All Forum Posts by: Justin Williams

8/31-9/6 Update

We got 2 deals last week.  We had a verbal from a wholesaler but it fell through.

Both of these deals were from our in house Acquisitions manager so I am excited about that since this is the 2nd week in a row that he tied up 2 properties!  I love working with wholesalers and agents but it just feels like you have a little more control when you are also doing in house buying, so hopefully we can continue to ramp those systems up and continue working with wholesalers and agents as well!  

One of the houses was actually a mobile home which I'm not usually too fond of but the numbers work so I'll take it!  

Not the best week in the world, but every bit counts.  Grateful we started working in house more a few months ago or last week would have been a goose egg :-)  

So we are at 75 for the year!  Let's see what the next few months hold in store!  

Thanks @Joel Owens and good question.  This is something I use to really be concerned about but have found that when running a house flipping business with the volume like we do it makes things very difficult to just shut it off and on like that.  Although things do slow down during Christmas overall we have not been too effected by the winter months.  In fact in some areas winter is the preferred season.  The way I look at is there are probably less overall buyers but there are less sellers as well, and people need to move year around.  This may be a little different in states with colder climates, but it really just hasn't effected us all that much.  

Actually I just realized 4 a week would put us closer to 140 but I know there will be a few that won't or didn't go through and then you have the holidays so maybe we'll say 125, but you never know if we have a couple more killer weeks we just may need to really step it up and still shoot for that 150 goal we had originally.  Having this big week actually gave us a fighting chance to still make it ;-)  

2 week update!

8/17-8/23-We got 2 houses under contract this week. One from my main agent and one from a wholesaler.

8/24-8/30-Then last week we set a new record at 8 houses in one week! 6 from wholesalers (one of them being in my mastermind group which was pretty cool) and 2 from my in house acquisitions manager.

So that puts us up to 73 so far for the year!  With 27 more to get to 100 and 77 to get to 150.  Of course if we were able to get 8 each week then we could still hit our goal, but I just don't think that is very realistic :-)  I would love to shoot for an average of 4 a week and hopefully end up around 120 for the year so we'll see what happens!  

@Troy Fisher Good question.  I have done that in a sense in the fact that I have formed great relationships with them and we work very closely so I guess you could say in a sense you could say they are all my acquisition managers.  As far as working solely for me these guys are pretty seasoned investors and I imagine they just wouldn't be that interested in working solely for me.

@Troy Fisher sounds good in theory but I just wasn't there at the time but we are pretty much getting to the point where we are buying more houses in house than from any single one wholesaler so I'm sure soon we will be our # 1 supplier...

But really I don't care where the houses come from.  If I can get good deals from wholesalers I will do it all day long.  

Thanks @Vicki Gleitz !  

Why not tell you now? :-)  I started 7 years ago by going to my first seminar in Atlanta Georgia.  Kind of funny looking back that I traveled across the nation to go to a seminar when there was great education right in my own backyard that I didn't even know about :-)  I paid 2k to go to the seminar, and another 15k to join this guy's mastermind group (that would be 25 to 40 k today)  The guy also offered a car to the most improved student for that year.  

It didn't take long to realize he didn't really even do real estate anymore and was just an information marketer.  I actually won the car but it was never delivered :-)

I still persevered and connected with some great people.  Took 7 months to close my first deal, but the next one came only 2 months after that, and soon I was closing deals most months.  Oh started out wholesaling by the way.  My first 4 years I probably did about 40-50 transactions.  Almost all wholesale deals.  

In 2010 I had a transitional year as I tried to get into rehabbing, and had several things change in my business model for various reasons.  But needless to say it was a pretty rough year and I only did a few deals that year that weren't very big profits.  

In Oct of 2010 I decided to give a go at being a landlord.  I purchased 12 houses between Oct and Feb of 2011 but after # 12 was out of capital and so were my PM lenders, so I had to sell 4 of those houses bc I had to pay the bills and take care of my family's needs.  From those 4 houses I was able to make enough to pay for the next year of expenses, as well as get my private money lenders capital back.  I realized the power of returns that I could make from flipping.  I had never purchased that many homes in such a short period of time and my mind couldn't stop spinning on what if I could do that again and again and improve systems as I go and continue to build.  

so in 2011 I was able to team up with a JV partner and that along with a couple other PM lenders was able to buy 60 houses in 2011, and since then flipping houses with systems has been my primary focus.

Good question @Jay C.  If I could buy 5 houses that would be just as low risk and net me the same as 150 houses I would do it but just haven't made that discovery yet.  So if you know something I don't then please share ;-)  

Thanks @Joe Demonte ! 

8/10 - 8/16 

3 more houses under contract.  

1 from one of my favorite wholesalers and then 2 from our in house acquisitions manager :-)  

That puts us at 63 for the year.  15 weeks left.  Unless something amazing happens I don't know that we will reach the goal of 150 but we are still pushing for whatever we can, and trying to form strategic partnerships where ever possible.  

Met some really cool people at a mastermind event I hosted this weekend and I hope to do some business with some of them, and also started a marketing campaign with a wholesaler this week that will hopefully bring us some more deals.   

Thought I would share some interesting take aways from the event this weekend since they are fresh on my mind...

Basically I believe the difference between massive financial success and almost being broke is pretty minimal.  You see it all the time businesses that fail and lose money bc they just missed a few minor details vs businesses that are hugely successful and make enormous profits.  

One person shared how they have had a dry spell for the past year but just recently closed on their first deal this year, and has basically broken even for the year.  So we broke down exactly what she did and was doing in her business and if she only tweaked a few things there is a good chance she could have gone from breaking even to making a healthy 6 figures in that same time.  

Then we also broke down my acquisitions manager and what he has done and every deal he has put under contract and how if he did not do just a few small things he would not have gotten any of those deals and we very easily could have spend the money on marketing that we have spend and had no ROI on those funds and time etc.

Bottom line is that the devil is in the details.  If you are not having success in this business and someone else is then you need to look at what it is that they are doing and you are not doing and make those changes.  Without being willing to adapt and change you will never make it in business.  

Hey @Robert Dryman !  Not sure how I missed this post sooner but thanks for the kind words!  If you have deals in Texas I am very open to checking them out.  Just feel free to reach out if you have anything, and we'll check it out!  Glad you are taking action!  5 years is a long time to dream.  Can't wait to see you living that dream! ;-)