All Forum Posts by: Joe Calloway

 @Tim Levdansky :

Tim, Jump in and do it. 

1)Disclose what you are doing and be an honest person to the buyer and the seller. If you are moving the real estate and the investor is getting a deal they want then they should both be happy. If everyone is happy with your service then you will not have to worry about "The Grey Line" in the Wholesaling game.

2) Don't over think it or you will never get a deal done. My first wholesale deal ,12 years ago, found the house, negotiated the deal wight he owner, then ran back to my house to figure out how to put it under contract. This is not the right way, defilntiley plan, educate and learn before and while you are grinding but my point is don't overthink all the risks. We are investors and investing is risky.  That first deal I had no job, no money and was scrapping metal to put gas in my truck then I assigned the contract and made 8K. Thats not what the "GURU's" say they make (they always make 20K to 50K according to their infomercial) but when your gas tank is on E this 8K was the best and most memorable profit I have ever made.

3) Go to ACRE, WPREIA, Jerry Kisasonic's group, Yeagers Group SWIG and get info from dozens of people who do it full time and kill it like the guys who run these groups and the people who attend like  Brian Snyder, Rick Sikora, Doug Raible, Mike Roth etc...... and me(but I am nothing to write home about in the wholesale game compared to these guys. 

*PS. Excuse the spelling and grammar errors throughout this post I am in a hurry and frankly I am not that smart, which is the amazing thing about real estate investing a guy like me can build a company like RE360 And i am so bad at spelling that spell check cannot even identify what I am attempting to spell and I write a really really long sentence like this one with no punctuation*

Matt, Check out the video post we just did on Sheriff Sale in Allegheny County. We are planning a class on this in the near future as well. We use Max Beier, Beier Law, located downtown, google him.  Call him Max BEAR and tell him I told you to call him that and he will take care of you. 

We have a training charity event coming up in 2 weeks. Check it out on FB!

TJ follows the number one rule in real estate. TAKE ACTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WE WILL SEE YOU SOON, RE360

Tj, do you want a job/mentor ship/ what I wanted when I started when I was 21? If so message me on Fb, here, wherever...

Google us if you are interested in finding out what I built from one house in my early 20's until now.

Re360 Pittsburgh is the name of my company. 

WHY:

If I could find me at 21 (unrefined, hardworking, honest, dedicated..  Average intelligence) and this "me" were willing to put in the hours. In a few years extracting the knowledge I have gained over the last 15 years, they would be steam rolling over my old "35 year old" a$$ and making everyone in thier path allot of money, including me and ?"you"?.

Yes it is paid and we pay our team well.  

I don't care about your resume but you will not hack it if your not a hustler.

Re360, my company, bought 15 properties at the Pittsburgh sheriff sale last year. You can get some good deals but the top 3 downsides are : 1) you have to buy them without seeing the inside of them, there are ways to get a peak inside if you are thinking on your toes. 2) it is not as simple as bringing money and bidding, there are many ways to get screwed and in a few cases even if you do your homework "IT"can happen so preparation, due diligence and understanding the process /risk are critical 3) even if you can find a free and cleAr deal and you are pumped up to capitalize on the upside you see THEN someone pays a ridiculous amount for the property, which happens all the time. Sometimes people get caught up in the bidding war ,myself included, and pay above market for the deal. It sounds stupid but ever month it happens. Last month we struck out, allot of wasted time, energy and a little money(time, preliminary title searches, gas driving the properties). But we will be back next month to try again because every once in a while you get a gem of a deal. We, Re360 and Repropertyprofessor, will be putting out a video on the sheriff sale in pittsburgh process at the end of this month so follow us on FB (either re360 or joe Calloway) or on YouTube for this free intro. Thanks Joe Calloway Re360 Pittsburgh #1 Home Buyer

Pete, Set up an LLC for your next investment and purchase your next deal in the name of that entity (you can do this easily on line but you may want to pay a lawyer (in pittsburgh Max Bier or Phil Scoleri) to do it for you. On your current property- do not transfer it into the LLC and the mortgage is fine in your name. Unless you are seriously concern about the liability of the property being in your name, which in my opinion is probably not that great of a concern if ... 1) you are properly insured 2) you run a tight ship 3) do you really have that much to take? If "it" does hit the fan then you are better off (see insurance tip below). It will cost you a lot to transfer the property and then refinance into the entity name . Instead, take that money you would have spent , or actually a small portion of the saved money, and if your worried about liability get another insurance policy to cover the unknown "an umbrella policy" in addition to you property policy. That way you will have millions of dollars of insurance back up if something would happen which I think is most of the times better than having just the "corporate protection" alone. In the future do both. LLC + good insurance + being a good(good does not mean be a push over but take care of you property and be responsive to tenants) landlord = limited issues

I like The Real Estate Game by Poorvu It's contains both resi and commercial information but it is solid info. It is Not gimmicky get rich quick hyped up BS. Also a graduate level text book is also good for the basics. Commercial Real Estate Principles. Get a old edition and save a bundle (ex. If 13th is current by 12 for half or less) it's the same info for the most part. ULI or ICSC or NAIOP (commercial real estate and development trade groups) publish a lot of quality content.

Anthony, 

I bought my first house in 2003 and joined ACRE shortly after that but the real tip is that i still attend every month and am I also am an active, as in I get free information and education every month, in PREIA (Josh Caldwell runs this one). I also frequent Jerry Kisasonak's group as well and a few other groups  (Otis DiCerbo and Brandin Yeagers groups both south of the city.)

Since I started attending I have purchased hundreds of house,flipped, wholesales a bunch and still hold 254 rental properties consisting of single family homes, small multifamily, warehouses and commercial properties totaling 357 units in all of these properties combined. 

Sometimes I get the question when I am at these events "Why do I still attend PREIA, ACRE etc... If I have so many properties and the answer is????

I have done well in real estate investing because I committed to educating myself not just when I started but each and everyday. That  commitment is even more important as you start growing your portfolio and that is why I checked BP when I woke up this morning and read a few blogs and a few posts. 

So join all of these groups, the cost compared to the info you get is an amazing value but more important than joining is attending, asking questions, meeting people etc...

If you join both ACRE and PREIA  this month, I will take you to lunch and share with you how we did it in the early years before we became Pittsburgh's #1 home buyer. 

Good Luck, 

Joe Calloway, RE360

PS. Excuse the spelling and grammar errors throughout this post I am in a hurry and frankly I am not that smart, which is the amazing thing about real estate investing a guy like me can build a company like RE360   And i am so bad a spelling that spell check cannot even identify what I am attempting to spell and I write a really really long sentence like this one with no punctuation

Hey Ben, I apologize about not being able to get you in last week. We had room for 50 and ended up with 70, so by the time you and a others got there we were already a capacity plus. It was getting uncomfortable. The event was for charity (Brashear Association Toy Drive) so we did not want to turn willing donations away but we had no choice when the chairs were gone. Don't be discouraged by negative posts. Do your research on anyone you are going to spend your money or more importantly your time listening to. Ben, I look forward to seeing you at the next event on January 28th. For more info on that keep an eye out on Facebook for when we release the sign up link this week.