All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Greene

Getting your license is a fairly easy thing to do, but it depends on your goals. Most, if not all, agents who try to be an agent with a full-time job fail. You can figure out a way to transition from one to the other, but there are monthly fees and costs associated with being an agent. If you are interested in investing, go to local REI meetups and network with similar-placed people first, just starting out, get information, build relationships and see what parts of real estate you think you might like the most.

The commission is due to your brokerage so there is nothing you can do with it to alter that. No brokerage will allow you to roll it into closing costs, as a buyer and agent representing yourself, and avoid them getting their split unless they have a personal deal policy. Most brokerages have a one a year personal deal policy. When you buy representing yourself, it's the same as representing someone else. The seller's brokerage is giving you the commission per the MLS agreement. You can't alter that.

I've done both. We did very well on Homeaway for years, but more municipalities are placing more restrictions on them. 30-day stays in many places or taxed. It depends how close you live to the property and how much involvement you want. Long-term renters, a year or more, are usually good and take care of minor things. AirBnB people call right away, even when you leave a manual, because they don't know how to work the toaster or the neighbors are loud. If you prefer to be hands-off then short-term rentals are not for you. To succeed you have to go above and beyond and the units require a lot of cleaning in between. Short-term renters like that are very review conscious and will hold a good review over you and a bad review can kill you so you have to be like a concierge to succeed against other properties in your area. But if you can, and the demand is there in your area for visits, you will make more money.

Too many people get caught in this "what should I say" stage, but you have to just get something out. You will always get negative blowback from a I want to buy your house campaign, but that is the cost of doing business. Just use Yellow Letters and choose a most used message, short and sweet, and send them out. But, what system do you have in place to capture the information? Are they all just calling your cell? That is not efficient. There are other systems that may work better if you are mailing 2,000, even with a 1% call back. People forget when they mail that they have to available for the calls back if they don't have a system in place and when they call back you need to know their address when they say it and the highs and lows of the block. I have VAs field all the calls in and I only go on appointments because I have found that phone calls beforehand are a waste of time and I want to see the property no matter what to see if it's even worth the time. So, just get something out there, but be prepared.

Glad it helped @Stephanie Sicard. The forums and calculators and podcasts are all awesome, a treasure trove, but none of it is real and understood until you see as many dumps as you can to see if what you are putting into the spreadsheets is accurate and also whether you understand all the parts of the formula in real life. This is where I think many new investors are missing out. They are so amped to get a first deal that they don't look enough. It's hard to get an agent who will show you a ton of garbage, but it's the only way to really learn. When you've seen 50 properties, doing the formula is a much different exercise.

Once you know it's for sure going to close, a little hard money or partner would be low-risk since you will have cash coming in. The question is how much cash do you have coming in on that deal and do you need more to find a next one? Do you have a next prospect property? If not, don't worry about how to get money until you have something that you need money to buy.

No. The seller already has a signed listing agreement. They would have to terminate that agreement with the brokerage and the brokerage would have to allow them out of the deal. It doesn't make sense that it would even be an option since the seller is going for market price with an agent. The wholesale deal wouldn't be attractive to someone who is already on the market and hoping for the best. Check when the listing expires.

Hubzu is decent. They have upgraded the requirements now so you have to take a $2,500 credit card hold to bid and the amount of bids is a little more transparent, but unrealistic since it counts every up bid and they are not all offers in reality. I've closed deals off of Hubzu, but many times you will get best and final emails and offers to go up. I know my top going in and stick to it and watch everyone bid up. Many properties will come back a second and third time on Hubzu and those are good to take a shot at because something happened or something was discovered.

Real estate school won't teach you much about investing. It will teach about transactions and many of the pitfalls of real estate so it is definitely useful. It all depends on why you are getting your license and if you will have opportunities and the will to use it for more than just investing as well.

I am working on a meetup nearby soon. I am renovating my old house in Upper Montclair now and know the area well. Anyone in that area who is interested in connecting, I'd love to. I will be posting on BP with local details for our next meetup.