All Forum Posts by: Joshua Amezcua

@Joshua Amezcua, it is not your market.  I would have to guess there are millions.  Social media influencers selling courses, HGTV making it seem like a flip is a simple way to make $100k in 3 months with no risk.  It gives the general public the optics that real estate is just quick money.  The ability to market yourself and your masterclass, with some decent marketing knowhow is very easy in today's world.

Add in realtors, wholesalers, syndicators, office and hotel and retail owners, the guy down the street that owns 5 rentals around town.

This is a highly saturated, hard to penetrate business to be in. I mean look at the number of people you see posting on these forums, then probably multiple it by 100+ for those that just lurk.  Or I went to meetup many years ago, about 40 people there.  Of those, I would say maybe 15 were ACTUAL investors and had done something.  Another 15+ were wholesalers just trying to find deals, 8-10 were agents that "cater to investors".  But this was just one small meetup in Cincinnati.  There are many others in my market alone.

I've been running a local meetup for Real Estate Investors here in Reno, NV for about 4 years now, mostly focused on flipping, wholesaling, finding off-market deals, talking to sellers, etc. (I can only teach on the things we do every day.) Every month, we start the meetup with a quick intro for all the attendees - Who you are, what you do, what you need, etc.

The networking at the meetup is some of the most valuable opportunities I can provide. I try to remember to tell the attendees beforehand "This is your chance to speak up and tell everyone what you're looking for so when we open it up for networking, the right people can approach you and help out." Anything I can teach is already out there. You can learn it online. The local CONNECTIONS are where the real value comes from.

At the meetup this Wednesday, it seemed like over HALF of the attendees mentioned that they are looking for a good deal to buy. Makes sense... its an investor's meetup... but I've never heard that many people actively wanting to buy something right now. A lot of people are always stuck in the learning stage, and that's what they say when their time comes to speak.

An obvious take away from this is that the Buyers are back. Our market got hit pretty hard last June - December. We basically lost 10% overnight in some areas in June (trust me, losing 10% hurts when you're buying flips on 8% margins 😭 😭 😭).

I couldn't GIVE a wholesale deal away in Q4 2022. I couldn't blame the Buyers, we weren't buying either, but these were fat deals with conservative ARV's and realistic rehab numbers we would have all been foaming at the mouth for just 6 months prior. That changed mid Q1 2023.

Does the local market have room to keep going down? **** if I know, but it seems that the majority of flip Buyers are more confident in the interest rate environment and price stability than they were a few months ago.

With so many people hungry to buy ath the meetup, my first reaction is... WTF is everyone waiting for? Well... they're waiting for a good deal, right? Yes... But I hate to break it to you guys. You're probably going to have to increase your 'deal-finding effort' tenfold to get one... at least in our local market.

As always, a million caveats to this - what's your strategy, which price point are you target, areas, rehab cost, financing, etc - but again, speaking from the perspective of sourcing off-market SFR/Condo/Townhouse/Manufactureds mostly for flips... this **** is competitive. It always has been since I started in 2017, and it's probably not going to get any easier.

Being in the dispo seat at the company, I talk to Buyers all day long... seasoned, brand new, flippers, rental guys, true cash, private money, mom-and-pop, several hundred per year... everything you can think of.

Especially from the younger/newer investors, I get the feeling pretty often that they think they are going to just wait and a 'good deal' is going to fall into their lap. Or now that they are on our Buyers List, they've got a smoker coming their way later this week. Some of the old guys actually CAN pull this off and I envy them for it... but that's what they deserve for being in the game for the last 40 years.

The stars might align and something does fall into your lap with no effort, but if you truly want to buy something and buy it soon, you need to start taking more action and be READY to pull the trigger when the time comes. Get aggressive and get your contractor, partners, underwriting, and financing in order. More often than not, even our off-market wholesale deals have several Buyers that are interested in them at our asking price.

Our local market is NOT a heavy wholesale market. Our market is saturated with real Buyers that have to source their own deals through marketing. We have competition on just about every deal we put in contract, but often it's not with a new wholesaler that doesn't know what their doing... it's with other Buyers.

Again, be prepared. Go in with the mindset of "I'm going to have to talk to a **** LOAD of people to get a deal." Have your purcahse agreement ready. You go on appointments to CLOSE, not to take photos. Be ready to FOLLOW UP with the Sellers and get some deals coming in later.

Are there deals on the MLS? 100% yes, but again... effort and volume. The deals are 'free' (no marketing spend) but they are likely going to be the most competitive, so be prepared to make a LOT of offers to get one.

It always comes back to volume guys. This isn't rocket science. There's nothing we are doing that is a secret or even 'the best', we are always improving and changing things as we go. It's just hard work... but WTF are you waiting for? You NEED to take enough action to take down that first deal. It's everything. So just remember when the phone looks heavy... pick it up any way. The next call might be a $20k wholesale, or a $40k flip... then it's 🚀