All Forum Posts by: Kevin C.

RBFCU, based in San Antonio will do cash out refi’s.

In my market contractors are dying for the opportunity to earn business. Especially for investors who are more likely to do repeat business. As an incentive you can let them know that. Your market may be different but all you have to do is ask. And also as a new investor, sure, maybe you won’t buy this particular house, but you are going to a house very soon. Contractors know people like to get multiple bids so they know going out for a bid is never a guarantee of business anyway.

You can have contractors come meet you before you actually close. It’s harder to gain access to the house of course but even having just one contractor come out to meet you would be super beneficial. Just know that getting more bids later on may come in lower or higher so account for that...for a first time flip just go ahead and assume you’ll spend more than you think. And I second reading J Scott’s books on flipping houses and estimating rehab costs. They are must reads!

And Ryan, do you know of any PPC keywords/phrases that tend to work better than others? (Not including any of the local market keywords)

Thanks everyone! Very helpful information. Another question for any takers: If you were to start marketing with just a few hundred dollars per month with a goal of getting at least one deal per month (flip or hold), what ONE strategy would you start with?

Good question. Flipping or holding. I suppose I wouldn’t need as many coming in if I was doing just a buy and hold strategy. My plan is to flip some and hold some, depending on which makes sense for a particular property. How did you acquire yours without marketing?

I read about and hear from of a lot of investors on BP that have success using direct mail for leads. I’m curious to hear from investors who DON’T do any direct mail. I have questions and appreciate responses to any or all of the questions below! Besides MLS, what do you do instead of direct mail to find deals? What kind of success or metrics can you share? Or if you do direct mail, what else do you do for marketing that is successful? Would it be feasible to be a full time investor without doing any direct mail?

Give it to a local church. They are exempt from property taxes so no liability there. If there are other liabilities with the property I'd be interested in hearing them.

That's a very good article thanks for sharing, hadn't seen that one yet! Real estate has been going bananas around here so I'm happy to see some data to back it up. I have only one rental property that I rehabbed so take this advice for what it is worth. Do your first deal local to you. I learned soooo much by getting 100% involved in the whole process, making mistakes, etc. If I would have tried an out of town deal I think I would have missed out on some major education. The thing about Frisco and McKinney is that since they are mid sized there's really not a good or bad area to invest for buy and hold. With all the population growth you certainly won't have an issue with vacancy. And with so many houses being bought and sold around here it's very easy to determine what things are renting for and selling for to determine if you can cash flow or not.

There is no investor tax for out of state investors here. No state income tax. Property taxes run around 2.5% for most areas in Dallas/Ft Worth.