. I take the leap and buy the house outright. (Actually I have posted examples as proof of this on this site in the past to show my name on title, etc., but I think admin pulled them down.)

2) When you sent the offer over that you didn't know who that person was I know exactly who the seller is and my letters are professional and personalized. Actually I spend a lot of time on the front end picking areas, houses, & pricing.

3) The reason you wrote the price you did was because it was below market to allow enough for you to insert a fee and allow the unknown buyer to make a profit Yes, I am absolutely offering a cash price based on a % off of what is available for sale in the area because I am seeking out run down assets that flippers can do amazing things with. My sellers know they can do all the work to clean it up, remodel, & list with an agent and go for top $ - but they would rather cash out fast. I then mark it up a small amount (don't be greedy) & resell to a flipper or end user. My flippers/buyers love me as they are still getting a house for less than market rate - and they come back for more!

4) That you're not a licensee, however, you expect to make a fee off the sale. Correct. I let the planet know I am the investor, I am not representing anyone, it is my own money and that is why I do not have to be licensed. (Kind of like anyone can sell their used car online - you don't have to be a car dealer.)

5) That since you don't really have experience that something may go sideways and you may just walk without penalty Since we are acquisition machines with close to 16,000 completed transactions, we have the experience. And I am 100% taking all the risk so if it all goes sideways, I could have overpaid for a house & loss is on me.

6) That you are putting $0 at risk in this transaction. Same answer. I am 100% at risk. It's my money so I do a ton of homework before I buy a house. I am not a fan of borrowing, so I currently keep the transaction cost to an amount I can pay cash.

You wholesalers have a really distorted definition of being honest. I know others have done this all wrong and really given my business a bad rap. 

Jill

Totally important to always be up front and honest. They typically hug me for making it so fast and easy for them to cash out that it is worth it to them. (And I do send out a ton of mail to find these deals.)

Kind of like selling an old bike at a yard sale. I KNOW I can tune it up, get new tires, paint it... 

But I'd much rather let it go for less today & get it out of my garage than do all that work.

Exactly. Our cover page introduces us, explains how we go their information (legal & public assessor data), and how we complete the transaction.

Most sellers LOVE the fact that no commission $ paid (savings to them), cash close, no need to hold open house or remodel the kitchen, etc.

Hi @Roberto Sembiante,

Direct mail to sellers (houses or land) works great and super impressed you see the value. We too, want to "get there first"  - before anyone/agent gets involved.

Here is what we do: 

Select an area/zip/house type/mortgage %/whatever we want to target, and use DataTree (best for houses we have found) to download ALL the ownership & property info. 

Then, we scrub out any anomalies and strategically price the assets to create offers between about 65-75% of $/sq ft of what is selling in that area. Once you set that price it is easy to run down the whole spreadsheet at one time. (something like all the 3/2 with no pool will be offered $148/sq ft)

From there we merge that data (mail merge) into our letter + purchase agreement, mail, & wait for the serious sellers to call us back.

Sure there is more to it - but that's the idea. We send so many, impossible to hand write, and volume is important. We yield 1-3 deals from every 3,000 house offers AT OUR PRICES.

Hope that helps!

Jill

Hi @Derrick Alexis,

Are you looking for sellers or ? And what kind of properties? (I'm sure you are aware of the stringent SMS rules.)

We use this to send specific offers to sellers in small quantities. It can work but the response and acceptance is nowhere near as well as good ole direct mail.

Hi @Brianna M.

Our strategy of picking an area/county comes from my data junkie partner. He looks areas where property is moving, there is not too much inventory, the prices align with our acquisition criteria and a few more details.

Hi @Dustin Mathenia,

GREAT QUESTION. I use RealQuestPro for current assessor data and send specific cash offers (like $8,487.27) to sellers of properties in my pre-selected area, sizes, etc. 

For example:

I spend an afternoon to smoke out that in XYZ county there are not a lot of 5-10 acres properties for sale; and of the for sale properties, they are mostly listed for $25,000 and they seem to sell in less than 60 days. 

Then, I go to my data source (RealQuestPro) and download all the owner records for the exact size, zoning, etc. and create unique offers for each owner PRICED at less than half of the lowest priced comps (like offer $8,487.27).

Offers go out in the mail and I sit and wait for signed offers to come back or the phone to ring. Usually for every 300 offers I will buy a great property, and I never send less than 1,500 units at a time.

Then I post for sale at double ($18,000) KNOWING I am way below everyone else selling similar parcels. That means mine will sell fast.

I have access to cheap data and cheap mail, which is important.

Happy to answer more questions.

Jill