Hi everyone!
My first endeavor into real estate was when I purchased my first home right out of the Air Force when I started attending college at LSU in 2005. I got a couple roommates to pay the mortgage throughout college, and since then we have acquired 6 properties as investments.
I started an LLC about 4 years ago because I was looking for a way to build wealth other than a typical job, but I really didn't know what to do with the business other than write of rental expenses. Within the past two years I decided to double down on the company and really focus on investing in real estate. At that point I spoke to a local banker who would loan money to us to purchase a house under $100K and remodel the place to sell.
That project went well and we converted it to a rental instead of selling the place and its netting us somewhere around $350 cash flow. The next property was really going to be our first "flip". We purchased a foreclosure real cheap and remodelled the whole thing. At that point we got our contractors license so things were gaining steam, but we put a little bit much into the property and slightly out did the neighborhood. About 4 weeks ago it had been on the market for nearly 2 months, and I discovered bigger pockets and got the idea to seller finance. Did some research on the website and we are about to use seller financing to sell the place at above average price for the neighborhood, get a nice down payment and net a few hundred bucks per month on the place.
We recently started a company website with a hosting company and the company website also came with a motibated seller and investor website which led us to looking into wholesalin. I am in our first wholesaling deal that will close next week andwe will make $5K. That deal really gave me the motivation I needef to keep going and I'm currently in the process of talking with 4 other motivated sellers, but I'd rather purchase the houses myself to get them rent ready and convert them to rentals for the cash flow and longterm wealth building.
The only problem with that approach is that we lack the liquid cash to purchase the properties and the repair materials. So I plan to do some more research on funding these purchases and remodels. Any tips in this area would be helpful and appreciated. Also, I'd like to get everyone's thought on pricing a motivated sellers house. A couple of the leads I received were from condemned houses I noticed throughout the city. Initially the owners were very responsive even verbally agreeing to the low purchase price (i.e. $1,000) but once I sent them the purchase agreement in the mail, they have since stopped responding. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on purchase price offers. This is my first time to wholesale, and the response has been amazing, I just think I need to learn how to find financing to keep buying the properties at a fair price that the owner will follow through and sell for. Thanks in advance for any feedback or advice!
A motivated Cajun,
Joshua Guidry
