All Forum Posts by: Justin Williams

You Bet @Teresa Keith ! Glad it was helpful!

@Luke W. in the past 7 years we have completed over 300 flips. About 50 of those were actually wholesale deals (mostly when I first started) Assuming Vanessa's spreadsheet is up to date so far this year we have sold 20 properties and closed on 22 purchases.

@Mike Simmons You are the man! Not sure I am worthy of everything you said but I appreciate the kind words. Your a stud! We need to catch up! Did I say how awesome you are? lol

Thanks @Tim G. Appreciate the support! It won't be easy but we are going to make it happen :-) Glad you are liking the thread. See you around!

@Tu Phan Thank you for the kind words! Knowing I am helping inspire others really means a lot to me. So thank you for sharing how it has impacted you! Southern CA can be a tough market but there is still plenty of opportunity. In many cases it usually costs more to acquire a deal but seems to be somewhat relative to the amount of profit you can make as well.

@Sharon Tzib Thanks Sharon. Really appreciate the kind words! My brother @Steven Williams recently moved from Provo to Lehi. This specific deal is in Spanish Fork. My wife is from Lehi as well, and I went to BYU in Provo and I have a lot of friends and family in the area so that helps in the transition in opening up in that market as well bc I am somewhat familiar with the area. Yeah it is a great place!

4/13-4/19 Weekly Results Update

This past week was a HUGE week for us! In total we put 4 houses under contract, which is great considering we not only met out goal of 3 a week but exceeded it. A much needed boost if we are going to be able to get back up to speed with where we need to be to reach out goal of 150.

We started the week out strong by putting house # 1 under contract on Monday.

I am particularly excited about this one for 2 reasons. It is a property we are buying from my brother, who quit his job just over 2 months ago and dove in head first as a full time real estate investor. He's been working REALLY hard and doing all of the right things so I was really excited for him when he was able to tie this deal up which he got from a motivated seller from a bandit sign. This is HUGE for him and his wife who are recently married with their first child on the way. Super proud of him, and looking forward to hopefully doing many more deals with him in the near future. The 2nd reason why it is exciting is bc it will be our first out of state rehab. He lives in Utah and we are excited to be opening up in another market, this time out of state!

He put the house under contract for 90k, and we will take over the contract and pay him 10 for the deal. Repairs are about 15k and resale is around 140. House was built in 1992 and is just over 1,000 sq ft so shouldn't be too many surprises and makes for a great first out of state deal.

Then on Tuesday wholesaler #2 brought us a deal on a house he got as a mailer. We are paying $127,500, will put 10-15k into it and it should sell for $175-$180. I'm not sure what their fee will be (never bothered to ask) but we will see it when we close escrow. Hope they do well on it! This is one we will probably list ourselves since it didn't come from an agent.

Then on Thursday I was wondering if we would reach our goal and I got a text from wholesaler # 1 saying...

I bought you a house today. To which I responded...

I LOVE you! to which his response was...

I know.

and that was about the extent of that! Deal # 3 in the bag! :-)

Later Vanessa let me know about the deal. House comes with a tenant. Purchase price for me was $152,000. There was a fee of $13,000 paid through escrow. I don't know (or really care about) the details but I believe my wholesaler will get paid part of that and the rest goes to someone else so not sure if they were a middle man or what, but it works for us so all good. ARV is about $230 with $25k in repairs. I'm pretty sure we will list this one as well.

The last one is one we tied up on Friday. This was originally sent to me earlier in the week. At first we almost didn't bother since it was sent to us on a list we ended up on. I figured it was sent to others and seemed pretty tight. However I did notice that it was a newer house in an area close by where I use to live and I knew this was a highly desired area and the fact that it was newer would mean little work and few surprises. I had Vanessa reach out to him and let him know we wouldn't be abel to pay what he was asking but let him know where we would be in case he didn't get his price bc I knew it would be pretty tight for any one to buy as a flip. I honestly didn't think we would get it especially since he said the price we wanted was the same price he had it for. However after a couple of days he came back to Vanessa and said he could make it work. Apparently he was getting a commission on the deal as well so he will still get paid a little something and was able to make it work for us as well, and still keep his commitment to the seller. Purchase price is $207,000. We will put about 15k into it and should resale for $275,000 once again with us listing the property to save on commission.

Looks like we have lots of properties we will be listing! Vanessa has been training her assistant Jessica to really help out with listings so that will be helpful on these upcoming deals.

The numbers

Ok let's see if I can get this right this time. I'm sure I'll mess up on something, but I'm sure just like last time someone will be kind enough to point out any mistakes to me so I can correct them ;-)

So that puts us at 32 total so far for this year, which means we have 118 left to go!

Getting up to speed

To get back up to speed and reach our goals we are trying to work more with my brother and opening up in a UT market. I am paying for some marketing for him so he can ramp things up there (which we will then take out of subsequent wholesale fees)

and I also just got a call earlier today from someone I have been talking to about a position as a full time acquisitions manager. He officially starts on Wed. There will be a learning curve but he has listened to all my podcasts and I believe been here on BP quite a bit so he is already ahead of the game, so looking forward to seeing where that takes us as well.

Onward and upward!

@Doug Van Soest Really appreciate the kind words! Love working with you and LOVE everything I have learned from you! I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am without your help so I can't thank you enough! Thanks for the business, and keep it coming. In fact I think you are going to be in next weeks update! ;-) Tell Andrea to start packing her bags for that trip. I think we are suppose to close on "The big one" on Monday! Glad you like the podcast. My first interview was one of the best! ;-)

Hi Tasha,

I think you are referring to the fact that in order to make an offer on a house you often either need to show that you qualify for a loan or need to show a proof of funds showing you have the cash to buy the house.

First off this is only the case if you are making offers on the MLS. If you are marketing directly to sellers either through direct mail or some other way you will almost never have to show a proof of funds or any kind of qualifications.

However if you are going to be making offers on the MLS and do need a proof of funds there are several ways you can go about doing this. I'm not saying any of them are super simple but here is an excerpt from a post I recently wrote about this topic that might help...

"So, what are your options to get a POF if you don’t have the money yourself?

First, ask someone to loan you the money for a couple days so you can get the bank statement you need and then send them the money back. You can even offer to pay them a fee if you get the property.

This same POF can be used for up to 30 days so you can make multiple offers in that time period.

I realize it might be a little uncomfortable asking someone to do this, and there will need to be a high level of trust between you, but I just want you to know this option exists. In fact, this is how I got one of my first POF for one of my first retail flips!Okay, I said “one of my first”, but what was my first one? I partnered with someone!

I found someone who already had a POF of their own. This is a method I highly recommend when starting out! It might be someone who has capital but no time or know-how to do the leg work, or it might be someone who already knows the business of house flipping. They provide the POF and capital for the offer, you do all the work, and then you split the profit! Or you can wholesale the property to them for a fee and move on to the next one.

Okay … I’m getting a little carried away again. Back on track!

The last way I would recommend getting a POF is from a hard or private money lender. Just contact someone who you would like to potentially do business with and ask them if they can provide you with a POF. If they are in the industry they will probably be more than happy to do it for the chance to work with you.

I know what you are saying: “Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?!”

Well, technically it is probably best if you are making “cash” offers, so if you have a POF or letter of approval from a Hard Money lender, it shows you are getting a loan. This might not seem like as “strong” of an offer to the seller, but it is still a viable option worth looking into."

Also to add to that list I have recently heard of a few people saying they got a POF through a company where they paid like $2.00 for it. I can't really vouch for them but they tried it and it worked for them. My assumption is this same company will provide you the capital for your deal if needed which makes is legitimate.

Oh I almost forgot, I also provide a POF for a friend of mine who does a lot of wholesaling. I provide the POF and she still writes the offers in here name but includes a letter explaining that I will be providing the funds. Then I get first right of refusal on any property she buys.

Ok I know that was a lot of info and your head is probably spinning but I hope it helps.

In all honestly I think it might be a good idea for you to start with learning some of the basics. Bigger pockets has some basic beginner guides that might be really good for you to read. I would also recommend listening to ALL of their podcasts if you have yet to do so, as this will really help you get a good foundation of what you need to do to get started as a real estate investor. You will have a lot of questions at first and you mind will be spinning but overtime it will start to come together.

Best of luck!

Hi @Tasha Mckoy First off thank you for the kind words! Really appreciate it. Just the fact that you have one property is a great start so good for you!

You will hear many opinions of where to start. I will give you mind but would love to hear from others as well.

When people ask me is they should start with rehabbing or wholesaling, I tell them just start by focusing on trying to prospect for deals and then you can decide what to do from there. Now I want to be clear that it is always good to be connecting with potential lenders and buyers as you focus on trying to get houses under contract, but I just see so many people try to do 100 things before they ever even make an offer, and I see a lot of these people get burned out before they ever even do the single thing that really makes you money in this business which is getting houses under contract.

Once you have a house under contract you can either attempt to line up financing or try to find a buyer. If you are wanting to rehab it and can't line up financing in time there will be PLENTY of hungry rehabbers (like myself) hungry and ready to buy the deal form you if it has any decent amount of margin.

So it is not so much of if you should start with "rehabbing or wholesaling" IMO but that you should start marketing and prospecting and then you can determine what you want to do. Most lenders and buyers will take you MUCH more serious once you have an actual deal under contract.

Hope that helps. I'm sure there are some with different opinions and we are all here to learn so would love to hear anyone else's thoughts on it but that is what I think is best for people who really want to get going in this business.

Let me know if you have any follow up questions.

@AC Cooley Thanks AC! Really appreciate the feedback and glad you like the podcast!

@Chad Ballard Thanks for the comment Chad! Glad you are enjoying the thread. We'll keep the updates coming!

@Rick Baggenstoss Thanks Rick. Glad you are liking it. Before things simmered down a little bit I actually had "Wholesaler # 1" e-mail me and said aside from chair throwing it was like an episode out of Jerry Springer. Didn't realize we would be doing that much entertaining here but hey I guess if we are entertained and can learn at the same time then you can't really beat that right? ;-)

RE your comment, I want to be clear that we are still VERY focused on profits/closings/returns on total investment. Our rules as to what we will buy is in NO way effected by the fact that we are simply tracking properties accepted as one of our goals. The truth is we track several things, calls received, offers made, money spent on marketing vs profit made etc etc. The list goes on, and tracking deals closed and profit is definitely on there! In fact my assistant sends me a final accounting on every single deal with the total profit made, the total overall return on money invested into the deal, our personal return etc, and I have a spreadsheet which shows how we are doing as well. We also go over deals on a regular basis to see where we are, and make sure we keep a balanced portfolio and get a feel for how well each deal is doing based on where it is in the process.

My agents are all commission based so they don't get paid until we close a deal, and my assistant get's paid based on the overall profit of the company so she is motivated by the company's success. If anything it is usually me pushing to see if we can buy a house and she is a little more conservative at times, so this isn't really an issue, but I am glad you brought it up, so thanks for your comments in that regard!

@Brian Daly haha I'll have to look for those hidden cameras! I'm not worried about you knowing my business operations but sometimes I do like to work in my underwear...;-) Really I appreciate the kind words. Yeah it has been an interesting thread. Much different than I expected at first but then again what in life is what we expect right? Yeah it seems like it is starting to take a different direction, so hopefully we can focus more on what it's intent was/is.

Also I think that is a good call on the deal accepted motivation. It has really made a big difference for us and I think they will like it! I know a guy who runs a pretty big trustee sale operation and whenever they buy a house they ring a bell in their office. I have been there many times when that bell has been rung, and it is pretty exciting. It's amazing to see how hard everyone is working to buy a house and then they buy it and the "Bell Rings" and you can feel the excitement as everyone feels an incredibly rewarding feeling for all of their collaborative/hard work. It's very cool! Now imagine if they put a house under contract/no bell was rung, noone got excited, but the bell rings when they close on that house. They would still get excited but the direct motivation to accomplish something that can happen NOW or at least this week, just isn't there.