All Forum Posts by: Joshua Martin

Hey @Michael LaRocca, I'm in MKE, and could possibly help, or at least share information. When you say 'relatively cheap' what do you mean and what class of property are you looking to go after?

Additionally, would it be cash or financed?

Reach out if you like.

@Brie Schmidt Hey from Milwaukee Brie! It'd be great to meet you in person. I'm wondering though, do you think this would be a worthwhile event for someone whose done a lot of deals and is just opening a brokerage? Or is it going to be a little more basic? If the presentation is simple I'd be fine with that as long as there's some good time for networking :)

Thanks.

I like how local players will more or less share what we're doing on here :)

After wasting lots of money on marketing over the last two years, and hopefully only now moving closer to something that is working, here are a few additional general conclusions:

1. People are flooded with mail. You have to do something different or you're unlikely to get ANY traction. 

As an example, we sent 2600 postcards last month, with a typical investor postcard mail house type design, and got... wait for it, 4 calls. (I'm still suspicious that the mail house actually sent them but we got some returns and they did verify that it went out, so I don't know...).

53218, for example, gets hammered with mail. Literally, from colleagues and property managers I know they'll get ten postcards on the same house, sometimes in a week. (As a side note, another mailer must've forgotten to de-dupe the addressee on his likely free and clear mailing list and sent a friend of mine 25 postcards on one mailing, lol).

2. Consistency is difficult but key. That's why there's wisdom in outsourcing the mailers, or, like we are doing now, designing your whole campaign on the front end (say 5 cards or whatever you decide) and placing them on the schedule. Once you get bogged down chasing leads and talking to unmotivated sellers you can have trouble getting your next mailing out, and that hurts your whole project.

3. Real estate is a really slow burn. Coincidentally (to me writing this post at this moment), tomorrow I have a listing that closes - I mailed as a buyer but give options - that I mailed on my first ever probate mailing 2.5 years ago. Yeah, that slow even. 

4. FOLLOW UP. As we're starting to see now (and as every marketing expert emphasizes) you will close more on follow up than the initial contact. I met with a seller in early November, gave him an offer (he didn't take it) and then we went our way. I called him about ten days ago and, coincidentally, his nephew's flailing attempt to buy the property had just died, and he wanted to have me come back out. We close next Friday to a wholesale buyer.

But, prioritizing follow up can be hard to do, especially when you get busy. We're still figuring out a better system for this, and thanks to Brew City I think we actually have one.

That's it I guess. And FWIW, @Alex Witte, I think of you and @Daniel Hanson as buyers for flips, so hoping I get one for you soon. I told Dan about the last offer I put in out there but I ended up getting beat by another member of Brew City. What'd he do with it? Cleaned it out, put it on the MLS, sold for 75k profit... I know...

What else you buying? Shoot me an email if you want.

And @Marcus Auerbach, I'd say something like 95% of my efforts are in this world but 95% of my income is from the MLS, lol, so you might have a better strategy at the moment.

Good.

Others have definitely pointed out some things to be mindful of when investing in our city. On this particular one I would say the only thing that matters up front is location. The numbers almost always work on the inner city, the reality is rarely so rosey. My partner's first experiment in MKE was a three unit in a D class area. He's been attentive (as in managing his PM), but after 18 months the review is fairly mixed and he's looking to sell. When they're rented they cash flow like a mofo, but they're terribly hard to keep rented, and turning a unit 3 times in a year gets pretty costly. I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you about his experience, PM me if you want me to connect you.

The other problem with a lot of MKE and particularly these old 6, 8, & 12 units is that in addition to being 100 years old (so all of your plumbing is likely this galvanized steel that's all corroded) the heat is the real killer. Uninsulated buildings often running on one boiler. I don't know if you've heard, but Wisco gets pretty cold in the winter so an accurate heating cost is staggering :)

Plus on your particular analysis, as someone else mentioned, both your CapEx and Maintenance numbers are low. $120 a month on maintenance doesn't really get much done if you think about it.

Anyways, best of luck!

@Mareno Rathell How about a wholesaler? If you're talking lower end we don't market specifically for these properties but nonetheless we get calls on them as they're often motivated sellers. Send me a PM if you like and we could talk more. I actually have a gentleman at the moment looking to sell a package or one offs in that range, I should have the full list shortly.

And additionally, not that I'm making a pitch with this comment, but I would say something staggering, like 60-80% of the property that moves on the north side of Milwaukee moves outside of the MLS, so if that's what you're after you might actually be better networking than dealing with a Realtor, unless, of course, you like paying retail ;)

I've worked with Yolanda Means on a transaction or two, she knows these areas well and is investor friendly/comfortable with the processes.

Best of luck!

Hey Lori,

I might be a good fit. I work mostly with investment properties and have helped many buyers land themselves a duplex (despite me always encouraging them to go bigger!) Additionally, I own a few myself and bought my first one on an FHA, I did a write up about that on the member blog if you check my profile.

  I'm also pretty familiar with the areas you're describing. Bad news is that there almost aren't any 3 or 4 families that come on the market, but I also do quite a bit of marketing and try to put off market deals together as well.

  In any case, it has to be a good fit for both of us if I'm going to put time into trying to locate a good one for a client. Most agents will run around with any lead they can but I spend a considerable amount of my time trying to find good cash buys so I'm less willing to work with dozens of clients.

  Let me know if you'd like to get coffee and see if it'd be a good fit. I live in Riverwest so I'm not far off.

Best of luck either way!

Josh

That sounds bizarre, to say the least. The four family I owner occupy I pay about $100 a month for property and hazard insurance. Doesn't have a pool, and cash value about 250k.

Make some more calls and try local insurance brokers as opposed to All State, AmFam, etc. Maybe @Jason Bott can help, otherwise PM and I can share the guy I used.

Best of luck!

@Brett Kash That's great! We've had almost no luck with that list. Public lists have been better to us, I just don't want to say exactly which (we'd be mailing the same people and they're already getting lots of mail).

@Robert Thomas A free resource that requires data mining you might not be aware of is just simply Wisconsin Circuit Court System. As usual, you never know if they're motivated but there you can get probates, divorces, and evictions (I think). https://wcca.wicourts.gov/

You have to search the case numbers sequentially, for example, 2018PR1962, 2018PR1963, etc. You can use the same for divorces, etc. 

If we wanted to use that more we'd absolutely have a VA logging the data because it gets very tedious to check for property records and purchase date and log the data, etc.

Best of luck!