All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Makovsky

@Nilesh Makhija Thank you. 

We picked-up this deal through direct mail marketing, but to add one more wrinkle to that is we follow-up with all of our qualified prospects that call us from our campaign. So our deal that we acquired was at first a no-go, but I stayed in touch with the seller through phone calls and texts, and a few weeks after came to agree on price. Same thing happened with our prospective second deal that we just received the contract.

So far, we put our own funds in and raised money from friends and family. Very soon we're going to need to expand our network to raise money outside of family and friends. 

Welcome @Joshua Dow ! 

Thanks everyone for posting so far - can't wait to see you all there!

@Scott Gombar great idea. Let me know what you had in mind.

BP Members and Investors in Connecticut we will be back for our 4th round of our FREE real estate meet-up at Anna Liffey's in Fairfield! (Mark your calendar for the last Wednesday of each month.)

Last event was a great turnout with about 30 people and we would love if you can join (please post if you can).

The meet-up is from 7pm - 9pm, and around 7:45pm everyone will briefly introduce themselves to the group, and I would strongly recommend you make it for then.

Please note: there is no public pitching, no cost to attend, and no sponsor. Also, it's casual so dress however you feel most comfortable. My only request is that you buy at least one drink (non-alcoholic is fine) from the bar to support Anna Liffey's for allowing us to use their space.

We have had buy-and-hold investors, rehabbers, wholesalers, agents, commercial brokers, lenders, syndicators, a BP podcast guest, attorneys, and other service professionals from all over the state of Connecticut.

[HELPFUL PARKING TIP: Anna Liffey's is located @ 1494 Post Road, Fairfield CT 06824 (http://annaliffeys.com/), and the back room is reserved for us. FYI: ANNA LIFFEY'S IS ACROSS THE STREET FROM VICTORIA'S SECRET, AND THERE IS A FREE PUBLIC PARKING LOT ACROSS THE STREET AFTER 7PM.]

Also, if you're from any of these areas or know someone that is that might benefit from the meet-up, please invite them: Fairfield, New Haven, Hartford, Middlesex, New London, Stamford, Greenwich, Darien, Norwalk, Westport, Bridgeport, Stratford, Trumbull, Wilton, Weston, New Canaan, Easton, Milford, Shelton, Ansonia, Orange, West Haven, East Haven, Branford, Hamden, Naugatuck, Wallingford, Middletown, Cheshire, Woodbridge, Danbury, Newtown, Oxford, Southbury, Middlebury, Waterbury, New Britain, Bristol, Meriden, Southington, Newington, Madison, New London, Killingworth, Seymour, Plainville, Bethel, Redding, Guilford. There's no doubt that I missed more cities, so please let your colleagues know to come.

@Nathaniel Raines @Jason Roberts @Gregory Bennett @George Paiva @Paul Janerico @Account Closed 

Thanks everyone for your support, and I'm happy to hear that others have enjoyed.

Many of my early ‘successes’ are attributable to BiggerPockets, and I am very thankful for the site and community. Even though we haven’t profited on a deal yet – we are in the middle of rehabbing our first flip, and hopefully going under contract soon on our second deal – I believe we laid a lot of our business’ foundation and that is the success I am posting about here. I hope what we have done will inspire some of the newbies, and also help others see how BP can help play a role in your real estate investment business.

My business partner @George Paiva  and I met through BP. We had no intention of partnering until we sat down to coffee one morning in March and we posed the idea of “Hey, what about house flipping together?” We learned that our skills and personalities complement each other well: George is strong with finance, rehabbing, and his sub-contractor rolodex in our farm area is incredible. My strengths lie with finance, marketing, sales, and I also have my CT real estate license which we have found to be very helpful.

We further educated ourselves on house-flipping primarily through BP. BP’s podcasts, members, forums, community, and it’s book it published @J Scott “The Book on Flipping Houses” have been instrumental for us with the building blocks of our flips.

We mainly started looking and making offers on properties from the MLS, but had no success, we actually were not even close to agreeing on a price in any of the MLS deals we put offers on. We quickly needed to find another way to locate deals. So we put together a direct mail marketing campaign (the first time half-heartedly), and the second time with a different approach that resulted in our first deal seven weeks later – this is the deal we are working on at the moment.

Additionally, through our marketing campaign we will hopefully be going under contract on a different home this week (knock on wood), and we also have other deals in the pipeline that might close in the coming months. We also have found some deals that I might list, or receive a percentage of the commission on.

We built our marketing campaign almost all through BP. It was inspired by many of the BP podcasts, and just doing what everyone on BP talks about. (We are continuing to find new ways and improve our campaign through different strategies like @Michael Q. and others have mentioned.) Nothing that we have done is original to us; it has all come through learning what other successful members have done, and taking notes on the podcasts, and putting it into action.

One other thing that BP has helped us with is its meet-ups. I have been attending the NYC meet-ups organized by @Darren Sager  which have been phenomenal, and I needed something to attend something like that in Connecticut to meet like-minded individuals, because this whole business relies on networking. So after searching unsuccessfully for a pitch-free real estate meet-up in Connecticut, we successfully started a meet-up in Connecticut that provides a place for us to meet local like-minded investors, and we have met some incredible people! Already at least one deal was done because of the meet-up, and personally we met wholesalers, rehabbers, lenders, private investors, and other service professionals that I plan on working with in the coming months. (I also met one of my early book mentors @Frank Gallinelli at the CT meet-up who's book on cash flows was one of my favorites.)

So even though we have yet to make money on a deal, we believe that we are moving in the right direction. 

Our goals are to acquire 12 rehab properties in 12 months (beginning in July 2014) and then scale that up from there. It might be an aggressive goal, but we are trying to take small steps to get to where we need to go.

If anyone is looking to get started and has any questions, I will try to do my best to help out. Also, if you are thinking about paying a lot of money to take a course, my advice would be to consider learning many of the real estate investment strategies directly through BP for free. I don’t know anything about the paid courses – and for all I know it might be an excellent way to go about getting started in this business - but I do know that there is a lot of free/low cost information, and my advice would be to try that first and use the big money towards an investment property.

As you can see a large part of our success is because of BiggerPockets. (If you are wondering, I am neither paid nor a shareholder of BP, I am just thankful for what they provided me and hope to be able to give back.)

Happy investing!

Congrats @Jonathan Twombly ! Looking forward to hearing about the next big acquisition.

Thanks so much to everyone for making last night's Connecticut real estate meet-up event happen. I believe there were about 30 people and it was really great meeting all the new faces that came, and many people focused in many aspects of real estate. Below are a couple of pictures taken during the introductions. 

Future meet-ups will be the last Wednesday of every month at Anna Liffey's of Fairfield (not New Haven), so feel free to mark it in your calendar and set-it and forget-it. Next one on Wednesday August 27th.

Thanks again to everyone from representing from all over in CT and for anyone else that might be interested in the surrounding Connecticut/NY/NYC/NJ area. There are no fees, agenda, sales pitch, sponsor, or anything else - it's only here to network and meet local investors.

Also, if you're from any of these areas or know someone that is that might benefit from the meet-up, please invite them: Fairfield, New Haven, Hartford, Middlesex, New London, Stamford, Greenwich, Darien, Norwalk, Westport, Bridgeport, Stratford, Trumbull, Wilton, Weston, New Canaan, Easton, Milford, Shelton, Ansonia, Orange, West Haven, East Haven, Branford, Hamden, Naugatuck, Wallingford, Middletown, Cheshire, Woodbridge, Danbury, Newtown, Oxford, Southbury, Middlebury, Waterbury, New Britain, Bristol, Meriden, Southington, Newington, Madison, New London, Killingworth, Seymour, Plainville, Bethel, Redding, Guilford and other cities I missed.

Thanks everyone for making this event happen, looking forward. Special thanks to 

@Nathaniel Raines @Jason Roberts @Karin Crompton @Gregory Bennett @George Paiva @Paul Janerico @Account Closed @dan

This poster certifies that there will be NO pitching of products or services at this event. 

Time of Event: 07/30/2014 at 07:00PM
Location: Anna Liffey's: 1494 Post Road, Fairfield CT 06824
Fee to Attend: FREE

Tomorrow night we are having a Real Estate Connecticut Networking Event at Anna Liffey's in Fairfield! We have people coming from all over CT, so it will probably be a good event to attend no matter where in CT you're from.

There have been on average more than 20 people at the first two meet-ups, and the feedback has been great. We would love if you can join, no matter if you're a seasoned, a newbie or a service professional. It is very casual, no pitching, no sponsor, no BS, it's just networking at a bar.

The event runs from 7pm - 9pm, and around 7:45pm/8pm everyone can briefly introduce themselves to the group, and I would strongly recommend you make it for then.

Please post if you can make it, and feel free to invite someone who you think might benefit or add to the event.

[HELPFUL PARKING TIP: Anna Liffey's is located @ 1494 Post Road, Fairfield CT 06824 (http://annaliffeys.com/), and the back room is reserved for us. FYI: ANNA LIFFEY'S IS ACROSS THE STREET FROM VICTORIA'S SECRET, AND THERE IS A FREE PUBLIC PARKING LOT ACROSS THE STREET AFTER 7PM.]

Also, if you're from any of these areas or know someone that is that might benefit from the meet-up, please invite them: Fairfield, New Haven, Hartford, Middlesex, New London, Stamford, Greenwich, Darien, Norwalk, Westport, Bridgeport, Stratford, Trumbull, Wilton, Weston, New Canaan, Easton, Milford, Shelton, Ansonia, Orange, West Haven, East Haven, Branford, Hamden, Naugatuck, Wallingford, Middletown, Cheshire, Woodbridge, Danbury, Newtown, Oxford, Southbury, Middlebury, Waterbury, New Britain, Bristol, Meriden, Southington, Newington, Madison, New London, Killingworth, Seymour, Plainville, Bethel, Redding, Guilford and there's no doubt that I missed more cities, so please let your colleagues know to come.